I read about the impending public transport fare increase and am concerned about the sustainability of the ever-increasing cost of operations.

Both rail operators SBS Transit and SMRT Trains applied for the full 18.9 per cent fare increase in 2024. They cited factors such as cost pressures from inflation as well as the slow recovery of public transport ridership.

Bus operations fall under the bus contracting model (BCM), where all operating assets are owned by the Government and bus operators bid for contracts.

For bus operations under this model, bid prices for the more recently tendered packages decreased noticeably from the earlier tendered packages. Could this decreasing bid price factor be included in the fare formula as well as for calculating fare adjustments?

The new fare formula takes into account the core inflation rate and wage and energy costs. However, this seems to relate more to rail operations than bus operations, since manpower costs and energy costs are hedged for bus operations under the BCM model and bid prices for contracts have gone down.

Could the formula be tweaked further to consider the different operating framework models between rail and bus operations to accurately reflect the differences in productivity gain calculations and costs of managing rail operations versus bus operations?

Commuters who do not need to commute by train and rely only on buses are hopefully not penalised by the full flat-rate fare increase which seems to stem from higher costs of rail operations as cited by rail operators, and not bus operations.

Perhaps a new bus-only pass or concession could be introduced for commuters who do not need to travel by rail. Such commuters include those who travel shorter distances, intra-town or who use express bus services or bus routes that are not served by MRT lines.

Tio Boey