As you all know, there're now 3 diff bus services at the customs to ferry passengers across the causeway.
Now I think this is being unfair to us travelers because it directly affects the waiting time, since you can only choose 1 out of the 3 lanes to queue up.
So how does that affect waiting time, actually? Ok, let's assume that there can only be 15 buses/hr passing thru the customs and these amount of buses are calculated to be sufficient to ferry an assumed number of 1500 passengers/hr so that the number of travelers in the custom won't reach saturation.
Now, unless there's a population explosion or mass immigration(ppl starts living in Spore), the number of travelers will more or less remain predictably same. Naturally, the number of buses does not increase or decrease for each hour.
All was good until Transitlink and Smiley decided to have a pie of the market share. To be fair, each company can only dispatch 5 buses/hour(probably regulated by LTA or the companies themselves) to meet the quota of 15buses/hour to ferry the travellers, us.
Some of you might not know but Smiley buses only accept cash. Yes, although Transitlink and SBS accept EZlink, travelers are still stuck to whichever service they took prior to entering the customs. The explanation for this is that when you take say 950 from Woodlands Interchange, you HAVE to take the same service to enjoy a rebate. In addition, if you take 170 from Kranji or wherever there is 170 within Singapore, the same rule applies. Thus, if you take 950 to the customs, and then change to 170 or the Smiley bus, you pay the extra, and that my friend, does not guarantee you a fast transport. Vicious isn't it?
Ok, back to why we have to wait longer for buses. If have done the math, you would have figured out by now that instead of the usual bus frequency of 15 buses/hour that is equivalent to 1 bus every 4 minutes, you now have to settle with 5 buses/hour(only 1 choice of service, remember?) which comes to be 1 bus every 12 minutes. That's 3 times the previous wait time!
Get the subject title now?
Opinions and Suggestions:
I strongly feel that this is when monopolies are better off in this situation. The government has to think of the people's well being and not constantly worrying about not lining their pockets enough from the taxes they get from the transport companies.
Either allow only 1 company to ferry passengers across the causeway or create a subsidiary bus company that ONLY travel in a loop within the causeway.
I believe the LTA have looked into this issue before they introduced the services. In fact, waiting for 12 mins for a bus isn't long, as compared to waiting for a bus during peak hour for as long as 15mins !
The worst is that 950 and CW1 especially, wait at the WDL Checkpoint and JB Checkpoint for the next bus to arrive cos they buses are usually empty. But the engines are still on!
the different services cater to people living in different parts of the island.