Learn to compares Apples with Apples

[scroobal]

I have noticed as of late something that seems to have a recurring theme. And it is usually FTs especially Indians and particularly women who like to compare Singapore with some of the first world countries where the provison of services are concerned.

Singapore services always had to be efficient, convenient and well designed and more importantly integrated to keep us one step ahead of the competition. The PAP has been right in this direction and it was something that the founding fathers did. Its not rocket science as we have no natural resources.

The issue is not that we are still better than the London Tube or the NY metro. The issue is are we better than what we were 10 years ago or 20 years. Did we have the same breakdown or more. The benchmark is not NY metro or London Tube.

Also take into consideration the London Tube and one has to realise that it pretty much antiquated, maintenace is a constant challenge. The transport unions are also militant and they recently went on strike on boxing day within a few hours of notice and screwed up one of the busiest shopping and thus the impact on the economy. There is also additional maintence to build capacity for the London Olympics.

When MRT drivers wanted to strike at the start of MRT services years ago, all the ring leaders were arrested and thrown into CID lock-up at Robinson Road. It is not something that is well known.

The unions are also responsible for many of the other service breakdowns as they will use the slightest safety excuse to stop a service.

All these are not on the shoulders of Singapore MRT. Only a narrow person who has not seen the world will continue to tell you that SMRT is better than the Tube. I can assure you that Jurong East issue would not have been tolerated by the UNions, the Tube, the passengers and the Govt. In SIngapore it went for years. I also cannot recall the TUBE thumping their noses at passengers.

I have not even talked about incident management or the constant threat of terrorism faced by the UK and the US.

 

[eatshitndie]

forget the london tube, ny metro or paris subway. forget even tokyo or hk or taipei. a true world traveller would still appreciate the convenience, cleanliness and construction of the sg mrt. the problem is that it is a victim of its own success. a few glitches here and there, and morons on this site start to kpkb and attribute and associate all failures with the pap. the next complaint will be your toilet. when it stops flushing, a thread will spawn about how inept and clueless the pap are. sinkies are so fucking spoilt by the pap gov that every time something goes wrong, it must be papa pap's fault. sinkies are demanding, and they have the right to do so, but when the country demands them to do their civic duty as conscientious voters, they terribly fail their country. their 5 decades of failure as voters are far more destructive and far-reaching than the slight inconvenience caused to them by mrt failures.

 

[scroobal]

The idea is to maintain current standards or improve on it. The idea is not to be better than the Tube. SMRT downtime can drop 10% and it will still be better than the Tube. Is that acceptable. The HK MTR is wasy better than the Tube. The interval during peak is less than 2 mins. SMRT never invested in the signal system to cope with the load. We pay premium dollars to our policy makers to do just that. If David Cameron is paid more, let us know. I am sure nobody will complain if Singapore cabinet is paid much less.

Did you know that no one in Govt including the politicians ever mentioned that the SMRT is still better than the NY Metro and the Tube. If they did, their own scholars and the civil service hierachy will laugh at them. Its a cheap shot camparing SMRT after it has establsihed such a reputation and then go back and claim that it i still better than all the other subway systems.

The other issue is the conduct and poor PR and incident managment.

forget the london tube, ny metro or paris subway. forget even tokyo or hk or taipei. a true world traveller would still appreciate the convenience, cleanliness and construction of the sg mrt. the problem is that it is a victim of its own success. a few glitches here and there, and morons on this site start to kpkb and attribute and associate all failures with the pap. the next complaint will be your toilet. when it stops flushing, a thread will spawn about how inept and clueless the pap are. sinkies are so fucking spoilt by the pap gov that every time something goes wrong, it must be papa pap's fault. sinkies are demanding, and they have the right to do so, but when the country demands them to do their civic duty as conscientious voters, they terribly fail their country. their 5 decades of failure as voters are far more destructive and far-reaching than the slight inconvenience caused to them by mrt failures.

