Monday, April 20, 2015

Travel Smart Rewards - Improvements that I would like to see

I posted a few days ago on the Travel Smart Rewards scheme which manages peak period crowd and encourage people to travel earlier or later to work.

Read:
Public Transport made Interesting - LTA's scheme to manage morning peak crowd

Of course, the scheme is launched not too long ago and I think it's a fantastic scheme for people like me. Like many things, nothing is perfect, so I would like to suggest some improvements that I would like to see in the future.


Peak vs Off Peak
Peak trips and off peak trips current both earn the same number of points.. To encourage people to move out of peak, any time outside the peak period, more points should be given. Even a 2 points per km is double the points of the current 1 point per km.

Evening Peak
LTA may think it is not necessary at this time as people are more relaxed in the evening and have better flexibility of their time as it is after work. However, it is the  very same reasons that make people more willing to get out of peak period and travel in the decongesting evening period (maybe 4:45pm to 5:30pm and after 8pm to 930pm).

Buses
I am sure extending the scheme to buses is already in  LTA's planning and they are likely to extend it. However, to make people stop taking train and start taking buses, the scheme will have to be more attractive on buses and more services will be needed to do direct from the town to the city centre. There is a service to and from my town to the city centre but I do not take because 1) I have to take another bus to get to the bus stop which has the city-direct service and 2) there are only a few trips in morning and in the evening and also 3) they get very crowded and no seats are available.  


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