This has been a really hot topic lately, what with the increase of fares for the busses and the "outing" of SMRT and SBS Transit that their return on net assets is higher than that of SIA (how could that be???)
In anycase, many people have written many things about it and now I would like to formally contribute to the case that it is.
I have just returned from a week in London. THis year alone, I have spen about 4 - 5 weeks in London, and travelling to the other cities within England, and almost all the time, I have done so using the train system, and on one unfortunate occasion, on their bus (though no fault of the bus company or driver, but moi)
And what I find most amazing is the Tube lines that snake through central London and the suburbs, and then there is the network of railway that connects the further towns to London and other towns.
And more amazingly there is a cacophany of buses that travel via road above the tube.
So how does Singapore reduce the log-jam that most drivers find themselves in today at peak hours (I know as I traversed the ECP last night attending a friend's mother's wake)?
I think the concept of SMRT and SBS both running busses and trains as a form of competition is fundamentally flawed. Why? Because the market is so small that there isn't room for any type of free market movement, let alone a duopoly. If a completely free market movement of the transportation occurs, the only real competition is on the roads with busses as the rail network is a virtual monopoly.
So what is the best way forward for Singapore. I think in his letter to the papers, Tan Kin Lian got it right. It's gotta be a "hub and spoke" system. Why? Let's look at this.
Trains do not compete with the other automobiles for space as the busses currently experiences. So in terms of the most effective people mover, it has got to be the train system. Therefore, the MRT stations then become a "hub" for the public transport.
As for busses, what they should do then is to be the spoke of the system, moving people from condos, HDBs, landed, schools to the hub, and vice-versa. The busses should not replicate the train lines, at least as much as possible. And the busses have to serve this role as much as possible, meaning a bus should arrive at a bus stop say every 5 minutes at peak hours, and 10 minutes at the off-hours. I believe there is enough busses in Singapore to achieve this goal.
The administrators at LTA should take a leaf from the Transport for London, or TfL and they way they administer the transportation system for London. There is no distinguishing mark on the busses and the trains, as they all get contracted from TfL to run the service. But for a business to take on the contract, there must be enough money to be made all around so there needs to be a certain % of revenue sharing on top of the tender.
So for instance the tender to run the rail networks would include:
1) A service level agreement that covers arrival and departure frequencies, and say carriage/trains up-time.
2) Rail maintenance services. This could essentially be separated or kept with the same tender, and should include the maintenance of the rail lines, as well as upgrading the stations etc.
As we already know how many carriages are there, then the company tendering for the job would need to decide how much it would cost to maintain all of the above, plus manpower costs etc. So this would be the basic tender pricing.
The government would award the winning bid with the full tender, but to make the cake sweeter, perhaps 10% of all revenue collected would be given to the company running the rail line to encourage them to maintain the standards. If the SLA is not being met, then the fines come first from the 10% revenue sharing, and eventually it will cut into the company's operating profit from the tender.
For the bus service, this may be a tougher pickle to crack as there are many busses plying the roads. But the same principle applies. THe government could buy-up all the public busses currently plying the road from SBS transit and SMRT, and call it Transport for Singapore, TfS. Mutiple companies could then bid for certain regional areas of Singapore (ie Toa Payoh district, Jurong West district), instead of just a duopoly. In the end, it could be SBS Transit taking the most of the action, but it would also allow smaller bandings of individual transport companies to compete for a certain area.
Again an SLA would be signed with these companies that would include frequencies of arrivals at each bus-stop, and a maintenance of the busses. THe maintenance could also go to a big company like STAR Auto who's main line of business IS in the line of transportation maintenance.
To enforce the SLA, each bus would be fitted with a tracking device or GPS (which is plentiful now - there is no need for reinventing the wheel, just need to know how to harvest the info). Our GSM system can also triangulate the position of the busses, and possibly cross reference to any jams occuring on the road (to prevent inequitable fines for reasons completely out of the driver's hand).
Again, there would be an element of revenue sharing to allow the company to benefit from providing the service.
THen, finally, ERP. I believe the ERP needs to be increased to something that pinches the pocket. It's politically unsound, but I believe needs to be done to sway people's mind to take the public. However, it needs to be balanced with a park and ride system, which was tested but not really taken off in a big way. More parking needs to be devoted to this system to make it enticing for people to use, and ideally park and ride participants should pay for way less than market rates for the use of the car-parks, not market rates as then there would be no incentive.
There... I've said it all... and so much for my dreams of owning a car of my own.
But there is a silver lining to all this. I find time to answer email, and catch up on reading when I am on the public... which is something I have noticed a lot of Londoners do in the Tube.. Blackberrying other even though there is no signal.. but that's a productive hour answering email instead of getting frustrated on the roads.
I just think now is the time to re-invent public transport in Singapore. There's a jam, and it's still moving and I hope the civil servants won't wait until there is a standing jam on the roads before making the decisions.
technorati tags:public transport, singapore, tfl, Transport for London, London tube, rail, bus, trains, SMRT, SBS Transit, ERP, Congestion charge, Park and ride, parking
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