 

[eatshitndie]

The idea is to maintain current standards or improve on it. The idea is not to be better than the Tube. SMRT downtime can drop 10% and it will still be better than the Tube. Is that acceptable. The HK MTR is wasy better than the Tube. The interval during peak is less than 2 mins. SMRT never invested in the signal system to cope with the load. We pay premium dollars to our policy makers to do just that. If David Cameron is paid more, let us know. I am sure nobody will complain if Singapore cabinet is paid much less.

Did you know that no one in Govt including the politicians ever mentioned that the SMRT is still better than the NY Metro and the Tube. If they did, their own scholars and the civil service hierachy will laugh at them. Its a cheap shot camparing SMRT after it has establsihed such a reputation and then go back and claim that it i still better than all the other subway systems.

The other issue is the conduct and poor PR and incident managment.

you're nitpicking on cherries and ignoring the cherry orchard. it's easy to improve operation and maintenance standards, and a low hanging fruit to improve the computing and signaling systems. what is monumentally difficult to do is acquire the real estate, right of way, easement and construct the basic infrastructure of tunnels, underground stations, ground level and above ground structures, and all the supporting construction that goes with the lines....walkways, roads, taxi curbs, bus connections, exhaust systems, cooling, etc. the heavy lifting is done superbly. what it takes is an excellent team of management, staff, engineers, technicians and service personnel to run and maintain the show, day in day out. and it starts and ends with the ceo. the fact that latest failures and loss of reputation irk you is due to one thing and one thing only...sinkies have too much pride and tremendous pride in their mrt system, which basically means the lta and gov entities which conceptualize and bring it to reality have done their job exceptionally well.

 

[scroobal]

Excellent reply to Ms Tiwari on comparing Apples with Apples.


Dear Straits Times,I refer to the 21 Dec 2011 letter by Ms Anju Tiwari.
Having lived in many countries, Ms Tiwari wonders if Singaporeans know that they live in an awesome country. Perhaps Ms Tiwari has been living mostly in Third World countries, which is why a First World country like Singapore appears awesome to her.
Ms Tiwari credits forward thinking leadership for nurturing Singapore’s diversity and economic growth. Is Ms Tiwari crediting Sir Stamford Raffles’ forward thinking in founding Singapore? Is Ms Tiwari paying tribute to our early colonial masters whose import of Sepoys from India and coolies from China became the basis of our diversity today? Is Ms Tiwari crediting Dr Albert Winsemius for gifting Singapore with the export strategy that would become the basis of our economic growth?
Ms Tiwari thinks it is ludicrous to ask SMRT CEO to resign or to ask for free rides in compensation for disrupted rides. Ms Tiwari must have never lived in First World countries where CEOs take responsibility for mistakes by resigning without being asked to.
Ms Tiwari doesn’t seem to understand that train disruptions in London is not a big deal and do not trigger resignations because the government in London doesn’t make a big deal out of trains and doesn’t boast ever so often of having the best or one of the best trains in the world. On the other hand, Ms Tiwari should understand that train disruptions in Singapore is a big deal because the Singapore government makes a big deal out of trains and boasts ever so often of having the best or one of the best trains in the world.
Ms Tiwari blames the public of looking for an opportunity to attack the government and prove its under-performance. Ms Tiwari should understand that every opportunity to critique the government balances every opportunity for the government to self-praise.
Ms Tiwari wants Singaporeans to consider what the government has achieved as though we the citizens played no part in those achievements.
Ms Tiwari wants Singaporeans to expect disruptions given infrastructure growth without realising that such massive disruptions if extrapolated to the scale of London’s or New York’s train systems would have crippled those systems.
Ms Tiwari is confident service reliability would have increased next year and expects us to bear with service unreliability for a year.
Ms Tiwari sprouts such rhetoric as the best plans in life fails as though she knows that SMRT plans that have resulted in recent train failures is the best yet.
Ms Tiwari shares with us the key to proud citizenry as having reasonable sense of awareness as though telling us we can always stand tall and proud so long as we find some other country worse off to compare with.
Ms Tiwari encourages us to be constructively demanding rather than constantly criticising. Ms Tiwari should note that if every Singaporean criticises, there will be three million criticisms. Thus, three million criticisms may seem like constant criticism but is not. Don’t forget, we must also factor in criticisms from tourists too such as the one from Mr Byron E Barrett (ST Forum, 21 Dec 2011, “Notes from an American tourist”).
Thank you.
.
Ng Kok Lim

