Transport Minister addresses fare increase concerns
Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew has reassured commuters that the Public Transport Council (PTC) has been judicious in approving fare increases over the years
In a Facebook note posted on Tuesday, he acknowledged the feedback and comments he had received on the transport fares increase application by SMRT and SBS Transit.
The two public transport operators are seeking to increase the total bus and rail fares by 2.8 per cent. Their applications for fare adjustments were submitted to the PTC on 11 July.
Minister Lui wrote that the PTC has been judicious in its assessment of fare adjustments and added that the fare cap system itself ensures that SMRT and SBS cannot increase fares beyond the cap.
"If there is no inflation and no wage increase for the year, the formula allows the PTC to impose a fare reduction of 1.5 per cent on the operators. Hence, they know they have to improve productivity and innovate," he noted.
"Such measures have helped to increase their revenue (and hence profits) through non-fare sources," Lui added.
Besides the fare increases, the minister revealed that he was also paying close attention to the Quality of Service (QOS) delivered by the two operators.
"I have experienced the discomfort and frustrations that commuters faced because of the congestion and the sometimes unreliable service and I share your desire to see improvements to our public transport," he wrote.
"SMRT had added 590 weekly trips from Mar 2011. There will be further improvements later this year when more trains are added. Since LTA began the regular quarterly bus improvement process with the operators in June last year, 64 bus services were improved," he said.
"While we are already running trains at the limit our signalling equipment currently allow during peak hours, we are examining how much further to shorten the intervals between trains during off-peak period."
The minister also shared that the Bukit Panjang LRT system needed to be significantly improved and will soon share more details with commuters.
Describing the current QOS standards for buses as not sufficiently stringent, he revealed that the Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Authority are in the midst of a study on how to tighten this.
"We will pay particular attention to feeder services. To bring about these improvements, we will need to increase the number of buses and the government will work with the operators to make sure this is done," he said.
