Service Standards for Public Transport Operators

Mr Hri Kumar Nair asked the Minister for Transport (a) how does the Public Transport Council (PTC) determine the penalties to impose on public transport operators for failure to meet service standards; and (b) whether the fines of $700 and $300 imposed on SBS Transit and SMRT respectively following the PTC's latest six-month review of public transport operators are adequate.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong asked the Minister for Transport (a) what is the rationale for the low penalties of $700 and $300 imposed by the Public Transport Council (PTC) on SBS Transit and SMRT respectively for not meeting some service standards in the PTC's latest six-month review of public transport operators; (b) what are the steps taken by the public transport operators to plug the service gaps identified in the latest exercise; and (c) if he will provide an update on LTA's review of current bus service levels and routes to address issues of crowdedness, frequency and reliability.

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim asked the Minister for Transport (a) what are the Quality of Service (QoS) standards set for public bus providers, namely SMRT and SBS Transit; and (b) whether these standards are still relevant in our quest to enhance the use of public transport in Singapore.

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The Minister of State for Transport (Mrs Josephine Teo) (for the Minister for Transport): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I have your permission to take Questions Nos 4, 5 and 6 together?

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

Mrs Josephine Teo: Sir, Assoc Prof Faishal Ibrahim asked what the Quality of Services (QoS) standards are for public bus providers and whether these standards are still relevant in our quest to enhance the use of public transport in Singapore.

The Public Transport Council (PTC) regulates the service quality of basic bus services by imposing a set of QoS standards on public transport operators (PTOs). These cover a comprehensive range of 20 requirements that focus on areas important to commuters' travel experience. Examples of these requirements include adherence to bus trip schedules, minimum service frequency, maximum allowable bus loading levels, and bus breakdown and accident rates, amongst others. The detailed requirements stipulated by the QoS standards are publicly available on PTC's website. The Public Transport Operators' performances against these standards are also released by the PTC every six months.

The QoS standards are an important part of the overall public transport regulatory framework. These standards directly regulate basic bus services, ensuring that service levels are maintained. The operators cannot therefore attempt to reduce costs by compromising the quality of their services, as they try to increase profits under our fare-cap regime. The end result is that the operators are incentivised to contain costs while being required, by regulation, to maintain good service levels. In view of its important role, the PTC regularly reviews the QoS standards to ensure that they remain relevant and appropriate. This is done taking into account the policy intention of improving our bus services to encourage more to switch to public transport, while maintaining the long-term sustainability of the bus industry.

Members Ms Irene Ng and Mr Hri Kumar Nair have asked whether the fines of $700 and $300 imposed on SBS Transit and SMRT respectively, following PTC's latest six-month review of public transport operators, are adequate.

Although the fines imposed may seem small, I can assure Members that the PTC and LTA fully expect the operators to take non-compliance seriously. The amounts should also be seen in context. A penalty has to be commensurate with the nature of the non-compliance, and the degree of impact it has on commuters. Penalties range from $100 per day per non-compliant bus service, to $10,000 per month for each non-compliant standard at the bus fleet operations level; so the numbers vary.

For the period from December 2010 to May 2011, SBS Transit and SMRT were penalised $100 for each of the 10 instances of non-compliance to standards that are measured at the individual service level, on a daily basis. This is a small percentage of non-compliance, considering the number of days in these six months, and the more than 260 basic bus services between the two operators. Had the PTOs performed more poorly, they would have faced stiffer financial penalties according to the number of instances of non-compliance, and which specific standards they failed.

Notwithstanding that the PTOs have generally been able to meet the QoS standards in recent periods; we note that the operators have topped up efforts to improve service performance. They have already embarked on renewing and expanding their bus fleets, with SBS Transit and SMRT recently announcing that they will bring in additional 600 and 238 new buses respectively over the coming two years. The operators are also recruiting and training more bus drivers so that together with the new buses, they will be better able to meet the QoS standards.

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The LTA is also in the midst of conducting a comprehensive review of the current bus service levels to help address the issues of crowdedness, frequency and reliability. The issues are complex, as we will also need to study carefully how Government can help the Public Transport Operators' grow their bus fleet and captains in a sustainable manner. More details will be announced upon the completion of the review sometime early this year. In the meantime, the PTC will continue to closely monitor the operators' compliance with the QoS standards.

Mr Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister of State for her response. Three supplementary questions. Could the Minister of State give some details of the service failures which merited the fines of $700 and $300 respectively? Second, whether such fines are meaningful in the context of the PTOs' operating revenue and also in the context of the cost that must have been incurred to administer this system of imposing funds? And, finally, if not, what the Minister will do to ensure that fines levied in future will be meaningful?

Mrs Josephine Teo: Sir, I would like to thank Mr Nair for his questions. Since he has raised the question, it would be useful to share with Members a little bit more about the kind of standards that the operators are required to meet. I mentioned earlier that there are 20 requirements in the standards. Let me just share one of the standards so that Members have a sense of what the operators are required to do.

Standard 1.2, for example, tracks whether buses stick to their scheduled departures from the terminals or the interchanges. There is an allowance of five minutes given for each bus that is supposed to leave according to schedule. And not less than 85% of the departures must be within this five-minute allowance. So that is one standard. And when we look at the service failures, this is one of the more frequent standards that they fail to meet.