 

[scroobal]

Have attached Ng Kok Lim's excellent reply to the Indian FT Lady. The infrastructure was put in by the Govt and LTA and not SMRT. I think you missed the whole discussion on the individual responsibilities which occurred in a number of other threads.

The MRT was planned and put in place in the 1980 and the old guards were still there. It has nothing to do with with Ms Saw and the SMRT management team.

you're nitpicking on cherries and ignoring the cherry orchard. .

 

[eatshitndie]

the reply is not even excellent. mr. ng does not know wtf he's talking about. every time i visit sg, i am never bombarded by any gov propaganda in the news, print, tv or radio about how good the mrt is. i see it for myself, with the latest experience not more than a week ago. the only claims about gov propaganda on how world class the mrt is are found online on bogus sites such as this, the sbf and other sinkie gripe sites. i talked to sinkie passengers, mrt staff and workers almost everyday for 2 weeks, and no one is griping about or showboating the mrt. the only complaints are from pinoy maids who had to wait at stations from 10 to 11 am on a sunday due to an additional 1 hour delay for station opening. that was their day off, and i'm sure they are inconvenienced. but it rained heavily that day, and complaints were more about the rain than the lack of transport. nobody from officialdom to peons talked big about the mrt ever since it was conceived, from my personal experience. it was just expected of the efficient, no nonsense, go do it gov. ho hum.

 

[eatshitndie]

Have attached Ng Kok Lim's excellent reply to the Indian FT Lady. The infrastructure was put in by the Govt and LTA and not SMRT. I think you missed the whole discussion on the individual responsibilities which occurred in a number of other threads.

The MRT was planned and put in place in the 1980 and the old guards were still there. It has nothing to do with with Ms Saw and the SMRT management team.

you're just an old stubborn fool with an ax to grind waiting for any misstep the gov makes. and when some shit hits the fan, instead of extending a hand to help the situation, you would prefer to throw rocks. got to be ashamed if you're a citizen and resident. as a foreigner, at least i offer constructive help and refrain from casting blame, with the exception of hiring practices of the smrt.

 

[scroobal]

If you can't put your view across properly, making ad hominem attacks is not going to make your case any better.

No one is disputing that Singapore's MRT is world class. The Singaporeans are used to it and do not expect any lesser than what they are used. We have an excellent quality of roads with hardly a pothole in sight. You have endured the Bay area transport system and now realise that Singapore is better. All true. But Singaporeans should excpect the same level or better over time.

Imagine the communications and incident management did not even function.

you're just an old stubborn fool with an ax to grind waiting for any misstep the gov makes. and when some shit hits the fan, instead of extending a hand to help the situation, you would prefer to throw rocks. got to be ashamed if you're a citizen and resident. as a foreigner, at least i offer constructive help and refrain from casting blame, with the exception of hiring practices of the smrt.

 

[eatshitndie]

If you can't put your view across properly, making ad hominem attacks is not going to make your case any better.

No one is disputing that Singapore's MRT is world class. The Singaporeans are used to it and do not expect any lesser than what they are used. We have an excellent quality of roads with hardly a pothole in sight. You have endured the Bay area transport system and now realise that Singapore is better. All true. But Singaporeans should excpect the same level or better over time.

