Overlap bus, train routes to tackle transport woes

Mr Khaw Boon Wan, the new Transport Minister, has said that Singapore’s MRT lines are no longer new and that more can be done through maintenance and reinvestment in the infrastructure. He also cited the example of European cities, where it is common for everyone to use public transport.

In fact, there are many differences between other cities’ transport systems and Singapore’s.

London’s and Tokyo’s, for instance, are more intricate. If passengers are stuck at one subway stop, they can get on another line or hop onto a bus plying a route that mirrors the metro line they intended to use originally.

Those city planners recognised that multiple transport options were required to meet a city’s complex needs. Buses and trains complement each other, with some tactical overlaps in routes, often in anticipation of breakdowns or congestion in one line or another.

In Singapore, planners removed most of those overlapping routes and withdrew bus lines to make way for less-reliable LRT lines. This might have been done in the name of efficiency. Also, this strategy was predicated on the assumption that our transport infrastructure would not be prone to breaking down.

Singaporeans tend to blame the transport firms for disruptions arising from MRT breakdowns, but the bigger contributing factor in our transport woes could be pinned down to the adoption of an “either MRT/LRT or bus” strategy.

Commuters in European cities use public transport regardless of their socio-economic status. This is not explained by car ownership being more affordable than in Singapore, but by cars being seen as an inconvenient as a mode of transport there. It is hard to find a cheap parking lot in Central London, while patience is required for driving through narrow thoroughfares such as Oxford Street at peak hours.

In Singapore, cars are simply expensive, but remain a relatively convenient mode of transport for those who can afford one, with the Certificate of Entitlement scheme targeted at restricting ownership to the upper middle class and above.