Amenities and disamenities
The recent Public Transport Satisfaction Survey shows some troubling things brewing, but there may be some hope.
Last month, the results of the yearly public transportation satisfaction surveys were released. Usually I dismiss this as some sort of political circus, but the changes in the numbers this year are statistically significant, and warrant examination.
A lowering tide…?
At first glance, almost all statistically significant changes in ratings for various aspects of bus service quality have trended downwards. The drops that I find most important would be the bread and butter here — waiting time and travel time. Service reliability, which is counted separately, is also affected by the same factors waiting time and travel time; and in this field has also suffered. It has to be pointed out that all these factors are directly influenced by a single thing — frequency.
With the current public health crisis hitting Singapore more badly than it did in 2020, we have since seen not one, but two episodes of significant amounts of bus drivers being forced to self-isolate and thus impacting bus service operations. The LTA’s approach has so far been to favour across-the-board cuts in bus service operations in order to redeploy drivers, with 90 of the approximately 360 bus services — one in four — seeing some form of service cut. Anecdotally, I’m also hearing cases of people waiting more than half an hour for a bus. This is something that makes sense in American suburbia, but not in highly densified Singapore.
It is also important to note that this survey was conducted in October, hot off the heels of the first interchange outbreak and right in the middle of a virus wave. Such experiences would be more recent in survey respondents’ minds, which means they ignore now well they were able to operate bus services in the first half of the year. People remember bad things more vividly than good things, after all.
What does this tell me? It seems to tell me that the LTA has to be able to move more quickly, and be more willing to break things. Planners having to take a more decisive approach with service changes, and to be able to quickly cut red tape and execute on that approach, is a point that has already been made. But now we are seeing the real impacts of such band-aid changes, instead of taking targeted overhauls with the MRT network as a core transport mode to refocus buses on what they do best. Additionally, working a new timetable through the various layers of approval takes time, and it may not be worth it for a short period of disruption.
With the opening of future stages of TEL from the second half of this year, instead of waiting for travel patterns to settle down, it would be fair to expect accompanying bus network redesigns to sculpt the desired travel patterns potentially to be implemented on the same day as the opening of the rail line. After all, buses are flexible. In the short term, taking bigger steps in breaking long trunk bus routes and eliminating routes with a similar purpose to the MRT system helps to conserve manpower to prepare for the next virus wave and such.
Longer term, it also contributes to the overall financial sustainability drive, as well as creating shorter routes which are easier to schedule and regulate, thus improving service reliability (for those asking, this may be where all the short trips come from). But this has not happened, and the consequences are now here on display for all to see, with decreased confidence in public transport to do its basic job, thus potentially resulting in increased car and private hire traffic.
It’s about the journey
Considering how turbulent 2021 was, the state of the roads across the various levels of public health measures can probably be blamed for sharp drops in satisfaction with travel time. This could perhaps be mitigated by having varying schedules in place for different levels of traffic, but mustering the effort to schedule 300+ bus services across four operators may not exactly be an easy thing. We might have to live and let live; that is unless you’re me and you deliberately take the train to have some certainty.
A long bus ride would probably be fine if one could get a seat — that is if your bus ride qualifies as a long bus ride. This may be the driving force behind double deckers or even ones with three doors, where the all-seated nature of the upper deck provides more seating compared to standing in the aisle of a bendy bus. That said, are long bus rides even something we want in the first place?
There are still learning points. Long train rides could also use some of these comfort features like USB charging points that have been implemented on buses, and foldable seats — or even bus-style transverse seating — could be re-explored for the CRL trains in order to increase the amount of seating for those going far, if they are unable to keep travel times low on the CRL by using increased train speeds.
Free WiFi is also available on train station platforms, and there have been on and off efforts to provide them on buses. Of course, free WiFi is always better than using one’s paid 4G connection, but it could always be possible that down the road, with the expanding 5G network and generally higher speeds offered by 5G compared to the existing free Wifi systems, there’s not much of a point expanding free wifi coverage to include trains as well.
