Improvements to Bus Service Standards after Initial Roll-Out of Buses under BESP

Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for Transport (a) how transport issues faced by commuters have been improved by the introduction of more than 90 new buses in the 4th quarter of 2012 under the Bus Service Enhancement Programme (BESP); (b) whether the Ministry can provide more

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details on how bus capacity will be ramped up over the next five years with the addition of 800 new buses to the existing fleet; and (c) where the areas of priorities are.

The Bus Service Enhancement Programme (BSEP) targets to reduce crowding, shorten waiting times and improve bus network connectivity. To deliver these improvements to commuters sooner, we have front-loaded the implementation to inject about 70% of the buses or around 550 buses by end-2014. Since the launch of the BSEP in September last year, the bus operators have added 780 weekly bus trips to 54 bus services or 20% of the bus network. We have also launched five new BSEP routes and are on track to roll out at least another five more within the first year of BSEP implementation. By the end of the first year of BSEP implementation, we would also have added around 250 new buses, increasing the bus fleet by about 6%, well above the bus ridership growth rate of about 3% over the last few years.

To evaluate the requests for improved bus services across the community, LTA has taken a balanced approach, and works with community leaders to assess needs and carefully distribute the available resources to achieve maximum benefit. Priority is given to improving service levels on existing services where enhancements are clearly needed, and to roll out new bus routes to meet new developments and help reduce MRT crowding. A key priority would be for the operators to look into improving the employment terms and conditions so as to be able to recruit and retain bus drivers, as that would be the critical resource to enable us to ramp up bus services in the next few years.