Imagine the communications and incident management did not even function.

my recommendation is ship all sinkies out to oz and nz, and ship more europeans, russians and americans to sg. complaints, if any or real, about the mrt will virtually disappear. comms, public relations and contingency plans were unprofessionally carried out by the smrt, but that was expected by a management team not used to the same failures. their pr skills and the way they instill confidence in customers are also lacking. i'm sure the lta was waiting eagerly on the side to step in, but they couldn't just tell smrt to fuck off and do a hostile takeover when the root cause was not even known yet. what do you expect? a complete mobilization of all ns personnel and enactment of martial law?

 

[kukubird58]

hahaha......another BS thread wiith fanciful title........yawn...........
is this considered trolling????

 

[ChaoPappyPoodle]

You cannot have a world class anything when the people managing a system are evidenced to be completely out of their league. Our MRT system is relatively new and there was good money spent. It was bound to be a success for its early years. But when the time came for the system to show its true worth, the management failed miserably.

At best, the infrastructure is worldclass but the evidence that management is incompetent makes the conventional statement that MRT is worldclass quite an imbecilic statement.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

If you can't put your view across properly, making ad hominem attacks is not going to make your case any better.

No one is disputing that Singapore's MRT is world class. The Singaporeans are used to it and do not expect any lesser than what they are used. We have an excellent quality of roads with hardly a pothole in sight. You have endured the Bay area transport system and now realise that Singapore is better. All true. But Singaporeans should excpect the same level or better over time.

Imagine the communications and incident management did not even function.

Comparisons are ultimately futile. You have two idiots who insist on comparing our MRT system to decrepit ones in the London underground and our road system to that in the Bay Area, and then you have others who want to compare our system to better ones in other 1st world cities. This line of argument can only end in stalemate.

To begin answering the questions we must first formulate them properly:

(a) Are we getting our money's worth, namely, the amount we pay LTA and the govt to build the infrastructure, and the amount we as commuters pay SMRT in terms of fares, are we getting value for our dollars?

(b) Are we having having our emergency procedures in place, prepared for all circumstances including sabotage, terrorism, fire, flooding, roof collapse, or train breakdowns? Emergency power, emergency evacuation, ventilation, crowd control, casualty and injury management -- are all these in order?

Get the idiots to answer these two questions first, then we can have a proper debate.

 

[BusNo64]

hahaha......another BS thread wiith fanciful title........yawn...........
is this considered trolling????

fucking fake watch peddlar keling pooborkia, donch think u log in as kukubird we will not know it is u arh? No need to try such trick lah...wanto whack scroobal dare not log in as alamak..fucking ballless....LOL...... how many LKY books did u buy to porlumpar?

 

[eatshitndie]

Comparisons are ultimately futile. You have two idiots who insist on comparing our MRT system to decrepit ones in the London underground and our road system to that in the Bay Area, and then you have others who want to compare our system to better ones in other 1st world cities. This line of argument can only end in stalemate.

....................

Get the idiots to answer these two questions first, then we can have a proper debate.

first of all, the bay area is not even brought up in this thread except by you above. second, you don't even read the exchanges. third, you lack comprehension. fourth, from one thru' three, it shows that you're an utter moron or idiot as you call yourself for mixing noise from other threads with this and trying to tell others what constitutes a "proper" debate. definition of one's properness only rests in one's moronic mind.

 

[Windsor]

Comparisons are ultimately futile. You have two idiots who insist on comparing our MRT system to decrepit ones in the London underground and our road system to that in the Bay Area, and then you have others who want to compare our system to better ones in other 1st world cities. This line of argument can only end in stalemate.

To begin answering the questions we must first formulate them properly:

(a) Are we getting our money's worth, namely, the amount we pay LTA and the govt to build the infrastructure, and the amount we as commuters pay SMRT in terms of fares, are we getting value for our dollars?

(b) Are we having having our emergency procedures in place, prepared for all circumstances including sabotage, terrorism, fire, flooding, roof collapse, or train breakdowns? Emergency power, emergency evacuation, ventilation, crowd control, casualty and injury management -- are all these in order?

Get the idiots to answer these two questions first, then we can have a proper debate.

