Central Bus Planning

With LTA taking on the role of a central bus network planner, there will be one dedicated agency that looks into the needs of commuters in drawing up the land transport plans for buses, trains and roads.

In planning for bus routes, LTA has four objectives:

To improve journey quality To have better integration across public transport modes and services To strengthen the current hub-and-spoke model To ensure the overall financial viability of the bus network.

LTA aims to benefit as many commuters as possible while ensuring overall financial viability of the bus network. In order to minimise disruptions to the commuting public, LTA will take a gradual approach in making the changes to the existing network.

Bus Priority Schemes
Our road space is limited. Roads already take up 12 per cent of our land area today. At the same time, the number of public transport journeys is increasing significantly as days go by. Therefore, we need to optimise the use of road space in order to efficiently carry and move more people.

To do this, we need to improve the speed and reliability of our bus system. Surveys by LTA have shown that the two most important aspects of the bus journey for commuters are waiting time and travelling time. In improving the bus journey speeds and travel time for commuters, LTA has been expanding the coverage of normal and full-day bus lanes, and the mandatory give-way-to-buses scheme to give buses greater right of way along busy roads.

LTA is also currently looking at the possibility of giving buses signal priority at traffic junctions. This is to allow buses priority over other vehicles turning left to the side roads.

Premium and Innovative Bus Services

Premium Bus Services (PBS) are positioned as niche services distinct from basic bus services and basic-plus services (e.g. express buses). They cater to commuters who are prepared to pay a higher fare for a higher level of service, such as a more direct journey and comfortable ride.

Below are the requirements that PBS have to meet:

• These services must be operated only with air-conditioned buses
• All passengers must have a seat in these buses
• Fares for these services have to be at least 1.5 times the equivalent fare of basic public transport services.

Quality of Service (QoS) Standards

In 1994, the Public Transport Council (PTC) established a comprehensive set of bus service standards and specifications to regulate the performance of the basic bus operators. The Quality of Service (QoS) standards are regularly updated to better reflect the travel experience of commuters.

In October 2007, PTC put in place a penalty framework to enforce the QoS standards. The penalty framework serves to send a strong and clear signal to the operators that they should consistently strive to comply with the standards and maintain a high level of service or face higher costs in terms of financial penalties and a negative impact to their reputation. This signaling and reputation effect goes beyond the direct cost of financial penalties and is an important aspect of the penalty framework. PTC continues to review the penalty framework as and when necessary to ensure that it remains effective.

In August 2009, PTC set a more stringent standard on bus service headways - at least 80 per cent of basic bus services (trunk and feeder) are to operate at headways or frequencies of not more than 10 minutes during weekday peak hours; and at least 90 per cent of their feeder bus services are to operate at headways of not more than 10 minutes during the weekday peak hours. This standard is set so as to improve the connectivity of feeder connections to the public transport hubs.

You can read more about the QoS Standards here.