You're LIVE on Des Talk: April 2015

Monday, April 27, 2015

Smove Car sharing

Firstly, to clarify, this is not a sponsored post. Just want to share because i find it worthwhile.

As with my previous post in March 2015 (view it here) , I never liked car sharing because of 2 main reasons, one - the limited free mileage and two - the need to return the vehicle to the same location.

Smove car sharing totally addressed this 2 issues spot on for me.

The company started out as with a pure electric car fleet before switching to the current fleet of hybrid Prius-Cs. Their system is simple. Pay a one-time fee of $19 (See how you can get a rebate to waive it off below) and start driving at $5 per 15 mins. No petrol or mileage or other hidden cost.

One of Smove Prius-C

(Image taken from smove.sg)

So $20 per hour isn't exactly cheap...I hear you but it does offer you the flexibility of renting for less than an hour. Say half an hour or 2 hours 15 mins and you are really paying for the time you are in the car and not for time when the car is parked at the carpark.

I'll be honest with you, having joined a few previously, the above reason isn't enough to make me want to join another car sharing scheme. What's alluring me to join is this:

You can collect a car at a location and return it at another location.

WOW! That makes sense for me. Let me tell you a place which I like to go but am always put off by taking public transport there > IKEA Alexandra. It's nowhere near a train station and for bus services only 2 comes from Redhill mrt and 1 comes from Queenstown mrt and they are not really frequent.

Now I can spend $5, take the car at Commonwealth MRT (one of their locations) and return it at Anchorpoint (another of their location). Then I just cross the road. I can even take up to 4 friends with me and I don't have to pay a single cent for parking. That's what I called flexible.

And, what's more I checked with Smove, as they are using very fuel efficient hybrid cars, the Prius C,

They does not have mileage limits on their cars

So no matter how far i drive, my cost is fixed at $20 per hour.

Yes, I hear you say that how far can I drive in half an hour or an hour? But what about their 'package deals':

Weekdays (Mon till Fri): 10am to 5pm at $60. That's 7 hours for the price of 3 hours.

Weeknights (Mon till Thu) 6:30pm to 8:30am at $40. Drive off from a station near your office and return next morning you come back to office.

On times like weekends starting from Friday nights and outside the above timings, it's still at an rather affordable $90 per 12 hours or $130 per 24 hours. Remember this is the actual amount you have to spend (except for ERP and carparks). No petrol cost, no hidden cost, no variable cost and comprehensive insurance is covered.

Check them out their website at Smove.sg. Click on this link and get $20 credit from Smove while promotion lasts. That means its more than enough to offset the one time fee and there is no joining fee.

Something interesting - The whole time you have the car, there is no car key. To unlock the car, you simply tab your pre-registered EZlink card at the device next to the IU and the car will unlock itself. To lock, tab the card again. To end your trip, lock the car and send an SMS to Smove to end your booking.

Tab EZLink card to unlock and lock

(Image taken from smove.sg)

So far they have their locations mainly at the south-western side of Singapore but I was told that they will expand so we look forward to that.

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.

Friday, April 17, 2015

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

(Image credits to its owner)

Taking the train to work every morning?? Read on.

Travel Smart Rewards - Earn rebates while doing (really) nothing when you travel on trains

It has been about 1.5 months since I joined Travel Smart Rewards - TSR (www.travelsmartrewards.sg).

In brief, this programme is LTA's move to encourage people to adjust their travelling schedule and move out peak period and into the less peak period. You get points for every km travelled. The incentive is that when you travel in one of the less peak period they designate (they call it decongesting period), you get your points multi folds to up to 8X. These points can either be used to redeem for cash at a very low rate: 1000 points = S$1 or they can be used to play their Spin to win game and win cash along the way. 1000 points can win you a few dollars (up to $200 as the say) depending on your luck. [You can set it in your settings page -See below]

(Screenshot from www.travelsmartrewards.sg)

The amazing thing about this is that there is an automatic spin feature which they will help you play the game every week and what you need to do is really NOTHING except to wait for the winnings to come in, and they will email you every week if you have a $1 or more winning(s). Even crediting the cash out of the programme doesn't take you any effort. They will just credit your winnings into your EZlink card which you can use to offset your future trips.

(Screenshot from www.travelsmartrewards.sg)

I am not sure if I can be considered lucky compared to others out there who has been using this scheme but to have a rebate of $8 for 1.5 months into the programme, I am rather pleased. Of course, I travel a considerable distance from home to my work (about 20km) and I travel at the time the TSR people encourages us to travel every week day (ie: 8:45am to 9:45am), hence i believe I get more points than many people.

As comparison, my sis whom I encouraged, has enrolled herself into this programme. She also travel 20+km everyday but she doesn't have the opportunity to travel many times in the decongesting period, hence her points is much less. Her winnings is about $2 for about a month of travel. Actually that's not bad at all in terms or rebates. Here's why:

Considering credit card rebates which is one of the other programmes which give you rebates back from your spendings on public transport. Citibank SMRT credit card gives $0.60 rebate but charges you $0.25 transaction fee for every auto-reload of $30 (default I think). Hence, the net rebates is $0.35. On a $90 or 3 reloads basis, the rebates for the month is $1.05.

Hence even if winnings is $2 from TSR, the rebates is already double of what the credit cards are offering. What's more, the money savvy people will register and use their Citibank SMRT cards into the TSR programme and earn rebates from both sides. (It's allowed)

So start register yourself into the programme and start earning the rebates. Anyway, all the effort you need is the registration process and everything afterwards is automatic - no effort required.

(This is not a sponsored post and I just want to share my experience on something that's I feel is beneficial to me and I would like you, my readers to know about it and take advantage of it)