Ministry of Transport A hub and spoke system for public transport
In 2009, I contributed an article that was published in the Straits Times. I suggested that our public transport system should be re-organized to use hub and spoke system system. This system works as follows:

a) Feeder buses take passengers within a town and to the MRT stations and express bus hubs.
b) Express bus services take the passengers from one town to another. They make limited stops along the way.
c) The hub and spoke system is adopted successfully by airlines to bring passengers from airports in small towns to the hubs where they connect to other large airports and, if necessary, change to a smaller airline to their final destination.

The Land Transport Authority was not interested to explore this concept at that time. I do not know why. Nobody bothered to follow up on my proposal or to talk to me.

Ten years passed. LTA continued to develop their network of buses under their current structure, involving about 350 bus services. This is complicated to bus commuters but is fortunately helped by Google Maps and other transport apps.

Some commuters find this structure to be workable. I belong to this group. I give top rating to our bus services. I take 45 minutes for a bus journey, including 10 minutes of walking (which is good for health).

But the bus services does not work for many commuters. The journey time from the suburban towns to the workplace can take more up to two hours each way. Many people decided that they have to use a car. 

Our car population continue to grow, in spite of high cost of ownership. Our roads and expressways are congested during the peak hours.

Punggol Town was planned to be car lite. It did not work. Many owners found the need to buy a car. The roads are congested and could not handle the volume of cars.

The Land Transport Authority should re-look at the hub and spoke system. This is how it can be reorganized today:

a) Feeder services should operate within the towns. Each town can have 2 to 4 feeder services. We can organize Singapore into 30 HDB and non HDB towns. A total of about 90 feeder services is required.

b) Depending on demand, the feeder services can use our current large bus or can use the light buses that you see in Hong Kong. Each feeder service should operate an an interval of 3 minutes during peak hours and 6 minutes off-peak.

c) The express buses should connect commuters from one town to another. It should run on the expressways and only stop at the express stops. The travel time could be reduced by more than half. During peak hours, a lane on the expressway can be reserved for buses to speed their flow.

d) A bike sharing service can be provided as part of the integrated system, for use by commuters who do not live near a feeder bus stop.

e) Most commuters will take less time to make a journey, even allowing for the bus transfers and waiting time.

The hub and spoke system will be easier to manage to improve the utilization and provide a more comfortable service. It should reduce erratic bus arrival times. There is no need for bus roads to have many buses. (Currently, some busy roads have more than 30 services!). Each feeder bus stop should have not more than four feeder services.

Making a large scale re-structuring of this kind will not be easy. But it can be planned to be rolled out in phases. The disruption should be not more than building new MRT lines. We can use existing expressways. We can also use the current bus interchanges and build a few new ones.

An efficient bus structure can be useful with the occasional train breakdowns. There will be existing services to bring the commuters to the nearest express bus hubs. It will be easier to organize the additional capacity to meet the unexpected demand.

Cities of the future all around the world have to be car-lite. They will required an efficient public transport system. Singapore has another chance to achieve a world class transport system that can serve as a model for other cities. Do not miss this second chance.

Tan Kin Lian








 

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