Singapore's public transport trips surged 14%

Bus priority scheme to be ramped up.

According to a release by the Land Transport Authority, there is a 14% increase in trips made on public transport as a whole, with strong growth in train trips of 35% – from 1.7 million daily train trips in 2008 to 2.3 million in 2012. Daily bus trips also grew, from 3.1 million trips in 2008 to 3.2 million in 2012.

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Singapore commuters are also more likely to use public transport if they live nearer to a MRT station. Among those who live within 400m of a station, about 71% would take public transport as their primary commuting option.

This compares with 67% for those staying about 800m from an MRT station and 55% for those staying more than 2km away. As our rail network expands, more Singaporeans will be living nearer to an MRT station and using public transport instead of cars.

In addition, a denser and more connected rail system has a network effect that will increase the convenience and attractiveness of using public transport, resulting in higher usage rates.

For example, within those already living close to an MRT station, we see an increase in the rate of public transport usage, from 65% in 2008 to 71% in 2012.

This period coincided with the addition of 40km of rail lines over the last four years, in particular, the opening of the Circle Line, as well as the Circle Line Extension and Boon Lay Extension.

As we continue to expand the rail network, the combined effect of having more households within easy access to an MRT station and an increasing likelihood of using public transport given a denser and more connected rail network, would help us to achieve our public transport mode share targets.

Public transport journeys less than 20km that are completed within 60 minutes have, however fallen by 3%, with 76% of such journeys completed within an hour, as compared to 79% in 2008. This is largely due to slower bus speeds on our roads.

We will therefore step up efforts to give buses more priority on our roads, as well as facilitate more efficient bus-rail transfers such as better feeder services, and together with an expanding rail network, aim to gradually raise this to the long-term target of 85%.