Hi! I am LemonNarc! (WordPress only allows lowercase names however -_-). Your local North-East resident that is sufficiently irritated by LTA’s wasteful expenditure on the wrong things. >😀
As we all know from prior blogs, LTA, along with their sibling the Public Transport Council (PTC, and contrary to popular belief STC is not affiliated with them, like how LTG is not affiliated with LTA), are usually not known to be generous in their spending, and funnily for government agencies, having a profit-first mentality. Countless fare increases, tax increases playing out that are relatively biasa among all Singaporeans, but are all just the tip of the iceberg.
The thing is, there are many possible ways to cut costs without screwing over the general public’s convenience. Things like “Bus Rationalisation” in its current form of falsely marketed service cuts is the low-effort way to go about it.
There are many instances of LTA doing actions contradictory to going economical, but in typical complacent Singaporean mindsets, the blame would always shift the blame towards others. Note, this mindset isn’t exclusive to LTA, If such subtle censorships keeps our hollow and empty “Innovative” and “World-Class” claims looking like facts to foreigners, there is no reason to drop the lies.
Rants aside, here is an article that is a compilation of the numerous things I have noticed that don’t go hand-in-hand with “financial prudence”, that LTA hypocritically proceeded with, in no particular order. The list is not exhaustive and it might be updated respectively as more dumb decisions exit the HQ opposite KKH.
- Storage Buses
- Bus services operating at a loss
- Low capacity of newer bus models.
- “LRT” is the future
- White Elephant of the MRTs (CRRC QSF newest trains for NSEWL and TEL)
Storage Buses
Just getting the obvious out of the way first. Those 150+ buses just rotting away are a definite waste of our tax dollars. And out here in the real world, there are bus services struggling with frequencies, just ask Bedok Reservoir residents for the 506th time whether service 228’s frequency has finally gone up to 238 levels to replace 4 (5 if you include the Night bus service) bus routes cut! (Likely not, the MP is still getting complains like no tomorrow). Heck, the fallout in Bedok Reservoir must have been beyond control during the bus rationalisation sagas, that the local MP even took the liberty to question the Ministry Of Transport before this blog about storage buses. Bedok Reservoir aside, if we look at the region in deepest need of extra vehicles, the biggest culprit behind endless waits for bus services is centered around Jurong East, oh and Bukit Batok, courtesy of self-proclaimed “World-Class bus services” operator.
Here is a fun (disappointing) fact, according to SGWiki, Bulim Depot has a grand total of 317 buses for 30 bus services, a mind-boggling low number of buses. For comparison of how ridiculous this is, even Ulu Pandan Depot managed by SBST handling fewer routes has more buses available, albeit most of them being reserved for cross-border duties for obvious reasons. Heck, even Go-Ahead Singapore, with one extra service to run, has a decent 400+ buses, in the ballpark of a normal SBST depot. It should be obvious why 15-minute trunk bus (cue 77, 106 among others) headways are a norm and even consistent 10-minute feeders (944, 945) are a distant dream. Seriously, the Bulim region would be doing a lot better had they kept the rest of the BSEP A22s and perhaps hire more drivers. Unfortunately, profit-first mindsets in companies like dear green circle operator will prevail supreme, it’s all about the interlining practices! I don’t expect things to change for the (un)glorious West Coast.
But back to the point, if LTA foresaw TTS winning so much territory (No offense, but I feel LTA has some sort of bias for green circle operator), heck I don’t understand what was the need to spam-order buses.
On an unrelated note, it is hilarious to see LTA scholars trying to justify the agency’s inefficiencies, claiming the storage buses have allegedly been used, or at least presently have purposes.
Thankfully they finally saw use (for about half of the 2020 storage fleet) as replacements for the outgoing CDGE and KUB units… but then again why rot them away for two or more years of their 17-year lifespan??
Unprofitable bus services
As AMC has already pointed out LTA’s weird “New place = New route box” mindset that justs ramps up the LTA’s losses, I will proceed to explain why routes these days are unprofitable and a possible improvement.
One in too many times, LTA goes to the news sites and bores people with their long-winded speeches that “only XX number of routes profitable” even though the alleged purpose behind BCM, BSEP and whatnot was supposed to be something along the lines of “To not let the operators bear the costs, so we bear them”. Case in point? Read here.
After reading whatever not-so-press freedom article, I asked myself: Do we even need service 801, or 114 in its current form? as there are “alternatives in the area”, which is the exact same train of thought LTA gave when they vaporized the only trunk 700 series bus service from existence. Maybe someone should at least give a heads-up there are ways to minimize losses of “feeder” services. At the very least, I think LTA should find a way to make the demand of such services less “one-way” to minimize losses. What do I mean by “one-way” demand? You may ask, let me elaborate.
