SMRT - YOU'RE F'ED!

An ugly side of SMRT, as I found out from MrBrown.com, a study of the annual report of SMRT Corp.

From zm. the studious bloke,

"i shall briefly list the business objectives of the group:

- maximise shareholder value
- provide safe, reliable and friendly travel experience at affordable prices
- leverage core expertise in operations and maintenance for trains and related infra
- maximise non-fare revenue through rental, advertising and engineering businesses
- enhance and sustain high standards in corporate governance

[continued]...

from the annual report, passenger trips have increased 11% from 2002 - 389.7m to 434.9m. However, car kilometres operated dropped from 81.4m to 77.1m. SMRTC has been aggressively cutting costs by cramming as much as people into each train and reducing frequencies since 2004, to maximise shareholder value. Thus, what is observed is simply increasing ridership, yet the supply of trains remained the same, and even dropped.

on the buses side, this what SMRT had to say:

'service schedules were refined to optimise operating costs. This included school holiday
schedules to match changes in student travel patterns, split-shift duties for services with distinctively high demand during peak hours, and parking of split-shift buses at interchanges to reduce off-service mileage.'"

Mr Brown says: "If the analysis is correct, then the formula seems to be:

More passengers + less frequency = more money to be made = pissed off passengers (who will be ignored)."

This is most certainly upsetting, considering that the public transport system has been receiving much criticism as of late, ranging from taxi price hikes to an inefficient transport crisis management. I seriously think the objectives are so screwed.