Inconsistent MRT Fare-pricing along Downtown Line

Mr Liang Eng Hwa asked the Minister for Transport (a) why are the fares for Downtown Line (DTL) stations between Bukit Panjang and Newton and between Bukit Panjang and Bugis inconsistent and exceptionally high; and (b) whether this is a fair and logical basis to compute fares for commuters.

Madam, fares should be based on the actual distance covered by commuters. However, different commuters may take different routes on different MRT lines to connect between two stations. To compute the fare, the Public Transport Council (PTC) uses the route which enables the shortest time of travel.

Before Downtown Line 2 (DTL2), commuters travelling from Bukit Panjang to Newton or Bugis would have had to use the North-South East-West (NSEW) Lines. With DTL2, a faster route is now available. Logically, PTC should then use this DTL2 routing to compute the fares. Unfortunately, while this would mean lower fares for adult commuters, it would result in higher fares for two other groups of commuters: the seniors and the disabled.

Fares from Bukit Panjang to Newton or Bugis for these two vulnerable groups are currently $0.88 based on the NSEW Lines routing. Had PTC used the DTL2 routing, our seniors and disabled would have had to pay a higher fare of $0.92. This is because of the way their concessionary fares are calculated and capped, coupled with the fact that higher fares are charged for travel on completely underground MRT lines like DTL2 where the stations are all air-conditioned, which incurs higher operating costs.

PTC has, therefore, applied an additional fare charging principle: it will use the route for fare calculation only if all commuters will enjoy lower or the same fares. For DTL2, this is, indeed, the case for almost all journeys.

With DTL2, with so many stations, it is quite easy to work out different permutations, how many possible journeys can be generated – something like 11,000 possible journeys. Actually, 99% of the journeys will be based on the distance approach to calculating fares. Therefore, commuters using 99% of such journeys will get to enjoy faster time and cheaper fares.

For example, for an adult commuter travelling between Farrer Park and Newton, their fares have come down from $1.09 to $0.93. This is a saving of 15%. DTL2 has saved them both time and cost. However, for a few station pairs, such as Bukit Panjang-Newton and Bukit Panjang-Bugis, PTC has used the old NSEW Line routing to compute the fares so as to ensure that no commuters need to pay higher fares as a result of DTL2. This directly benefits our seniors and disabled, while the fares for all other commuters do not increase. In fact, by adopting this method, it benefits the seniors largely living near Bukit Panjang station. At first, I thought it was in Mayor Teo Ho Pin's constituency but it has turned out to be Mr Liang's constituency.

This method of computation by PTC therefore benefits the seniors and the disabled living in Mr Liang's constituency, without causing any additional cost to all the other commuters. In fact, the other commuters also benefit because of time-saving. If you take DTL2 from Bukit Panjang to Chinatown or wherever, the savings sometimes can be half an hour or 25 minutes.

Understandably, this approach by PTC gives rise to some inconsistency, some anomaly, in the fare framework. But PTC did so in order to take care of the interests of the more vulnerable commuter groups amongst us. I think it is a commendable principle on the part of PTC.