GOVERNMENT POLICY CHOICES AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT OPERATIONS IN SINGAPORE

Public transport in urban environments is usually emphasized since it inter alia helps to reduce private-car traffic and thus ease congestion. Yet public transport, especially the bus system, is increasingly faced with many problems in numerous cities because of such difficulties as recovering operational costs, reliability and efficiency of service, and poor standards of ridership comfort. Measures, such as the use of subsidies, have been introduced by many urban governments to sustain the public transport system, but the extent of their effectiveness varies. The Singapore government's approach to the public transport system is to intervene actively by revamping the poorly managed and heterogeneous group of public transport operations. Among the measures taken have been the progressive reorganization of the dozen operators into a single major operator (namely,the Singapore bus service or sbs), the active control by the government of that company's management and operation through the appointment of able bureaucrats to fill the top management and operational positions, the rationalization of bus routes, and the introduction of various supplementary schemes for private owners of school buses and other high-passenger-capacity vehicles to absorb part of the passenger demand during peak hours. The government's attitude that subsidies should not be extended to public transport - while debatable - has so far shown to be workable, and commuters are paying the economic costs of the journeys. Compared with the period prior to reorganization, the public transport system can be considered as substantially improved in regard to extensive network spread, service frequency, vehicle reliability, and comfort. For the major (and main) bus operator, the Singapore bus service, continued upgrading and improvements are expected for, notwithstanding the decision on the introduction of the mrt, its operations will form the backbone of public transportation in Singapore. (Author/TRRL)