Despite the many reservations I have about “high living standards” in Singapore, her public transport system garners my respect.
From Channel News Asia (link to news article) :
Another initiative is a real-time Short Message Service (SMS) bus arrival information service.
The SMS service will be on trial for six months beginning October 10, 2008, and will cover 166 bus stops along the Western academic belt, which includes National University of Singapore and Singapore Polytechnic.
I have been to my fair share of countries, and still public transport in Singapore ranks as one of the most efficient, well-organized and comfortable I have yet experienced.
In an age where the issue of rising costs and consumption of energy pervades our lives – running an efficient public transport system is paramount to every country’s energy policies and strategy. The main objective of a public transport system is to move masses of people around EFFECTIVELY, and it is with a good public transport system that compels people to go off private ownership of vehicles – reducing energy consumption, traffic accident fatalities, road congestion, pollution, land-space usage for carparks, etc.
Singapore’s transport system is based on a “hub-and-spoke” model, where the subway and major bus routes links various hubs… and then the feeder buses or your trusted feet can take you where you want to go.
The most uncomfortable gripe of any public transport system is the waiting. In an era where the term “impatience” can be loosely applied to almost all city-dwellers, people just hate to wait. In a usual commute, at the worst case, waiting for public transport can be almost 50% of the commuting time.
And I applaud this new initiative of SMS notifications of bus arrival times. If you are in the office, you can continue to focus on your work until your cell phone notifies you that the bus will arrive in 5 minutes time, signalling that it’s time to wind down for the day. Without that, you might head down just to find out that you just missed the bus, seeing it rambling off in the near distance… that sure drives up my blood pressure!
So, again, a public transport system does right brings countless benefits to a community. In my idealistic future for Singapore’s public transport system, majority of our people would be on efficient public transport – which have these points to it :
- Just-In-Time notifications to prevent time wastage and allow happy commuters
- Higher frequencies of buses and trains at the right spots and times in order to achieve load efficiency
- Energy efficient vehicles and mediums to enable cost savings and environmental consideration
- Lower costs brought about by automation, energy-efficiency and volume
- Effective and affordable carpools for singular instances where you might want to take your lady love out for a nice dinner, etc.
Finally, it’ll be totally great if Singapore can authorize and encourage the use of Segways as a supplement to the transportation in Singapore. We are a small country, the Segway can reach 60km/h easily, and runs entirely on electric.
Right now, the main obstacles to the Segway’s adoption in other countries are essentially that traffic authorities have no clue where to place it – on pedestrian walkways, the Segways endanger walking peds. On roads, the existing vehicles endanger the Segway commuters. It’s a tricky problem.
Let’s go back to China just a few years back. Each major road has ONE huge lane dedicated just for cyclists. And there were heaps of cyclists, I was amazed when I saw all those people on bicycles in Beijing and Shanghai, even Dalian. These lanes had their own traffic control mechanisms that allowed them to coexist (quite) safely with existing roads and vehicles. This, however, only applied to major roads, not small roads, and in China, major roads are HUGE swathes cutting the urban landscape like tattoos on skin. In Singapore, however, our major roads are barely sufficient to contain the existing traffic as it is, so dedicating a lane for PT (Personal Transport) vehicles seems to be a long way off.
However, even without PT technology, if the public transport system is developed right enough, the fundamental problems of moving people around efficiently can still be overcomed. With the right social graces, such as giving up seats to the elderly and needy, public transport can be a most enjoyable experience. And once you put in wireless internet access on the trains and buses, it would be perfect.
Kudos, LTA, keep up the good work. Now if only the price revisions would come at a slower pace…
