I’m glad someone decided to write this article. If I wrote it, however nice I try to put it, I’d quite likely incur the wrath of many cyclists. Now, the wrath is upon Alphonsus. I can just ride along and comment on his suggestions which, interestingly, are somewhat related to what I also had in mind. One of the things that annoys the hell out of many people (the non-cyclists, of course), is that cyclists want to have the best…
When I was young, I wasn’t that excited about taking the bus. That’s what I can recall, anyway. There were no trains then, of course, other than the ones that go across the causeway. My two kids, on the other hand, are quite excited about taking public transport. Ian, particularly, is just crazily excited about trains. Good thing for him that trains are fully air-conditioned, as are all the underground MRT stations. It was the car that was the novelty,…
I met four cyclists this morning. The first two cyclists were riding on the pedestrian path. The next one was riding right smack in the centre of a two-lane road. The light was red for him. The cyclist rode past all the vehicles stopped at the junction, and at the junction, turned left across the leftmost lane in-front of the cars and proceeded on to the perpendicular road. The rider had completely ignored the red light. The last one was coming…
I’ve been somewhat critical of the LTA lately. But I think it’s fair to say that most public transport commuters are quite fed up, and we all rather see some concrete improvements being put into place, rather than hear about LTA collecting data that’s already quite obvious to everyone. Just go take the train or bus at the right place and at the right times. No need to throw tenders for surveys. Suppose LTA has been totally clueless all along,…
I follow some documentary series on National Geographic like Air Crash Investigation and Seconds From Disaster. When I read our Committee of Inquiry (COI) report on the SMRT breakdowns in December last year, I can’t help but think that our COI’s work showed stark similarity with those of air accident investigation agencies. Our COI seems do have done a pretty comprehensive job. They determined the chain of events that led to the 15th and 17th December SMRT breakdowns. They dug…
Today’s Straits Times reports about LTA reviewing the penalty framework for MRT breaches. Everyone’s very mad about all the recent MRT breakdowns, particularly the two major incidents in December 2011. We’re all thinking that the MRT operator should be fined heavily. But do you wonder, at the end of the day, who really pays for the fines? If the operators’ bottom lines are affected by these penalties, or side-effects of such penalties (e.g. increased maintenance costs), they’ll ultimately petition the…
The last couple of days we’ve been entertained by the public inquiry into the spate of SMRT disruptions. We’ve just come to the juicy part where SMRT ex-CEO Saw Phaik Hwa gets grilled. Not unexpectedly, we’re going to learn about many more things wrong about SMRT. One of the key issues is about the maintenance budget set by SMRT had not kept pace with the growing ridership. To cut a long story short, Ms Saw claimed a mid-life refresh had averted…
The SMRT breakdown yesterday could have been easily averted. A power supply earth fault had brought down their communications backbone network, and that disrupted their train signally and hence te trains could not run. Now, I suppose they do have UPS backup power, but probably just not enough of it. If only they had enough batteries, the 2.5 hrs of downtime could have been averted. It seems like such a silly thing for network equipment to run out of power….
Transportation is in the hot seat lately. Last week, it was about our Transport Minister justifying that MRT breakdowns are unavoidable (see The New Singapore Standard for Train Service). This week, we are told to be prepared for more shutdowns. I’m disappointed. These stunts are what I call “managing expectations”. Or more appropriately here, “managing disappointments”. I’m annoyed because “managing expectations” is what books teach me to do to other people. It doesn’t feel so great when others practice what you’ve…
I read with disappointment our Transport Minister Mr Lui’s address in parliament. I thought we were supposed to have a world-class public transport system. His Ministry is only targeting to minimize train disruptions that last longer than 30 minutes. I suppose delays under 30 minutes are considered tolerable. If the train operators can shorten the delays to under 30 minutes, they would have satisfied the new standards for train service Mr Lui wants. Seriously? Shouldn’t you want to minimize the…
