SMRT - Why no double decker?

As you know, SMRT Buses (SMB) came from Trans-Island Buses (TIB).  As the name imply trans-island, which is across island. This can be seen from bus services like 969 (Woodlands- Tampines) 858 (Woodlands-Changi Airport), 857 (Yishun-Town), 852 (Yishun-Lorine-Bt Batok)

As you might have observed, right from the company started, their routes were planned in such a way that the bus straight from one town to another (whether via expressway). Nothing like its rival where the routes seems to be going in circles, stopping at every bus stop possible within one town.

When people board the bus, it is likely that they need to take the bus to go from one town to another, not within the town, which means that time expected on the bus is likely to be at least 15 minutes to an average of 35-45 minutes on the bus.

So, while they do have articulated (bendy) high capacity buses, they never had double deckers (DD), something which puzzled me. It doesn't make sense because, comparatively, if SBS Transit (SBST）operating within towns have double deckers, then why there is no double deckers on SMB when their routes are considered long distance? It just doesn't tally with its then corporate philosophy.

Over the years, it seems that SMB stubbornly refuse to purchase DD for reasons not known but I speculate that it may be due to that they do not want to 'copy' SBST to operate DD. Had SBST not have DD, I am rather confident to say that they would very likely go for DD 'to be the first' in Singapore'.  (Look at their taxis and range of bus - Man A22, Hino Hs3KRKK, first to buy Citaros etc)

Nevertheless, there are a few reasons that I think SMB should get DD in their fleet

1) Being a service organisation, is it more important to be concerned with copying competitors or passengers comfort which ultimately equates to providing a better service? Is the 'face/ego' factor so important from SMRT such that they would rather let 24* more passengers (or customers as they like to call it) stand for 15 minutes per trip? 24 pax per trip x 200 trips is about 4800 pax each day affected. It may not seems a lot, but it will if you are one of the 4800.

*Comparing Volvo B9TL seating capacity of 83 compared to 0405G seating capacity of 59 
(Source: http://sgwiki.com/wiki/Singapore_Bus_Specification) 


Also, if there are say 70 passenger on board, all 70 passengers get to sit in the DD compared to some passengers who will have to stand when a Bendy Bus is deployed. This is quite a common situation as in a Bendy bus, you always see somebody standing because all the seats are filled up.

2) As it had been experienced and debated, articulated bus takes up more space in the bus bay making major bus stops less efficient in commuters turnover. LTA has ordered not to have any more (increase) of articulated buses. So, the situation now is that if SMB still stick to its stubborn thinking, they are just left with deploying rigid single deckers to their routes which during the peak hours, always do not have enough capacity to move the crowd.

Also, talk about the issue of a shortage of bus drivers. If there is insufficient bus drivers, then why are SMB not using higher capacity buses (1 driver : 130 passengers) and still using (1 driver: 90 passenger). If higher capacity buses are used, they will need about a third less drivers that they currently  need. (2 high capacity buses and drivers serve almost the same amount of passengers as 3 single decker buses and drivers).  

3) Moving back to its original philosophy - Trans-Island Bus services or put it in my terms: Across island bus services. Although it is not longer called TIBS now, the routes remains the same and DD can accomplish the task more efficiently and effectively than Bendy Buses. SBST Service 161 and 168 (Woodlands to East areas of Singapore) proves the fact.

An imaginery livery of a DD which we all hope to see it comes true.

Hence, if SMB people are reading this, I hope that while they are still making a decision on how to utilise their part of the $1.1billion from the government for new buses, they will put DD into serious consideration as with the current situation and population (expected to further increase), it is not hard to see why DD, any DD should be the choice for SMB.

Solving Public Transportation 2

My grandmother, who goes out once in a blue moon, commented that the train doors are like lift doors. 2 doors which slides open and a window at the top middle portion for each door.

To us who take MRT on a daily basis, it is just a vehicle that takes us to places. 

So when my grandma says the analogy, it really struck me hard!! 

