Illustrative image (Source: www.straitstimes.com) Hanoi (VNA) – Singapore is piloting an on-demandpublic bus service for six months, using technology to reduce congestion andcosts in what could be a model for gridlocked cities in the region.
Commuterscan request pickups and drop-offs at any bus stop within a designated areathrough a mobile app, the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) said in astatement.
Theservice can “optimise limited resources while offering more seamless andconvenient bus journeys for commuters in areas or during times with low orunpredictable ridership”, it said.
Thetrial will begin in selected areas in December and later extended.
Thismodel is suitable for Singapore because of the island country’s high populationdensity, said Walter Theseira, a transport specialist at the SingaporeUniversity of Social Sciences.
Singaporestrictly regulates private transport, resulting in high costs, so privatealternatives are not going to be as attractive, he said. The cost of owning acar in Singapore is among the highest in the world.
Henoted that despite the country’s fast expanding public transport system, thereare always going to be areas where demand is not sufficient for fixed-frequencybus services. So it is needed to have a mix of scheduled, high-frequency trunkservices, supplemented by on-demand for lower demand routes and areas.
On-demandbuses can even work in cities that do not have a well developed publictransport system, said Jarrold Ong, co-founder of Ministry of Movement. Likewith developing countries who skipped landline telephones and went straight tomobile, cities can skip fixed-route buses and go straight to on-demand.
Singaporeneeds to make sure it is user-friendly for the elderly and those less tech savvy,he added. –VNA
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