I had always said that Singapore’s biggest public bus service, SBS has probably the worst bus standard I have ever seen and today, they just topped it again. I took a bus from my home to my workplace and it took like a hour to reach there. I have never seen any bus driving so god damn slow before. The bus driver was driving along the road like 10km/hr or sometimes even less. The roads today was pretty clear but nevertheless the bus driver was probably afraid that driving a little faster will result in road accidents.

Well, what can I say? A lot of the passengers in the bus was just as pissed as I am. I mean we are all rushing to work and this bus driver was cruising along taking his own sweet time. There was one guy who was swearing at the driver when he got off the bus, but the bus driver didn’t even care. I am not surprised that they are a lot of cases involving assaults on bus drivers. Hey, Singapore is a fast paced economy but the bus service seemed to be working in the previous century. But in all seriousness, I don’t think the problem lies with the drivers but mainly with the management. An empty bus makes no money, but a full (and overcrowded) one does. So in order to maximize their profits, the bosses at SBS think that a single bus trip should be packed to the maximum and thus, they are forcing bus drivers to drive slowly so as to pick up more passengers.

The bus services in Singapore are dominated by two companies - SBS and TIBS. Although they are supposed to be competitors, they are actually working hand in hand. Nope, not hand in hand improving our country’s public transport but hand in hand, trying to squeeze as much money from Singaporeans as possible. And recently the just launched a service which provides “premium” transport to the city area. The charges are more than double than normal. But sadly, these services should already have been provided by our public transport. It is not a “premium” service. Just normal regular service. I mean, there are no other public bus service in Singapore anyway. It’s their responsiblity to provide that service in the first place.

Before SBS was privatized, their service was way better. I remembered the time when bus was on time, cheap and reasonably fast. Now, it’s just so expensive, slow, frequently over-crowded and seldom on time. And some of the bus are in rather poor condition. Leaking, air-conditioning spolit, broken hand guards and railings, dirty seats and yucky windows that have never been cleaned. Sitting on a public bus is like sitting next to a rubbish dump. Service has not improved at all. Again, I have to say, I have no problems with people making money, but they have to do it ethically.