Feeder Bus Services in Nee Soon East

Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan asked the Minister for Transport in light of the increase in new BTO units and residents in Nee Soon East in the next 15 months, whether the Minister will consider introducing additional feeder services and buses along the route to alleviate the overcrowded bus feeder service numbers 804, 806 and 811 during peak hours.

LTA closely monitors housing development plans as part of its transport planning role. The significant increase in housing units in Nee Soon East which Mr Patrick Tay has highlighted would certainly require more bus capacity to be provided, and I assure the House that LTA has the plans in place to cope with the demand.

Under the Bus Service Enhancement Programme (BSEP), two new bus services, Service 860 and Service 850E, were introduced in October 2012 and February 2013 respectively. Service 860 complements the existing feeder services 804 and 806 and provides residents staying along Yishun Ring Road with a direct link to Khatib MRT station. Service 850E is a peak hour express bus service providing commuters from Yishun with an alternative travel option to the CBD, instead of taking the feeder bus services and transferring to the MRT. Both of these new BSEP services have seen good take-up and thus, buses have been added progressively. For instance, Service 850E started off with only two bus trips in the morning in February, but is now operating five trips in the morning after LTA added three bus trips in April, July and October this year, and we will certainly be happy to add more buses as the demand increases.

For the feeder services in Nee Soon East, Service 806 was recently improved with an additional bus during peak hours in September 2013, while Services 804 and 811 will have one bus each added during peak hours in

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October 2013 to meet the higher demand and ease crowding. LTA will continue to introduce more buses and other public transport improvements over the next one to two years in tandem with increase in ridership.