Let's make the most of the $900m investment to beef up bus services

For better impact, legwork and careful study of options needed

- Kok Yufeng

For a month after collecting the keys to his Tengah flat in August 2023, compliance manager Dinesh Sailan found it a pain to travel to and from his home as he had to rely on a temporary shuttle bus.

While new public bus routes were later introduced, the nearest stop was a 15-minute walk away and the services ran at up to 20-minute intervals. So things did not get much better for the 38-year-old and his wife, who are among the earliest residents of Singapore's newest town.

Some relief came in December 2023, when two of the new routes were extended to serve a new stop in front of their housing project, although gripes remain about low frequency and poor connectivity.

To address the issues faced by early Tengah residents like him, the authorities are now looking to speed up the roll-out of bus services in new towns, instead of having to wait for more people to move in.

It is one of four ways by which the Land Transport Authority (LTA) plans to improve the public bus network, and it will spend up to $900 million over eight years on a new Bus Connectivity Enhancement Programme.

Other plans include more peak-hour express services such as those to the city, and new express feeder buses that will call at fewer stops and ply more direct routes to major transport nodes like MRT stations.

This is the first major injection of public funds into the bus network in more than a decade. It comes on top of the $1 billion in subsidies the Government already pumps in yearly to keep public buses running.

The added investment is much needed, given the speed at which new housing developments are sprouting up, and the Herculean task that LTA faces in ensuring that the public transport network is comprehensive while staying financially sustainable.

The question is whether these fresh funds will ultimately result in faster and better journeys, and nudge more people towards public transport.