Two for the price of one?
Trip chaining, transfer fares, and changing your mind.
I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time after reading about some missed expectations. This comes from somewhat of a mismatch between how those people view a trip, being “I go somewhere and back” rather than the system’s point of view of “getting from A to B”.
But that said, this experience says more about the system than it says about those people. Penny pinchers galore in Singapore, after all.
Follow law?
Before I continue any further, we must first define what constitutes a valid transfer. Flat-fare systems are much easier in that long trips and short trips cost the same anyway, so just pay once and you get transfers in a certain duration, no questions asked.
In contrast, with the distance fares system implemented here, the rules in defining a valid transfer is still even more complicated. (numbers added by me, so I can more easily refer to them in the rest of the post)
1. The maximum duration between the first and last boarding (not alighting) of a bus or train within a journey is two hours.
2. A maximum of five transfers can be made within a journey.
3. Multiple train transfers are allowed with no additional boarding charges.
4. 45 minutes for transfers between train station and bus service, or between different bus services.
5. 15 minutes for transfers between different train stations.
6. The current bus service must not be the same number as the preceding bus service.
7. No exit and re-entry at the same train station.
It’s full of loopholes, too. For one, the main guideline for “trip chaining” — or paying just one fare for a return trip — is Rule 4; this gives you plenty of time to get something done as long as you make sure you can get on a bus before the end of the 45 minutes, including bus waiting time. I’ve done this myself during lunch breaks.
What also makes trip chaining possible, is Rule 6 — that the current bus service and the preceding bus service cannot be the same number. If multiple bus services go to where you want to go, there are still choices. For example, for a Yew Tee resident, your transfer would be invalid if you had to take 302 to get to Yew Tee MRT and 302 back; but you could wait for 979 to show up instead on the return trip to keep a valid transfer.
The introduction of unpaid links at Bukit Panjang, Tampines, and Newton count as an exemption to Rule 7 — no exit and re-entry. It used to be even worse — Rule 5 wasn’t a thing until 2018, which severely disadvantaged the TPE corridor and perhaps DTL3— but well, remember that a trip is about getting you from A to B one way, and you don’t really get return tickets here. It also meant that people had to ask themselves whether they entered the MRT network within the last 2 hours, so as to not invalidate their transfers.
That said, perhaps they should make their intentions clear and start closing some of these loopholes. I can think of astronomically few circumstances of which someone might find themselves waiting 40–45 minutes for a bus, especially with the timed express services now finding themselves on the chopping block. Reducing the transfer waiting time to 30 minutes might be a good idea.
Give and take
But such tightening of transfer rules represents a fare increase for some people, whom may have been counting the minutes and relying on the largesse of the system in order to avoid paying additional fares. And likewise, it also disincentivizes using public transport for short errands like going to the neighbourhood hawker centre to get takeaway lunch. Sure, if you only have one feeder bus the rules don’t work in your favour, but I’d say it does no good to speak of choices not taken.
Also, something like SMRT’s Lunchtime Express — additional trips within the central area to move office workers who want to try something different for lunch — would also be untenable under the current transfer rules, especially if using only the MRT in town forces the start of a new trip. The latest video I’ve found is from 2014, which might say something about why this operation isn’t around today.
There are probably better ways to encourage people to start more trips in a single day compared to trying to chain the most out of a single trip. I’ve talked about capping before but here’s another way that fare capping can be useful — by providing a maximum fare beyond which one is guaranteed to pay no more.
Introducing a fare cap makes things much easier when it comes to understanding the transfer rules and counting the minutes. Of course, with fare caps, there could even be an increase in revenue as people find themselves starting new trips when they forget to keep track of their transfers. Though I have to mention that it’s not like this doesn’t already happen. It’s just that to me, the prospect of fare caps make this a much less painful mistake compared to potentially racking up $10 of travel or so in a single day. And for people who actually need or want to take that much trips in a day, caps will help them as well.