IF the MRT is like a lift, then what we need to solve public transportation could be 

what would be like an escalator.  

Have you ever taken the lift at crowded buildings / places (e.g. Shopping Centres during weekends or even MRT station during peak hours). The process will be wait > Lift comes > See if you can get in>If Yes proceed, If No, wait for the next one> process repeats itself again

On the other hand, in the very same building, have you notice how efficient the escalator is? People just hop-on, you don't have to wait, it moves slowly but you are still progressing, before you know it, you reached the next level while the people at the lift is still waiting. The amazing thing is while the lift can carry 20 people in one trip, the escalator can carry 20 people constantly at any one moment.

So to solve the problem of overcrowding trains, will we be able to think of something which can be like an escalator? Well, human mind is infinite, so it is not a matter of whether we can or not, but how soon can we? 

Here's an interesting concept that I found on youtube to illustrate the concept. Of course, what needs to be improved is that there is still a limited space in the carriage, so waiting will still be a concern when the crowd builds up. What we should be looking at is something that will be able to flow continuously to a point where nobody need to wait.

Carriage that clips onto a non-stop train 

(Video rights to its owner)

But instead of a training coming to carry the carriage, maybe the track should keep on moving or something to move the carriage when it is ready to go on track. Then there should be plenty of carriages at each station to prepare for boarding. Carriages uses a third track to zoom back to the place where the crowds are (suburbs in the morning and city in the evening) once it reaches the terminal station.

[Fictional] Triple Decker Bus

If there would have been a triple decker bus, it will look something like this.

(Advertisement on TODAY, Wednesday 23 May 2012, PP11)

This is, of course, not real, just a illustration to Spot-the-Big-Difference Contest for the papers.

Does it make sense?

Then TIBS Bendy Bus

(Taken from sgforums.com)

SMRT started operating their articulated bus 'Bendy Bus' in some of their services some 10 years ago and personally I think it is a very good move as being 1 and 1/2 times longer than normal bus, it can carry, yes, 1and 1/2 times more passengers.

Officially, a Bendy Bus (BB) can carry as many or even more passengers than a Double Decker (DD) than SBST uses, depending on the model. (DD - 132, BB - 143, Normal SD -85, 90 newer WAB models).

Depending on the service routes, where the passengers mostly travel long distance (some that I can think of including) 198, 30, 51, 857, 858, 969, etc, DD will be ideal as it provides more seating capacity.

On the other end of the spectrum, on those service routes where passengers travel no more than 5 bus stops or bus journey no more than 10 minutes, BB will be more ideal. The reasons are obvious. For routes with most of the passenger travels less than 5 bus stops, the lower deck of the DD may be packed but there is almost certain that there are empty seats on the upper deck, especially towards the rear. For the BB, almost anywhere in the bus in the same with easy access to exit doors and such, so it is more likely to reach the full capacity in such situation than a DD.

LTA will argue that despite that, it takes up more road space and road space is very limited in Singapore. So, I do believe that LTA has done is to limit the number of BB on the road.

Maybe I can suggest to LTA and the bus operators certain measures.

First, identify those routes that are people are traveling long distance and also the routes that has high number of passenger as well as a high turnover (likely most of them will be feeder routes)

Deploy all DD on those long distance routes,

For those routes that are out of town (e.g. feeder services) there should be no issue deploying BB. (Current situation now is that SMRT Buses are replacing the BB with WAB smaller capacity models)

For those routes that passes by town, moderate the BB (maybe every alternate trip), etc. BB bus services can stop at different bus stops so that it doesn't severely block the other buses. Another alternative can be to disallow BB to go into town.


The current situation now is that in the neighborhood that I lived in, the interchange operated by SMRT, I see many occurrence of a service route that require BB (bus is so full till the driver have a problem closing the front doors) is deprived of the BB whereas another service route which does not require BB(enough capacity to have just a few people standing) using the much needed BB.

And also, I hope LTA can allow more BB on the roads, especially in the neighborhood areas where it is really needed.