Let me expand on what you had stated. SMRT is considered the best or at the least one of the best systems in the free world. Likewise as some here argued Singaporeans lived under a system of government and in a country with living standards comparable to the best 1st world countries.

Even so, Singaporeans are unhappy, whines and complain at the slightest inconvenience due to the inevitable screw-ups, such as ponding and transport hiccups. Why should we and they will argue that even in places they lived, the situation is much worse than what we experienced. Hence scroo's topic here "Learn tp compare apples to apples."

To the dissenters that disagrees, Singaporeans are used to living in this environment where everything usually works fantastically fine like clockwork. So, it is not too difficult to understand that when something happens out of the ordinary, there will be a hue and cry. Those who are living in countries where such things are commonplace simply shake their heads at what they see as a storm in a teacup. Which is hardly surprising because that is the environment they lived in. They are unable to understand the Singaporean psyche because where they come from these things happens on a daily basis.

One thing that is not clearly understood is that Singaporeans expect nothing but the best because they pay top dollar for the same essential services. How much are the leaders and company CEO's of the other countries paid annually? Are their pay comparable or are they paid very much less? So back to the what this topic is all about. Let's compare apples to apples.

 

[Cruxx]

2009 earnings of Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, Chairman of TFL (Transport for London): less than SGD 400k

2009 earnings of Saw Phaik Hwa, CEO of SMRT: more than SGD 1.5 million

 

[Windsor]

2009 earnings of Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, Chairman of TFL (Transport for London): less than SGD 400k

2009 earnings of Saw Phaik Hwa, CEO of SMRT: more than SGD 1.5 million

Thanks for the information bro...appreciate it.

Another point I might add when a remark will be made that other countries suffers from strikes, lockdowns and natural disasters. So ship all Singaporeans to those countries to appreciate how good SMRT is in comparison. Now, using this point as to why Singaporeans should not whine and complain is totally unjustified. A generation of Singaporeans has never experienced strikes in their entire life nor any major disasters from an earthquake or typhoon. How can anyone make a comparison or co-relate the living conditions between Singapore and that of such a country? That is a senseless argument and should not be brought into a discussion unless that country itself has many common similarities.

 

[kingrant]

The price we are paying for this govt is just too high. Given more of such cockups, failures, breakdowns, I expect that I should be paying less to our govt leaders. If I am to accept lower stds, I would also expect to pay less for them.

If we pay our leaders what is paid to david cameron or the Australian PM or the Germany Chancellor, I would begin to view the SMRT along the lines of London Tube, metro and what else.

The price/performance ratio is too out of this world. Any result less than out of this world will not be commensurate. After all, they are supposed to be an extraordinary team of extraordinary men. This we have constantly been reminded. You dont pay for a Ferrari to get a Civic.

 

[kingrant]

You can be sure that if all this happened under the watch of an Opposition govt, the PAP will let you know in no uncertain terms that you are dealing with a mediocre team of people and that is what a dose of bad govt will be. The PAP govt however never fails to remind us that without them, none of today's Singapore is possible. Fine. Did we set them up for a fall? No. Have they set up themselves for a fall? Yes.

It is not about SMRT, or flooding or toilets. It is about bringing the govt down to size. Its head has gotten too big, is complacent and fat. Time to put spurs back into their hinds.

forget the london tube, ny metro or paris subway. forget even tokyo or hk or taipei. a true world traveller would still appreciate the convenience, cleanliness and construction of the sg mrt. the problem is that it is a victim of its own success. a few glitches here and there, and morons on this site start to kpkb and attribute and associate all failures with the pap. the next complaint will be your toilet. when it stops flushing, a thread will spawn about how inept and clueless the pap are. sinkies are so fucking spoilt by the pap gov that every time something goes wrong, it must be papa pap's fault. sinkies are demanding, and they have the right to do so, but when the country demands them to do their civic duty as conscientious voters, they terribly fail their country. their 5 decades of failure as voters are far more destructive and far-reaching than the slight inconvenience caused to them by mrt failures.