Well, the news is out that bus fares will go up marginally again next month. I’m not surprised at all, given that in recent times the prices of so many things have gone north.

The real cost of the 2% GST hike was not just 2% – factoring in the little bit of extra price increases and round-ups here and there, the real cost is actually significantly higher.

The usual excuses for raising bus fares were given – increased operating costs, blah blah. However, the bus operators always seem to be earning higher year-on-year profits – so some questions are:

• Are the operating costs really going up?
• Are the impacts of previous price increases more than enough to cover ‘rising costs’? if so, is the current round of fare increase justified?
• Are we getting bang for our bucks? For example, in China where everything is cheap (including bus fares), bus operators can still offer the value-added service of having automated announcements at every bus stop – making it very easy for travelers, especially tourists or those illiterate/people who are poor at identifying locations

Also, I have noticed that SBS transit recently launched a loyalty program to reward commuters who use its services. Is this necessary? Bus services are basic, essential services for people to get around – commuters don’t want anything more than getting to their destinations safely and in reasonable comfort. How many people really appreciate the loyalty program… and seriously speaking – how many people give a hoot at all about taking more buses than they need just to earn some extra points?

If SBS Transit saved the hundreds of thousands of dollars or whatever amount of money it spent on implementing this useless program, it’d have saved enough money. So why cite rising operating costs on one hand when on the other hand it is throwing money away like that?

Another example – free shuttle services are provided by SMRT at Outram Park and Dhoby Ghaut for commuters wanting to go to Chinatown and Little India respectively. While the rationale for this move is understandable (so as not to share the MRT fare revenue with SBS Transit’s North-east Line), it also presents extra operating costs. I wonder whether they done their math correctly, because I believe many commuters don’t give a hoot about getting off at Dhoby Ghaut and then waiting for a scheduled shuttle bus (which might not even have enough seats) to take them to Little India, when they could have just as well gotten onto another train at NEL. At least, I think it’s a dumb program.

Yet another point – There are other ways for these bus operators to earn revenue – through advertising services. Rather than increasing bus fares, they can just increase the advertisement rates marginally – say a $1,000 increase per bus ad… would mean nothing much to a big budgeted firm who can afford to advertise on buses in the first place – but would mean 50,000 times of a 2-cents fare hike.

One last point to make – Bus operators make it a habit to cite rising fuel costs as the main reasons for fare hikes – its almost like their favourite gripe. However, fuel costs fluctuate frequently – sometimes they do drop by perhaps 10% or whatever… then when they do drop, do we see bus fares adjusting to reflect lower costs? No! Here in Singapore, fares only go in one direction – up.

So in my opinion (and I know in many other people’s opinions) – this fare hike is totally ridiculous (and to convince us otherwise would be undermining Singaporeans’ intelligence levels).

So what’s gonna be up next?

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