Our thinking about transport is shaped by one simple thing, methinks. In Singapore, the discussion about public transport is that it’s something we have to use, not something we choose to use. This shapes the discourse around improving public transport, for better or for worse. The big hand of government…

Both of them must come together. There is nothing wrong with short trains so far as the service is able to deliver. With short trains, you just need to run more of them, a much easier job with an automated metro line. This idea comes from Europe where the difficulty…

Why did we build the MRT, otherwise? The Transitlink website allows one to find out the time that a bus route is going to take. So I went and compiled the data for every single bus route in this country, including route variants. The data is, shall we say, illuminating…

Are we getting poorer service for higher cost? As things currently stand, are we looking at some rather severe cutbacks in scheduled bus headways? Or have they already happened? …

There is a need to relook some observations. As it turns out, the LTA has been giving us quite a bit of bad data. Yes, this is a Bad Thing. Because it means that several posts I made may have to have their conclusions slightly tweaked. …

And what we can learn from them. The previous one got too long, so this one is a continuation. In this part, I focus more on the medium-capacity rail systems that can be found in Taiwan’s urban cities and the lessons we can learn. If Matra doesn’t pull There are things that have to…

Reflections on a trip to Taiwan. Taiwan has long been an idealized case, from our political leaders on down, of what our MRT system should look like, especially in terms of reliability. But there’s more to Taiwan than just that. The few days I spent there may not be enough…

Where do our capabilities lie? A thing that previous Transport Minister Khaw advocated for was that he had asked the LTA to learn the ropes of train operations and maintenance so it could step in should the day come when the government wanted to restructure the rail industry. LTA must be ready to take over MRT ops: Khaw Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan has asked the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to beef up its engineering team so that…www.straitstimes.com

Simply put, because we can’t keep costs under control. It’s that time of the year again for another fare increase. This time, this is possibly the single largest increase on record, at up to 11 cents per trip. This makes the entry fare $1.09; the largest single jump in value…