“I forgot”
Entering and exiting at the same station results in one being charged the base fare — 95 cents at the time of writing. There are many reasons why someone would do this. Did they enter the wrong part of the station? Realized they forgot to bring something along to work or school? Missed the train and need to use the toilet or choose an alternative route?
The first group was significant enough for the LTA to make concessions — but only at one place. Before the opening of the underpass to SCGS and the accompanying station reconfiguration, Stevens station had two separate paid areas, one for each platform. Noise was made, and the LTA made a one-off compromise. They reprogrammed the system at Stevens to provide a ten-minute grace period if one should enter the wrong platform. Passengers can exit the “wrong” platform for free and then have ten minutes to switch to the “correct” platform for their direction of travel.
However, this arrangement appears to have been removed during the reconfiguration, when a new lift was opened at the western end of the station near the future TEL transfer. The argument was that it was no longer necessary since the new lift allows for switching platforms within the paid area.
I can think of several benefits on why this should be brought back on a systemwide basis. This isn’t just because others are doing it. Firstly, while accessible toilets and babycare facilities within the paid area are being built at new stations, they won’t be added to existing stations. A grace period for using toilets and such within unpaid areas of existing stations might save some money with regard to upgrading programmes.
Secondly, while this is more an issue of bus-rail integration, it’s quite possible to run to the bus stop and see the bus drive away in front of you; especially if you’re not the kind of person to open bus timing apps on the train itself. Sure you could choose to wait at the bus stop, but if the wait gets too long (10 minutes or more) and there’s an alternative route that involves re-entering the rail network, why not? Then again, this could be settled by putting next bus arrival times in the station itself…
Thirdly, with a policy of grace-period free exits, we can potentially save money on providing unpaid-area connections between all access points of a station. This can improve accessibility to the stations by removing limits on how and where access points can be built, when it comes to designing future stations and adding new access points to existing ones. In such a case, if you take the wrong exit, you can always re-enter the paid area and then make your way to the desired exit. Or neighbourhood access is even improved if people can cut through the station for free, like at Mei Foo MTR station.
Of course, with caps, this may no longer be such an issue, as it may be possible for the cap to absorb the cost of an invalidated transfer caused by exiting and re-entering the same station. Likewise, the flexibility to stop off somewhere else along the way might lend some vitality to otherwise-quiet neighbourhood centres.
Unequal scaling
As it stands, the fare scale also places short trips at a disadvantage. This was already an issue in 2010 when the distance fares system was being rolled out, but in the twelve years since, nothing has been done. Consequently, there is an incentive to chain short trips together in order to get more savings out of what the system thinks is a single long trip.
Strangely, also, fare increases in the past decade have mainly targeted the short-distance traveller instead of the long-distance traveller. The lowest fare band, for 3.2km and below, has seen a 34% increase since 2011. This is in stark contrast to the highest fare band, for trips longer than 40.2km, which have only seen a 14% increase.
Shorter trips are more likely to happen in a future of remote working, where people take the feeder bus to their neighbourhood centre or something instead of commuting to the CBD. Likewise, the high density of MRT stations in the central area make many short MRT trips a reality there too.
Of course, short trips may have some alternatives, like walking or active mobility, and perhaps some level of facilitation can be done for those who choose to use such transport modes. But there’s also a case to keep fares low for the rest of society who may not be physically fit enough to get on a bicycle or walk and climb stairs for long distances.
This also means that it makes more sense to push longer trips to financially efficient modes (read: railways). The distance fares system was meant to do that, as now the cost of a last-mile bus ride can be literally lower than 10 cents or even free when attached to a MRT trip, to encourage transfers. How well it’s worked, the jury may still be out.
But to me it seems clear that reducing the financial cost of making short trips may reduce the incentive overall to chain a trip. Perhaps either some lower fare bands could be introduced for intra-town trips below 3.2km, and/or the next fare increase can consider larger steps for those who need to travel further. Hopefully the upcoming fare formula review recognizes this.
