Fare increases needed to improve service to commuters, says Lui Tuck Yew
By Hetty Musfirah | Posted: 13 December 2012 1648 hrs
Passengers boarding a bus. (Photo by: Hester Tan, channelnewsasia.com)
SINGAPORE: Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew has said the purpose of public transport fare increases is not to boost the short-term profits of operators or just to improve bus drivers' salaries.
Referring to his comments last week on how fares may go up to help raise drivers' salaries, Mr Lui said in a Facebook post on Thursday that increases are to improve service to commuters while keeping operations commercially viable.
He said the government is fully committed to an affordable public transport system.
To ramp up capacity and bring about further improvements in service in the public transport system, Mr Lui said more bus drivers and higher salaries are required.
And a concerted and sustained effort is needed to upgrade the profession - partly to attract more locals.
Of the 7,500 bus drivers today, nearly six in 10 are locals. It's a sharp decline from six years ago, where it was eight in 10.
Mr Lui said salaries need to go up, well beyond the one-time increase earlier this year which raised salaries by up to a few hundred dollars a month.
Such requirements are costly for operators who also face rising energy costs.
Mr Lui said "somebody has to pay for these costs" - be it commuters in fares, taxpayers in government subsidies or the operator. So a proper balance needs to be studied very carefully.
He said taking the populist approach of avoiding fare increases completely and pushing it onto public transport operators will give the operators no incentive to be efficient and provide better service for commuters.
Mr Lim Biow Chuan, Member of GPC for Transport, said: "If there is a fare increase, then how does that benefit everyone concerned, not just the transport operators but also the commuters, because I'm quite certain that the public transport operators are also under a certain amount of pressure to make sure that they improve their delivery in terms of faster turnover in providing buses.
"So currently I think the bus enhancement scheme is to make the transport operators have a shorter waiting time for all commuters, and I think that benefits all commuters."
Observers said if fares increase, operators should also be subjected to stricter quality of service standards.
Mr Lui said when granting any fare increase, the government needs to ensure operators re-invest part of this revenue to improve the public transport system to benefit commuters.
As fares increase, he said, the government will also have to play a larger role to keep the public transport system affordable, in particular, for the disabled and the lower and middle-income groups.
He said there will be a fuller debate in Parliament when the fare review committee completes its work early next year.
- CNA/de
