My two-cents' worth for a two-cents increase

The following was a letter I sent to our local newspapers - it did not get published. I thought it might as well go in here.

When my wife read it, she asked if I was trying to be mr brown. I replied that mr brown is humourous, and I wasn't.

This article was written more with a lot of disbelief - as in "I can't believe our public transport providers actually expect us to believe their crappy press releases..." The rest is purely acid tongue. Enjoy...

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I hate the last leg of my journey to work everyday.

That's because I might have to board bus number SBS9253D. It has to be the most fear-inducing ride on the island, as the handle compartment for the emergency exit on the upper deck is choked full of rubbish - candy wrappers, tissue paper, you name it.

Say an emergency really happens. Would I reach for the handle only to pull out mucus-covered M&M's?

That has been the situation in May 2006 and at least a good six months before that. Has the situation changed since? I wouldn't know, since I don’t see the bus on my route anymore. I could only wonder if the emergency exit has been serviced in the last six months, when some civic-minded technician might cringe but still have the good sense to clear up the mess.

For an everyday Singaporean like myself, who take a four-leg public transport journey to work everyday, what matters most is not that we have spanking new buses plying our roads, complete with perfumed air-condition system and soft music playing. Hell, with a near six-foot frame I wouldn't even complain about the leg room, or the lack of it. Just a safe bus that comes on time would do fine. And I'm sure screeching brakes on a perfectly dry day, or air-conditioning systems that allow passengers to breathe only when the doors open, are not safety signs. Eco-friendly ones would also be a bonus, so we can all save on diesel.

Hence, you can imagine my surprise when I read in our local papers that SBS Transit plans to buy 150 new buses with their meager $220 million annual profit. Well, my math is not too good, but with a $55 million profit figure in the first quarter, that is the cringingly pathetic estimate we are looking at.

Don’t get me wrong - there is nothing I want more than for our fellow citizens with mobility difficulties to enjoy our top-notch public transport system. In fact, I'm sure we share the desire to get a handle on the same safety issues.

I'm just amazed that each bus costs a whopping $1m. And despite these being top-of-the-line fuel-efficient buses (only the best for Singaporeans, I presume), more diesel will still be guzzled, hence needing everyday Singaporeans to chip in an extra two cents for every trip. I feel sorry for our public transport operators – some bus manufacturer must really be ripping them off. To think they need to spend their annual profits on new buses that can only last a lousy year, for we can only assume from the papers that they are spending it only on buying new buses for us!

And all they are trying to do is provide a valuable public service to us, while struggling to make ends meet with that dastardly $70 million profit leftover.

Fortunately, I am confident that, with all the innovative people at SBS Transit and SMRT, they would surely be able to find a way recoup their flailing profit margin. Why, just yesterday morning, as I was traveling on the East-West line, I witnessed the most innovative form of in-train advertisement ever. After the usual stop announcements, an M1 advertisement would play just before every stop. Of course, it's not enough that the entire bus cabin is already covered with M1 advertising. A plain visual assault has no effect on Singaporeans, since most of us are blind to even the filthy condition of our buses anyway.

A full frontal audio assault would be best – I even saw a few snoozing passengers jolt up with that bleating announcement on M1’s latest offer. Serves them right – Singaporeans have no right to sleep on the train! They must stay awake constantly to support in-train advertising, so that SMRT can cover profit losses. SMRT is really smart – they seem to have spotted the fact that their customers have no concern whatsoever for their personal comfort and eardrums, and have thus deployed this innovative revenue generator.

I would also like to warn all Singaporeans to keep our buses clean. It is not the responsibility of our public transport operators to do that, even if it involves maintaining major safety features. They have bigger things to worry about, like how to get the best deal out of a bus manufacturer, since it is quite obviously cheaper to change the whole bus for $1m rather than service the brakes and screw on a plank near the entrance. Also, they really have to scratch their brains now to think of how to scrimp on the remaining $70m for extras like staff courtesy training and coolant for the air-conditioning systems on buses with no opening windows – apart from the now much-needed emergency exits. All this to meet the unreasonable demands of Singaporeans who just cannot tolerate suffocating for half an hour on a fully-packed bus to work. N