Service Delivery Requirements under Bus Service Reliability Framework

Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Minister for Transport whether the Bus Service Reliability Framework will add stress to the bus captains or cause bus captains to drive recklessly in order to arrive at bus stops on time.

Excess Wait Time (EWT) measures how regular a specific bus service is. It is an average score measured across all the trips for a single bus service. It is assessed at several bus stops along the way and every bus service has its own specific EWT, depending on how regular and reliable that bus service is.

For example, a bus service that is operating at a perfect, regular 10-minute interval will have an average wait time of five minutes, and an EWT of zero. An EWT of 0.1 minute for this service means that the commuter is likely to wait six seconds more, on average, compared to the EWT of 0 minute.

However, as the EWT is an average score, I should make it clear that the actual commuter experience waiting at a specific bus stop could be different.

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But over time, if we keep on reducing the EWT, there would be a perceptible improvement in bus reliability for our commuters. That has been the experience for London which had implemented a reliability framework of the same kind for more than a dozen years already. Typically, they would regard a 0.5-minute or 30-second reduction in EWT as a significant improvement.

The Bus Service Reliability Framework, while intended to get buses to arrive at bus stops at more regular intervals, we do not believe will encourage unsafe driving behaviour. Bus captains will be instructed by the service controllers to slow down, or even hold at bus stops for a minute or two, provided the bus does not obstruct traffic and other buses.

Bus captains found to be driving recklessly or flouting road traffic rules will be subject to discipline by the bus operators or even charged by the Traffic Police. Bus operators have Standard Operating Procedures on safe driving standards, and safe driving skills are continually reinforced. Bus operators also provide incentives for bus captains who drive safely and have a good record.

Mdm Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for his answers. I am wondering if a traffic controller gives instructions to the bus captain or driver to slow down or even to wait at the bus stop, and then later on, the bus captain finds that he cannot catch up, how then does he deal with the stress of having to catch up, after having been asked to stop at the bus stop for two minutes or so? My concern is whether we would add undue stress and pressure on the bus captain because he faces a certain degree of unhappiness from his employer if he does not comply. For all that we say, that he should not drive recklessly, there would be a certain amount of pressure on him to try to adhere to the time limit. In the Minister's view, would this be something that we are trying to encourage?

I think this will have to evolve over time. The truth is that there would be additional stress on the system as a whole. What the Public Transport Operators (PTOs) would need to do is to significantly improve their backend operations. They also need to train people at the Ops Control centre to be monitoring these buses much more closely and to give directions to the drivers accordingly.

Indeed, the situation that Mr Lim had suggested could well come up. I suspect that even today, there is always a certain amount of pressure already on the buses to adhere to the schedule to get back to the interchange on time,

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so that they can start the next run. There is always a certain amount of pressure.

Having said that, we can look at the safety records of the two operators against the standard that is set for them. What is the standard? The standard is 0.75 accidents per 100,000 km drive. Buses cover quite a lot of distance on a daily basis, so it is best to measure this against 100,000 km and on a consistent basis. The standard that we set for them is 0.75 accidents per 100,000 km across the fleet. This is roughly equivalent to us, as a driver of a private vehicle getting into an accident once every six or seven years. That is the standard we set for them.

For the past few years, when we look at the records, we have found that both operators have exceeded this, meaning they have performed better than 0.75. The record has generally been a good one. This is something that we will be watching but it is not something that worries us unduly at this point in time.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister, based on what had been shared earlier and in his reply, there seems to be a fair amount of judgement that the bus captain and the traffic controller have to exercise on a day-to-day basis. Because of the subjectivity, would the bus driver not feel pressured and make reckless decisions, especially when they may have had to stop for a few more minutes to allow an elderly passenger, for instance, get onboard, or because of congestion on the road? In such instances, what kinds of measures are being put in place to guide them in terms of making such assessments, that is, when they should slow down and when they should catch up so that, overall, not only will they be safe on the road, but also to cut down on the excess waiting time to improve reliability of the service to passengers?

That, indeed, is a series of very good and pertinent questions. These are some of the same things that we posed to Transport for London when we visited them. I would have to say that this is an idea that we took from Transport for London. They assured us that if we looked at it over a number of years – and they have improved on their procedures and operations – that these were not areas that proved to be of great concern.

We look at London, for instance. They have been operating this as far as I know since 2000. Over a dozen years, they have improved from an EWT of about two minutes to about one minute. They attributed this to a significant improvement in the reliability of the service as well as customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction went up by 60%. They felt that some of these concerns

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that we raised with them were manageable, and seen against the improvements as well as the derived satisfaction of customers, it was well worth making. They told us that the greater pressure comes on the people at the backend, because they will have to make decisions on how the buses move and how to close the gap, or whether they should inject an additional bus enroute because of congestion mid-stream, and so on.

Indeed, when they summarised it for us, we felt that the additional stress on the drivers was not so significant – certainly manageable – and it would be the training of the people at the backend and the system that you have in place that will allow us eventually, we hope, to make the greatest improvements.

Madam, I have two questions. I note that the quantum for the penalty and incentive, there is a difference. There is a higher quantum for incentive versus penalty for the same duration, above or below the EWT that was mentioned. Why is that so?

Secondly, when a bus is on the road, a lot depends on the road conditions as well – whether there is obstruction on the road, whether other vehicles give way at the bus bay for the buses to come out. There could be a lot of factors that are beyond the bus driver's or the bus company's control or sphere of influence. Would this scheme be steering a behaviour that is probably not entirely in the bus company or bus driver's control?

Again, some very good questions. These were exactly the same things we also asked Transport for London. They, too, have a scheme where they provide more incentives as compared to penalties – one and a half times – which is what we have also adopted.

When we thought through it, we came to about the same conclusion as to why London did it this way. There is a certain amount of investment that the operators have to make in order for this to work. It is not just hoping that conditions will allow your buses to become more regular or that the bus drivers themselves will talk to each other but, essentially, a system to monitor, direct and, if necessary, to inject additional resources. That is one way to look at it because there is a certain outlay that the operators would have to be responsible for in order for this to work.

On road conditions, the Member is right. Not everything is within the control of the PTOs and, certainly, they try to emphasise that point very much to us. The counter to that is: it, therefore, requires them to pay greater attention

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to road conditions, to know when there are works taking place or to be familiar with the peculiarities of the route and even at specified time intervals, because while conditions change on a day-to-day basis – and I grant you that – there are some things that do not change. So, they have to factor these in and plan accordingly.

Madam, just a quick question. Would it not be more straightforward to just set high enough standards and then penalise the PTOs for failing to meet those standards? Because this can certainly spur improvements at the backend as well, and the PTOs' reward really is in more satisfied customers and bigger ridership.

We also have to try and arrive at a position and at a model that is fair to all parties concerned. With greater demand, there will be calls for greater injection of resources. So, we are trying to find a balance between incentives and penalties in order to arrive at a better situation than what we have today.