Another standard, that is also useful for us to know more about, monitors bus availability. For example, standard 4.4. There are several sub standards in standard 4.4. One of them states that 100% of all bus trips must attain headways of not more than 30 minutes. So, all bus services must come within 30 minutes. Off-peak, more than 85% must come within 20 minutes. At peak hours on the weekdays, if they are basic bus services, more than 80% must be within 10 minutes and if they are feeder buses, more than 90% must be within 10 minutes. So that is standard 4.4, that monitors and tracks availability for the different bus services at different times of the day, and whether they are feeder buses or basic bus services. This set of standards was introduced in 2006 and they have consistently been reviewed and also tightened progressively. The QoS standards were last tightened in August 2009. For example, for standard 4.4 for feeder buses, before August 2009, we only required 85% to come within 10 minutes and then from August 2009, we raised it to 90% within 10 minutes.

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Mr Nair's second question was: are these penalties meaningful; are they of the right amounts? It is a very relevant question and something which the PTC also looks carefully at. The purpose of the framework really is to spur improvement and it is useful to see if indeed it has helped to do so. To share with Members of the House – in the first full year of the penalty framework being introduced, which was in October 2007, between the period December 2007 and November 2008, there were more than 100 instances of non-compliances. More than 100 instances of non-compliance for which the PTC then levied penalties on the operators. This created considerable pressure on the operators. They had to buck up and make sure that by the next six monthly review, they would do better. And so, as it turns out, for the second and third full years since implementation of the penalty framework, the number of non-compliances fell to below 10 in each of those years. In the fourth year, which is the period that we are talking about, in the first six months, there have been exactly 10 instances of non-compliance, and so, it is an uptrend. What this means is a clear indication that more needs to be done, and the operators are aware of this.

So, I think if we look at the overall performance – and we understand that here are the standards and here is the penalty framework that tries to get the operators to improve – I would say that the standards are fairly stringent and that the operators have had to keep up as much as they can.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong (Tampines): How does the Minister of State persuade us that the operators will make a concerted effort to improve their services if the amounts of fines are so low? Some of the figures that the Minister of State provided do not seem to square with the experience on the ground. Let me give a specific example of feeder bus service No. 291 in Tampines. Perhaps it falls into the 10% category because the benchmark mentioned is that 90% are required to –

Mr Speaker: Ms Ng, please ask your question.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong: Can I ask the Minister of State where SBS has not shown improvement in meeting the service standards for a particular route and particular bus services, would MOT consider allowing more competition into the field by allowing other operators to also tender for those routes? My second question is: would the Minister of State also consider introducing the mini-buses that we see in Hong Kong with the public light bus services? These are really mini-buses that offer faster and more frequent services at peak hours and more reliable timetables for commuters, especially if the present operators may not be offering those services.

Mrs Josephine Teo: Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the Member for her questions. First, on how the PTC satisfies itself that, indeed, the performance standards that the operators are required to meet, have been met. In fact, all the operators have computerised fleet operations and management systems. Every month, these performance reports are drawn from the databases and they are submitted to the PTC. There is quite a lot of data, which is why the PTC takes six months to go through all of them. There is also an audit trail. The PTC regularly audits the reporting processes and the systems to ensure that the instances of non-compliance are properly captured. I would like to assure the Member that there is a proper system for doing so. Of course, as an additional layer of checks, the PTC also conducts multiple on-site spot checks every month to ascertain that the performance data actually matches commuters' experience on the ground. So, I would like to give the Member that assurance.

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To her question on bus contestability: as part of the Land Transport Masterplan, it is indeed the intention for us to move towards greater contestability. That is work-in-progress, and it is something that we would like to see it happen.

On mini-buses: I shared with Members earlier that LTA is conducting a comprehensive bus review and we are looking at how we can inject more capacity and enhance the fleet that is available and, at the same time, do so in such a way that will improve the reliability and predictability of the trips as well as the crowdedness that commuters now experience. So, I would like to assure the Member that we will be making those details available soon.

Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): I would like to thank the Minister of State for her reply to the three separate questions. I think the point that was made was really the small penalties of $700 and $300. This has to be seen in the context where the public looks at operators which are running practically as quasi-monopolies. They look at the operating revenue, the numbers that they see in those balance sheets, and the fines, and there is a very significant mismatch. I think that is the issue that the public is concerned about – that these are not even slaps on the wrist. While I appreciate the Minister of State going through this lengthy policy control process –

Mr Speaker: Mr Singh, can you just ask your question, please?

Mr Pritam Singh: Yes, Mr Speaker, I will. Are those numbers something that the Government will increase? Are the fines going to go up for these operators, considering the economic circumstances that the Government is currently operating in?

Mrs Josephine Teo: Mr Speaker, Sir, as I shared earlier, the purpose of the framework really is to spur improvement. So, the real test of effectiveness is whether it has spurred improvement. As I shared with Members earlier, it is not as though the instances of non-compliance have not been higher in the past. They had been. Because the PTC had made the message clear to the operators, they have had to buck up. As I shared earlier also, the trends will indicate that the operators once again need to pay greater attention to the service standards. Even though the amounts seem to be small, by tracking those numbers, we know whether the operators have responded. If they do not take it seriously, it does not mean that we have no other avenues of making our views known to them; it does not mean that we have no other avenues of asking them to improve. So, we have to look at the framework of penalties in the whole context.

Mr Speaker: Mr Pritam Singh, last question.

Mr Pritam Singh: I would like to thank the Minister of State for that clarification. Can I ask, beyond these fines which the Minister of State just referred to, what are the additional measures that the Ministry can use to ask the operators to buck up?

Mrs Josephine Teo: The LTA is in constant contact with the bus operators. They are in communication. There are avenues for feedback that we receive through grassroots groups, through MPs' advisers who are operating on the ground, and these are also opportunities for us to raise issues with the operators. So, this is not the only way in which we deal with the operators.

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