The value of passenger information systems, including visual displays as well as announcements, also cannot be ignored. TIBS was a first mover in installing such systems on their old buses informing passengers on what the next bus stops were, and SMRT inherited the practice when it bought its first buses under its own name. However, it’s notable that it took the Bus Contracting Model and LTA ownership for these features to appear on the SBS network, and only on new LTA-owned vehicles.
And of course, whilst service information was one of the few bright spots in the survey, that doesn’t mean there aren’t yet things to do. SMRT uses a proprietary API for its train arrival times and officially retains it as an exclusive feature of the SMRTConnect app, which means passengers are forced to use multiple apps or resort to less savoury methods. But at least they provide such information on mobile — SBS-operated lines do not. And the Sengkang-Punggol LRT don’t even offer such information on platforms. Perhaps something could be done about this too.
But at least they’re trying to improve the situation at bus stops. That said, the boards advertising bus-MRT connections at train stations may also need to be more judiciously updated for bus service changes — several of them probably haven’t been touched since their installation, and updating those boards to show bus connections to TEL2 stations appears to have relied on the initiative of local station staff.
Quality of life
The announcements made at the Committee of Supply seems to point to more of the same, to improve the quality of life of a public transport user.
One such initiative is the construction of Baby Care Rooms at all JRL and CRL stations, in addition to all TEL interchange stations. Presumably, that means existing stations that will become interchanges with TEL, JRL and CRL will also get this benefit, but in order to use such facilities would have to proceed into the newer parts of the expanded interchange station. Additionally, TEL interchange stations also have accessible toilets within the paid areas, something previously only available at Bugis and Lavender likely due to constraints on building toilets.
This raises two questions. Firstly, a programme of toilet refurbishment was announced not too long ago. It should be asked whether such facilities could also be thrown in as part of the refurbishment programme for existing stations — perhaps using old shop space nearby and their accompanying water/sewage provisions, which are plenty thanks to SMRT’s retail focus. This may be a better use of station space should they be unable to find takers for the shops.
Secondly, these amenities need to be easier to locate, instead of relying on sign after sign. They could consider releasing appropriately simplified station layout diagrams (just as HK and Taipei do) to point out the locations of various facilities within stations. It’s not like such info isn’t out there — small diagrams next to lifts show barrier free routes, and some DTL interchange stations have similar maps already, and anyone can take a picture of those diagrams and put it online.
And this is also already sort of done on trains — whatever one wants to say about the silly implementation of Powerpoint screens on newer NSEWL trains, it at least provides more information than those on the TEL and the newly refurbished NEL trains by providing station layouts maps. These maps help to orientate someone once they leave the train and are on the platform. Granted, it could be more tailored as some have suggested, and those layout maps probably need updating, but it’s better than nothing.
Make it visible
The last question I would ask is whether we’re putting staff and signs in the right places to enable people to seek help. Having CCTV cameras all the place may not necessarily be that good if passengers are unable to summon assistance when needed — it’s not necessarily a thing that video analytics can help trigger the presence of station staff.
Outside peak hours one does not really see staff hovering around the station — most of the time, they remain inside the station control office. Should a passenger need help, the unwritten expectation appears to be that they should then make their way to the station office. I’m not sure whether this makes sense, especially if you have to count on someone to run to the station office, explain the situation, and fetch a worker.
A possible improvement would be to improve signage to not only call out the presence of train emergency stop buttons, but also intercoms and other communication devices with station staff. These have been a feature of rail stations since the BPLRT (I kid you not), but so far appears to be mostly on platforms, in the same unit housing as the train emergency stop buttons. More intercoms and such, installed also at other parts of the station, would also be useful as train stations get larger; both to accommodate larger trains as well as further-apart exits.
Passenger announcement booths on the NSEWL, now disused, could perhaps be brought back into service as a go-to place to find station staff. SMRT placed lecterns along the platforms for similar reasons, but one wonders how useful they might be.
One wonders also whether advancements in connectivity (such as 5G) would also enable the ability for bus CCTV cameras to pipe video feeds back to the bus operator’s control centre, so that the BOCC is better equipped to advise the driver on how to deal with an incident. Driver fatigue might also be a point that can be worked on in order to reduce the rate of vehicle accidents; but this is Singapore and if I have to be honest, all road users need to play a part in keeping the accident rate low, not just the bus companies.
