Many rides, one fare?
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Tuesday June 19, 12:17 PM
Many rides, one fare?
SINGAPORE: Fancy paying a flat fee as you hop from buses to trains to get from Ang Mo Kio to Clementi? That could be a reality, if the Government takes up a suggestion mooted to make public transport more attractive to Singaporeans.
The flat fee — or through fare — allows commuters to make multiple transfers between buses and trains, saving travel time and cost.
Describing it as a suggestion “to be considered”, Minister of State for Transport Lim Hwee Hua said a “multi-pronged approach” is needed in the ongoing land transport review, in which the Transport Ministry and the Land Transport Authority have organised brain-storming sessions to elicit suggestions.
And ideas, ranging from the routine to the radical, have poured in from various stakeholders, including members of the public, over the past two months.
Some suggested raising Electronic Road Pricing surcharges further to ease congestion in the city, while others wanted the Government to build a brand-new expressway over the current Central Expressway.
On the latter, Ms Lim cautioned against building more roads to accommodate the projected 6.5 million population. Ms Lim said the review “still has a few more months to go” and that all the feedback obtained will be looked into.
More roads, she said, would create “a latent demand”, especially in city areas. Roads may seem congestion-free at first — and this may lead to even more cars using them. This will, in the end, create further congestion, she said at the wrapup session yesterday.
Associate Professor K Raguraman, an expert on transport policy at the National University of Singapore, agreed with Ms Lim. “Building more roads will only serve a small target group,” he said.
Instead, Assoc Prof Raguraman suggested that more rail lines be laid. He cited Hong Kong and Seoul, where the high public transport usage has led to a developed train network that is the preferred mode of transport.
Last night, participants also debated the vehicle growth rate — which has been 3 per cent annually for the past 10 years.
Dr Paul Barter, an expert on public transport at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, previously suggested that a Certificate of Entitlement should expire when a vehicle clocks a certain mileage, rather than when it is 10 years old. People would then drive judiciously and minimise congestion, he said.
Others said taxes for car owners should be revised. Rather than paying a flat road tax, car owners should be taxed according to mileage, they argued. Taxes should also be increased for those who own second or third cars.
Perennial complaints of long waiting times for buses and taxis also cropped up. Mrs Lim said the review will examine the allocation of resources during peak periods.
But she disagreed that taxis should pay lower ERP charges. Taxis, she said, are similar to cars as they, too, contribute to congestion. Instead, taxi fares and surcharges can be raised to reduce the demand for them during peak periods, she added. -
Great scheme for those w/o BCP...
But for Kids like us (13 - 16 yr old) Monthly BCP is better...
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great idea... n its more fair if travelling fare is distance based, commuters will not be restricted by the service routes. but wat will be the problems tt may arise?
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talk only la. as if the companies will not mind a decrease in profits Zzz
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People misusing busesOriginally posted by khk:great idea... n its more fair if travelling fare is distance based, commuters will not be restricted by the service routes. but wat will be the problems tt may arise? -
... of course there are ways to make the profits approximately the sameOriginally posted by bladez87:talk only la. as if the companies will not mind a decrease in profits Zzz
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bus concession enable me to song song joy ride many servies
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anyone knows which country is using thru fare?
those country i visit one all no thru fare. all use DRF or zonal fare or day pass fare
the thru fare idea has been mooted by Kai guan in the ST forum before and I myself adpot thru fare in my fantasy bus company after reading kai Guans forum letter n i thought its good.
ZYX -
the closest i noe is day pass fare. rapid KL allows u to pay one price for a pass to use all services of the type (local, trunk or express) for that day by showing the ticket to the driver or manual ticket inspector at train stations.
how do we define thru fare here? -
tt would have to depends how much is the flat fare...
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many transport operators has some sort of day-pass, monthly pass etc.
in the end, the single trip, short distance passengers pays more per ride, while those long term passes holders gets a better deal.
if they implement in singapore, i think people starts fighting over unfairness
just like how so many concession pass holders are abusing their cards -
the fare system we use in ZYXbus is the pure definition of through fare:
Commuters take up to 5 buses with transfers but pay for one entire bus ride. limit is 5 bus.
for example u go from Jurong east to boon lay
u take bus ZYX335 out then transfer ZYX194. the route u travel is via jurong town hall rd then boon lay way. So u pay for only the route u travelled which in this case should be around 13 stages which is 85 cents rather than 105 cents with the trasnfer rebate of current pay system.
u cannot cheat the system also because say u saddist n take
bus ZYX335 out to chiniese garden then bus ZYX Airport express 57 into yuan ching area.then u go and takeb us ZYX30 headed for bedok out to the highway AYE then take bus ZYX178 back to jurong east.u think u pay 4 stage fare? no lah.
the system has tracked u trasnferring at those bus stop n will add up the entire route u took...lalalala which is in this case...biggy circle.
thats through fare lor
ZYX -
Personally, I feel that a system-wide $1.90 fare cap might be good enough. Which means that if one takes a SMRT feeder out to transfer a SMRT train, followed by a SBST trunk would still only cost $1.90. Or a SBST bus - NEL - SBST again also only $1.90. However, I forsee a huge problem in deciding how much each operator gets out of a trip (the split between SMRT & SBST for NEL-NSL/EWL transfers is confusing & mysterious enough).
Currently only SBST offers that on their basic bus services and its very useful in cutting travel costs (can combine several trips into one journey). While SPH insists that the 1% of the travelling population only depends on it and hence its not worth impementing... -
but i dun agree with road tax expiring upon mileage usage. makes no sense. rather, why nt cut from 10 years to 7 years?
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I agree, the same lower-income / less fortunate group debate that happened during the recent fare hike would start all over again (which many are very sick of).Originally posted by 105090:many transport operators has some sort of day-pass, monthly pass etc.
in the end, the single trip, short distance passengers pays more per ride, while those long term passes holders gets a better deal.
if they implement in singapore, i think people starts fighting over unfairness
just like how so many concession pass holders are abusing their cards
As for concession pass holders, I think that as long as its only a single person using its still not misuse, its only when say siblings share one card with concession pass when in fact each should have his/her own. This is because concession pass is meant for intensive travelling anyway, and its not easy to break even if there are insufficient essential trips (like $61 for NS bus concession). -
hah, pay so much, problem thrown back to us.