‘Bus network system is not rational’

In a column called "The Flip Side", local blogger Belmont Lay lets loose on local politics, culture and society in his weekly musings. To be taken with a pinch of salt and with parental permission advised. In his latest post, he talks about Singapore's bus transport network.

The Budget 2012 unveiled plans to add 800 new buses over the next few years to the 4,000 in existence.

This shows a sense of urgency to address the transport demand.

Especially so, if you think about it, when Singapore's population is exploding in such a way that some cannot help but fall into Bedok reservoir quite regularly.

However, increasing the number of buses is similar to tying a tourniquet to your arm, or what's left of it, after it's been bitten off by a shark.

It is a quick fix to a problem to buy some time, but don't count on it for the long-term.

Why? Simple.

The one thing you have to understand about the entire debate so far, but barely mentioned, is that the bus network system in Singapore is not rational.

What this means is that, over the course of many years, plenty of new routes have been added to existing ones to meet demand, ease congestion or whatever.

But bus routes still end up overlapping and going all over the place.

This tends to lead commuters on frustrating long-haul journeys and causes them to transfer buses two or three times just to get to where they want to go.

During peak hours, buses will be bursting at the seams, even as they scoot around empty other times carrying no one except maybe the bus driver.

Therefore, with inefficiencies plaguing the network system at the root, getting more buses that end up running inefficiently will barely solve anything.

As it is, there could be plenty of people who are delaying travelling on buses during peak periods to avoid the human squeeze.

So, what we are witnessing now might not even be the full extent of the problem.

And the carrying capacity could be maxed out the moment more buses are announced to be in operation, because more people might feel encouraged to get back to travelling during peak hours.

Hefty operation costs

This situation is not pretty for bus operators who are bleeding themselves dry with so many buses in operation and keeping their drivers gainfully employed.

Let's just take a look at the numbers.

There are currently 5,300 SBS Transit and 1,900 SMRT bus drivers at work, as reported in the The Sunday Times on 26 February.

For the plan to get an additional 800 buses into operation, it has been estimated that a total of up to 1,600 extra drivers are needed to cope with this surge.

Bus drivers typically make $1,600 to $1,900 a month.

By adding this to that and multiplying the figures, it is easy to see that it comes up to millions upon millions of dollars more each year for any increment in buses.

And this is where you hear the bus operators SBS Transit and SMRT Corp harrumphing.

According to the same broadsheet article, SBS Transit suffered a $6 million operating loss running three-quarters of 4,000 buses even though it raked in $36.7 million overall in 2011 from its rail and advertising businesses that are the real revenue generators.

SMRT reported an operating loss for its buses that amounted to $6.2 million, at the end of 30 September last year.

It is, therefore, natural for everyone to accept that the bus operators will lose money running buses.

No happy solution?

So what's the solution?

Well, if the Singapore government wants to put in money to buy a portion of new buses, essentially it means that the public is paying for it.

And if the public is forking out dough, the bus operators should abide by certain obligations, such as never increasing bus fares for at least five years.

Hey, why look to us honest men and women of the street to pay for everything?

I mean, taxpayers are already paying for the construction of bus stops and interchanges.

This is just a matter of fairness.

There comes a moment when we will thread into the issue of morals, if bus operators still try to turn profit from a solution meant to ease the current public transport crunch due to a population explosion that no one voted for or requested in the first place.

So, what we can do is look to what is called "cross-subsidisation" for inspiration. This is where money is made from one area to cover losses in another.

You see, SBS Transit and SMRT Corp are running humongous business enterprises.

This means they won't be short of ways to make their money back considering they have cunning and crafty business types who sit in meetings twiddling their thumbs, bouncing ideas off one another's heads.

Look, Singapore Press Holdings, a behemoth of an organisation, is supposed to be in the business of printing paper for a general audience. And where are they now?

They are dabbling in property development which is raking in a lot compared to publishing fonts and pictures.

Being flexible with the business model might just be the answer, since the lowest common denominator shouldn't be milked for all they're worth when profitable, publicly-listed entities such as SBS Transit or SMRT Corp want to better their facilities.

We really need to allow ourselves to take a look at things from another perspective and constantly work at better solutions.

But the sad truth is, the bus network system might just be unable to accommodate change in the short or long run in the same way people cannot unlearn using the QWERTY keyboard even when it was made to be inefficient to use to begin with.

But I guess herein lies the point of today's missive: just like the penchant for sending lawyers' letters to threaten suit for defamation, some things in Singapore are just too difficult to fix.

Belmont Lay is one of the editors of New Nation. He has developed a habit of reading and writing between the lines.