Let us take two bus services that serve the TPE expressway “interchange”, trunk 118 and 969 (Remember, I’m from the North-East, so I know the situation there the best). One can notice the loading of both buses during the peak hours are very different.
118: This service has mostly unidirectional loading (Single direction of heavy loading) in the Changi Business Park direction in the mornings, with office workers, and students from Temasek Poly and ITE frequently overloading the buses to the door. However, in the other Punggol-direction, the buses are more than half-empty with mostly students of Punggol schools on-board (The few hundreds of students is insignificant to the few thousands of students travelling to the technical institutions.). During the evening peak hours, the loading is reversed, which Punggol-bound buses are crammed. Doesn’t help either that the service also has several low capacity double decker buses which I will explain later.
969: This service receives heavy loading in both directions, so its loading is “unidirectional”. People living in the North travelling to Tampines take this bus, but the Woodlands-bound buses also receive high demand from NSmen booking in from the (North)-Eastern parts of Singapore to the Khatib, Yishun camps, as well as the numerous Woodlands industrial workers, and YIJC students. And in the evening, the loading is still squishy-squashy on both directions. If I were to wager a bet on “Which routes are the profitable routes?” that LTA wants more of, I would assume 969 is one of the 11 “profitable” routes in LTA’s database. What doesn’t help is TTS having the big-brain idea of spamming MAN A22s in the morning peak hours for Tampines-bound 969 buses, I pity those poor passengers needing to stand for a good half an hour.
Now you all might be asking, “How does one implement feeders with high demand in both directions? Those routes you brought up are longer in distance covered!”
Consider service 68, with the number of new BTO estates in the Tampines North (and Avenue 9) region, demand for this service is off-the-charts during the peak hours, bringing people to and fro BTO estates to their Tampines MRT in the morning and evening peak fringes respectively.
But, one can also notice it is more than a Tampines feeder for purely Tampines BTO residents. It also travels in the opposite direction acting as a feeder for Pasir Ris residents (When service 3 and 359 refuse to arrive), as well as a transfer remover for Tampines residents wanting to travel to Pasir Ris West without transferring to 58 (vice versa for Pasir Ris Residents), so reverse-direction 68 buses won’t rack up lots of dead mileage (carrying air). I doubt there should be any reason why such bus routes aren’t the norm for the (flawed) hub-and-spoke transportation model. The bus services are still playing a feeder role, but at least it gives commuters more options; the choice of MRT or the humble bus when travelling to the town nearby. (Note from lead author AMC: this kind of routes such as Service 68 and 83 are known as long feeders :))
TL;DR: To maximise profits/minimise losses, route planners should attempt to make BOTH directions of bus route have all-day high demand. Unless of course, the route covers a geographical dead end (e.g 84). And withdraw 114/801-esque services plz
Low capacity of newer bus models
This is subtle, but a noticeable side effect of LTA’s move to electrify the Public Transport fleet. The main criminal currently being the pandan bread/ toaster. Previous blogs on this sites have lamented on how a trend of “The newer the model, the lesser the capacity” is presenting itself.
And for anyone that has taken the electric toaster on a joyride on the lower deck before, you would figure out real quick and wonder, “Where did about one-third the cabin space go?” I can’t really blame Yutong, given I haven’t heard of another electric DD possessing European bus manufacturing standard Opportunity Charging (OppCharge for short), and thus, the additional batteries of a slow-charge bus gives the DD a capacity disadvantage compared to a typical diesel DD. I would also like to point out; how are 3-door double deckers going to become mainstream in Singapore if batteries stubbornly hog a good chunk of the lower deck?
This also further extends to the 3-door double deckers, notably the 3-door MAN ND323F. With a licensed capacity of 123 passengers (Which is more likely the crush-load), it transports a good 16 people less than a 2-door A95. Until battery companies can finally implement solid state batteries for the masses or some other development makes a breakthrough in battery technologies (don’t get me started on 3-door double deckers), capacity problems are going to be an issue when the B9TL Wrights start retiring en masse. (Of course, assuming bus rationalisation hasn’t kicked people off the buses).
And for those asking how electric DD fail to be “financially prudent”, think of it this way: These electric double decker buses carry less people. Say if there is a service that needs 133 passengers carried (B9TL crush-load capacity) in total. Now that buses in 2040 are all electric, the bus operator would need to send one low capacity DD and a single decker at least to deal with the crowd. Which requires 1 additional driver and buses, quite a wasted use of resources in my opinion.
