LTA to contract out public bus services from second half of 2014

[Cestbon]

All public transport bus should taken out from COE.
Since is public bus why charge COE????
Taxi already taken out, now bus should be taken out also.

 

[GoldenDragon]

Commuters to benefit? Or cronies? The latter, imo.

 

[scroobal]

Good post. They are indeed making losses.

There are 2 sides to this situation. Presently, the bus division of the transport operators are making loses. In the new system, they will bid and ensure that they won't suffer loses. If they ever do, then it's due to their poor planning and probably mismanagement. Bus operation and frequencies will also be more consistent as they will have a set of rules to abide to, failing which I believe the LTA will penalize them with fines.

The government will be able to control the fares since these will be regulated by them. If the government is sincere in maintaining affordability, they may use their coffers to cross subsidize the bidding and maintain the fare structures. Otherwise, they will just increase the fares to compensate for the higher bidding by the transport operators. 1 advantage is that there may be more bus operators (than the current 2) bidding in the system, hopefully making it more competitive.

I believe the government had already planned for this when they approved the S$1.1bn package last year to purchase new buses and trains. So, they are smart because majority of the assets from this S$1.1bn amount will flow back to them again. However, I have no confident with those ass holes in LTA to technically manage the fleet well. So, be prepared Sinkies.

 

[hearthard]

But die die will never admit.
Same when they say they do not believe in minimum wage - but start 'forcing' companies (like in the cleaning industry) to pay their people minimum wages before they qualify to tender.
This is one govt that will never admit that they have made a mistake, and change plans.
No, they will resort to semantics.

Agree with you in every sense

 

[SgGoneWrong]

What will SMRT do with the profits after selling the buses etc to government?

 

[Sinkie]

What a load of crap........in the first place, there'll not be such an issue if public transport is not meant to make profit.
As long as the principle of making profit remains in the model.......

You can forget about service quality and better bus routes.

Get real........this is a worse model than now. If want to nationalize it, do it 100%. If want to corporatize it, bring in all the competition.

Half here, half there is a fucking recipe for corruption, unaccountability and blame game.

 

[Runifyouhaveto]

Foreign bus operators expressing interests
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/australian-bus-operator/1117826.html

 

[3_M]

As close to nationalizing as it gets!!

It in fact nationalization of public transport from the macro point. The only thing is they sub contract the ops to private operators.

Of course PAP will be eager to claim that this anything but nationalization for they don't want to give credits to WP.

 

[melzp]

so PTC all along hv been wasting time.

Wp n SPP just came up with supportive comments......will monitor, blah blah blah.
Both are followers; cannot be government type.

 

[NoOnEsAwMe]

agree!
half here half there
they love to do things half and half
with grey areas to fudge things when shit happns

What a load of crap........in the first place, there'll not be such an issue if public transport is not meant to make profit.
As long as the principle of making profit remains in the model.......

You can forget about service quality and better bus routes.

Get real........this is a worse model than now. If want to nationalize it, do it 100%. If want to corporatize it, bring in all the competition.

Half here, half there is a fucking recipe for corruption, unaccountability and blame game.

 

[laksaboy]

Foreign bus operators expressing interests
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/australian-bus-operator/1117826.html

We should do something similar for pay tv. Let Astro TV operate in Singapore. Singtel's MIO tv will be shitting its pants.

 

[tanwahp]

so PTC all along hv been wasting time.

Wp n SPP just came up with supportive comments......will monitor, blah blah blah.
Both are followers; cannot be government type.

When the PAP implements the opposition's ideas, it is only common sense for the opposition to support it. Otherwise they would be slapping themselves in the face.

The real follower is the PAP. They have been caught so many times implementing the opposition's ideas, such as WP's health insurance scheme and SDP's labour market testing. PAP's own original ideas, such as privatization of transport, annuities, BTO, medical co-payment scheme etc. tend to screw up.