Tan Kin Lian - Perspectives Change from trunk services to feeder services
There are 5,900 buses running 350 trunk services in Singapore. This gives an average of 17 buses per service. 

Each trunk service has an average of 60 stops, running 90 minutes each way, or 180 minutes return. The average waiting time for a bus is 11 minutes (180/17). 

Most of these services carries commuters for only a short journey to the MRT station, i.e. they act as a feeder bus. Some service may carry many passengers to a workplace, but after dropping off the workers, the bus will continue rather empty. 

I estimate that the average occupancy of the bus for the entire journey is 30%. It may be full for some segments but will be less occupied for the rest of the journey. 

The bus system is restructured and rationalized to operate feeder services to the MRT stations. There are 140 MRT stations. Two feeder services can run for each MRT station to serve two loops. This will require 280 feeder services. 

The feeder service will have an average of 8 stops to cover a distance of 2 km. It will take 12 minutes to complete one way and 24 minutes for a return journey. Each feeder service will have 12 buses, giving an interval of 2 minutes between buses. The average waiting time for a feeder bus is 1 minutes. I estimate that the average occupancy will be 60% for the feeder buses.

The total of 280 feeder services will require 3,360 buses, or 57% of the 5,900 buses. The savings in operating the buses will be 43% of $2.5 billion (my estimate) or $1 billion a year. 

Tan Kin Lian 

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