I am not going to criticize any further as this is an infrequent opportunity…to recommend something the powers at Hampshire Road have completely overlooked; a new reason to procure more articulated buses! As bendy buses use a combination of cabin and roof-mounted batteries, or one can go full-Frankenstein with OppCharge and slap them on the bus’s roof entirely. Precious cabin space isn’t as claustrophobic-inducing as a slow-charge DD. (And it’s a no-brainer when it comes to more doors on bendies)
Maybe a couple more viewable pics from a…questionable source.
It really doesn’t take a genius to see how much more beneficial having a few more electric bendies compared to the kiasu (play-it-safe) way of spam-procuring generic electric DDs, especially as 858 is starting to need more high-capacity buses to cope with the crowds concentrating on those tiny waiting isles of the Changi Airport cargo bays (as the service was slightly mismanaged, courtesy of Green Circle Operator), along with the other airport services.
TL;DR: Double Deckers are already “fully efficient” in the sense they use all available space already, bendies show untapped potential on putting things on their roofs so carriage space isn’t compromised.
“LRT” is the future
“Highest Breakdown Rates”
“More expensive to maintain than the MRT”
“Built under political pressure”
All that are extracts from Tehsiewdai’s video on the doomed-to-fail “Gadgetbahn” video. They were undoubtably a big financial burden on SG’s tax dollars ($344 million to re-engineer the system? Boy I could use that money to run 700 for another almost 69 years [Nice] assuming the subsides are indeed 5 million a year!). However, I won’t go any further as at the end of the day, for all its faults, did do good by spearheading the start of costly, automated train systems in Singapore. Which I guess one could argue led to important manpower savings. So just enjoy the “cheapest roller-coaster in Singapore” (~~~Maxson Goh of glitchfan2428) lah.
White Elephant of MRTs
These things, these Flippin tax-dollar suckers, boy do I want to punch the selfish idiot that made these for his self-gain, probably a promotion, according to r/Singapore Redditors. To gauge the absolute hierarchy of white elephants LTA has made, think of these ridiculous apparatus this way; Singapore is literally the only customer to have gotten foldable seats of this electric kind, so they likely were “custom-engineered” for specifically the Singapore market. They are only present in 12 out of 92 NSEWL C151(Insert letter) trains and some TEL trains, so whether economies of scale was implemmented to cheapen production is pretty questionable, especially with the TEL having 2 bench models, the opposite, diseconomies of scale, could have happened in the factories. However, that is not the point. What irks me to no end is that the seats especially on the NSL, have never seen a day in revenue service FOLDED, if the featured image wasn’t already a hint. Heck, I’d wager a bet all those seats combined could buy…one more automated people mover for the SPLRT so that it could be theoretically possible to merge all movers into 2-cars like the BPLRT (Just ignore the new contract LTA sent to Mitsubishi), or keep service 66 running to Bedok, or a full-day bus connection from Punggol to the City! The possibilities with that money is endless. But all that isn’t the point, the message I want to get through is; someone was inhumane in the LTA engineering department to use tax-dollar money on something so…worthless, and at best a glorified expensive way to boost PR with the public (Once again through lies to self-proclaim fixing overcrowding overcrowding).
While this blog is all about making improvements in existing services and infrastructure, I genuinely cannot find ways to make someone’s pet project for a promotion useful. So just scrap the design for eternity LTA! At least so far, it seems to be the case, as the upcoming Bombardier Alstom MOVIA R151 trains seats based on the leakers are, well, just like your typical non-C151C train.
Ending
Now, the next time if someone brags to others about how “financially” responsible our current government is, and you intend to beg to differ…freely come and take the points from here for your ammunition. But at the end of the day, no human or government agency they run will be pitch-perfect, there is not much need to throw hate at LTA for all the wasted expenditure unless their complacency is continuously wasting more.
Bonus section:
Some addendum I thought of but didn’t make the final cut, because of how half-assed the reasoning, logic and degree/severity of the case is. 😛
Diseconomies of scale (Not Just Benches)
The most obvious application here, would be LTA buying buses in…honestly, little quantities? I mean, the last time a bus order was larger than SBST’s peak CDGE fleet was LTA buying 400 MAN buses (250 A95 E6 and 150 A22s, and maybe more like 511 buses when you throw in the E6 Batch 2) after the BSEP units. Afterwards, LTA is making some dumb moves in contracting such minuscule tenders for buses. At least they are small in size in comparison to how the more financially responsible SBST and SMRT procure buses. i.e When their current fleet is actually about to die (RIP O405s and B10Ms), and procure lots of one bus model, at least 100ish for SMRT (OC500LEs and ADLs for example) and 1000 (Citaros and B9TLs each) for SBST’s case. Instead, LTA chooses to fragment the bus model line-up and have many models to care for. Don’t be surprised when the “rare” buses get scrapped early due to “parts issue” or “poor maintenance” like RapidKL’s Anyuan/Dong Feng buses (don’t believe the “age” of the buses).
