Transportation woes

Just very and extremely recently, the transport operators had indicated their desire to increase bus and MRT (the equivalent of the metro or underground tube) again. This had led to a series of comments and discontent among the citizens of Singapore. Some express frustration and lose faith on what the government had termed it as 'world class' public transport network, citing the huge crowds during peak periods and also poor train and bus frequencies. Numerous citizens commented on poor etiquette among fellow commuters, like blocking the entrance of the train carriage and not allowing passengers to disembark first. This poor etiquette existed in spite of public campaigns undertook by the relevant authorities.

If the transport operators have their way, this would be the x number of times transport fares had increased within 2 years. Commuters showed signs of outrage since the service and standards of public transport network is not improving and efficiency remained stagnant. For instance, it is common for commuters, during the morning peak period to miss the first few train, because of the crowd and human traffic flow. Since the citizens had deemed the transport network as being inefficient and slow, there had been calls for public transport to be nationalized.

Yes, that's right. Nationalized the transport network.

First and foremost, is it variable? To group the very basic infrastructure of the building block of society under the care of the government?

Yes, it is variable. Since both major operator of the public transport companies had announced profits amounting to millions of dollars, it is pretty obvious it is variable. No buts, no however. Just go group it together under the government. Use the earnings to buy more train first. Thereafter, when everything else had more or less stabalised, go ahead and reduce the transport cost. It is inevitable that commuters might not get into the first train they see when they are at the platform during peak hours, but it isn't inevitable they still couldn't board the train after the 3^rd or more train. There isn't really a need to reduce the number of staffs. Since the stations will remain operating and all.

And there is another way to nationalized the public transport network. But is more crumblesome, but will save some monies in the long run.

It is…tender out the operation of the public transport network.

I'm not very sure how the current system works. But all I know is there is a contract granted from LTA to either SMRT or SBSTransit to operate and charge commuters for the train services. Also include in the contract are some terms and conditions, like not having exceed the safety and such. My proposed method is more or less the same, but instead of granting SMRT/SBStransit to charge commuters…let the government charge commuters.

Basically, it goes something like this…

Government (LTA) own the stations and trains and tracks. Government pays a lump sum to an operator (via a tender) to operate the train. Contract terms are as follows:

1. Safety must not be compromised
   
2. Pay electrical bills
   
3. Train frequencies during peak hours must be within 1.5minutes interval; train breakdowns during peak period will results in a fine
   
4. Train frequencies during off peak periods must be within 3.5 minutes.
   
5. Security of stations and trains comes under SPF/SCDF
   
6. Shops at stations are under LTA. Company/operator cannot charge third parties for advert within stations and trains.
   
7. Train servicing are at the cost of the operators.
   
8. Efficient crowd control measures must be in place at all stations during peak periods and festive seasons.
   
9. Commuters pay fares directly to LTA or PTC. Operators should not handle the fares.
   

Thus in this way, government should just pay a sum in an open tender for say 5 years with 2 years renewable contract. However, the government will say this is not effective since it is short term and operators might not want to continue the contract after 5 years. This might results to infatuation on the operating cost of transport, which in turns results in high transport cost now, and 5 years down the road, cheaper transport cost.