The Government would be introducing greater contestability in the basic bus and rail services industry. The key objective of doing this is to introduce greater contestability so as to achieve greater cost efficiencies and improve service standards to benefit commuters.
We would introduce competition for the market where operators compete periodically for the right to operate the bus/rail services. This means that the operators will have to fulfill service obligations or risk being replaced when their term is up. This is different from competition "in" the market or head-on competition for market share, which would be detrimental to an integrated public transport system where the emphasis is on cooperation to grow the pie.
For the bus industry, the right to operate a package of bus services planned by LTA will be competitively tendered. To minimise disruption to commuters and operators, LTA will study the transition issue carefully, and will gradually open up the basic bus services industry for greater competition.