Mr Iswaran pointed out that pre-COVID, Singaporeans took about 8 million trips every day on public transportation.
“A reliable, convenient plus affordable public transport system is essential to making sure connectivity in our densely populated city. Additionally, it boosts economic exercise, reduces road blockage and emissions, adding to sustainability and the liveability of our city, inch he added.
“Over the last decade, we also gradually enhanced the public transport system, with attendant increases in cost. Commuters benefitted from the 40 per cent development of the rail network, 80 new bus services, reduced maximum hour waiting times for basic coach services from thirty to 15 minutes, and also significant improvements in rail reliability through 67, 000 to over 1 million imply kilometres between failures. ”
Just like other subsidised services, the Government has to consider the best way to share costs between users and taxpayers – present and future — said Mr Iswaran.
He defined three aspects for this.
Firstly, the federal government will continue to fully fund the expansion of public transportation infrastructure, he mentioned, describing this since “large, lumpy expenditures”.
Secondly, it must discover ways to economise and obtain “value for money”.
“This needs a comprehensive approach – from efficient purchase by LTA (Land Transport Authority), plus productivity-focused operations by public transport workers, to optimising the particular provision of coach and rail solutions even as we grow the overall network in order to serve new residential areas, ” said Mr Iswaran. “Ultimately, we have to deploy the finite resources in a fashion that best serves most of Singaporeans. ”