another F word: fares

Mr Gerard Ee, Chairman of the PTC, said,

“This year’s decision is a significant one as it involves a change of our public transport fare structure.

The decision comes after careful deliberation and scrutiny of the impact on both the operators and the commuters.

We have to bear in mind the Council’s mandate to keep fares affordable while ensuring the long-term viability of the public transport operators, so that they can continue to make capital investments and provide the quality of service expected.

The move to Distance Fares is not possible without the support of the public transport operators who bear the larger part of the costs.

With the new fare structure, commuters will have more choices and greater flexibility to decide on the best route to reach their destination and can choose to make transfers without being penalised.

For example,instead of waiting for a direct bus, a commuter can hop on to the first bus that comes along and make other bus/rail transfers along the route, thereby shortening their total journey time.”

conclusion:

after taking bus and MRT for a week, my fares are increased and not decreased.
and my total journey time did not shorten as we have wait for the transfer bus which came late.
so, for me, it was an increment of 10-20% and not saving.

can i believe what he has said?

i believe that he would like to have public transport operators to earn

even more money

than than keeping fares affordable.

last year, he told 2/3 of us will have to pay more. this year he said 2/3 of us will save more.

last year was a bad year, with economic registered negative growth and now they have pratically 10-20% increment.

is it true? your call.