public transport, today

Much has been said about the projected figure of Singapore's worse case scenario's population size. But the problem is, with the present. The here and now.

Few days ago, I was at Buona Vista MRT around 11.20pm. Didn't manage to catch the train, too packed. So waited. After 5 minutes, no train in sight. Nvm, can wait. Then announcement came. Track fault, so trains will be moving slower than usual. Next train, 6 minutes. Ok, not an issue. thought I'd take a cab to save some time.

At the taxi stand, no cab in sight but a queue had formed. Some like-minded people who didn't want to wait for a packed train, decided to take cab but none came. Taxis that arrived, were 'on-call'. Great, ended up taking the bus to Jurong East, and barely made it to the last train, and finally reached CCK at 12.10am. Not an issue, because last bus is 12.55am. Waited, and waited and waited. The bus came after 1240am.

Back-track to the morning, was at Jurong East interchange waiting for bus #197. The next bus only came after half hour of waiting time. Hmm. Lack of drivers? Scheduling issues? Bad traffic? Guess, it's all of those.

Two days ago, was at AMK after dinner, about 9pm. Waited for MRT. One came, packed. Never mind, waited for the next one, 6 minutes later. Still sardine packed. Gave up, took cab. Abundance of cab at AMK taxi stand.

Just yesterday, was at Jurong East MRT platform A, at about 730pm. So crowded that it was impossible to board so waited for the next one. Nothing came. Info board showed nothing. Meanwhile, the train to Pasir Ris kept coming at 3 minutes interval. More passengers alight and now waiting at Platform A. The same direction at Platform D, 6 minutes interval. Crowd had built up at that side too. Waited till 8.10pm, still no sign of any train for Platform A. No announcement, no nothing.

No doubt infra can be improved, but it takes the entire ecology of the system to be able to support the expansion. We can have more tracks, but it needs to be complemented by sufficient trains. But sufficient trains, in turn, need to be complemented by good scheduling, and pretty good recovery if something like track fault or train fault occurs. When all fails, then need the ground people to disseminate information in a timely manner too.

Much improvement is needed. Meanwhile, passengers and users of public transportation need to cultivate patience......ohm......