Yes, I get that buying more buses to have better economies of scale would also mean more storage buses, but I feel LTA should have stuck to the same bus model had they wanted additional buses, list of smol quantities of buses imo are:
- 10 Yutong E12
- 10 Yutong E12DD
- 20 BYD K9
- 20 Linkker LM312
- 50 Enviro500 3-Doors
- 50 3-Door MAN A95s
But don’t worry folks! LTA “prudently” uses the Gemilang Coachworks bodywork on most of them as it is cheapest in the market and covers the diseconomies of scale costs!
At least bus enthusiasts have more bus models to ride on I guess. Still, I want an actually useful e-Citaro/bendy demostrator…
Hit that subscribe button to stay updated of new content here on STC!
SG Transport Critic 
I disagree that we should blame everything on the LTA. It’s not just the government’s fault. For the night/leisure services, LTA doesn’t want the veteran bus operators an unfair advantage – since the newer bus operators joined, they haven’t operated a single leisure/night bus service. The veterans are earning more than what they should if you look at those with the flat fare.
And there is one thing I should say but I choose not to – earlier in the year the LTA trialed making a significant improvement to our public buses. The ironic thing is, while the general public are overwhelmingly receptive to the idea, surprise, surprise – most of the opposition parties (save for the dominant and the newest parties) started complaining that the government has “ownself checked ownself”, and that the LTA should not make this enhancement. As a result, the LTA disimproved and we are back to buses with slipshod appearances – because of opposition pressure.
The next time if someone brags to others about how irresponsible our current government is, take it from here. The bulk of the opposition – in particular the election deniers – will not listen to us too. Think about it – why are they telling us that we deserve better two years ago, when now they, if elected, tell us to settle for worse?
LikeLiked by 1 person
As for night services I would say this is really a problem with the way BCM boundaries are drawn (beyond inexplicable, Geylang under HG??), and obviously I do agree with you that quite a number of night services could have been reallocated to the newcomers the way their daytime counterparts were (though then again, these boundaries are set by LTA). Also the past 2 years saw night services suspended which means there isn’t that much of an advantage the established players are having right here…
By the way, could you remind us specificially which trial improvement you were referring to, and I would appreciate if you could send the links to the specific articles referencing opposition… *opposition* to said “improvement” 🙂 ~AMC
LikeLiked by 1 person
All right, admittedly, things should not always be blamed at LTA directly. Like the LRT systems, which was more of the PAP’s fault for attempting to revolutionize autonomous rail systems in Singapore but with the wrong technology choice in mind.
For your “LTA tried making a significant improvement to our public buses” could you please clarify what exactly was done? I might be living under a rock or something, but I have not heard of any new public bus technology.
For the night services, please clarify with details further on why the system is “unfair”. All fare revenue goes back to LTA under the BCM (I know that night services aren’t under bus packages, but they still go to LTA under negotiated contracts and to make up for the fact ridership at night is less), so the higher fares than normal bus services is really LTA’s doing, not the incumbent SBST and SMRT. Besides, under the old Mandai Depot arrangements by Tower Transit, showed that they were originally supposed to run N1 and N2, both night services to replace NR1 and NR2 by SMRT. Otherwise, I stand that it is criminal of LTA to turn Nightlife Singapore into a car-centric/Grab environment because they can’t afford to keep the buses running even at bad 45-minute frequencies.
That last line on “bragging” and all, is not really targeted at Singaporeans to Singaporeans coversations, it is more of a rebuttal to RMtransit’s very misleading video on our MRT and LRT system
LikeLiked by 2 people
I feel that RMtransit’s title was there for clickbait, since the video itself was essentially a narrated Wikipedia article (Still, it could be worse. The previous edition even rambled on about how our lines were electrified…). You can see this pattern of hyping up a system with some adjective in his other system analysis videos: “The Most Famous Elevated Metro System | Chicago “L””, “This Metro System is OTHERWORLDLY | Stockholm Metro Explained”, etc etc
LikeLiked by 1 person