After seeing so many suggestions of new bus services or the amendment of existing bus services in the Route Suggestions, which is currently in its sixth series, as well as many other suggestions distributed across other threads in this forums, it shows that members of the public, in particular regular bus commuters, may have the potential in coming up with new/improved bus services to provide better and faster connectivity between particular areas. Therefore, I've decided to conduct a poll in this thread to find out whether it is beneficial to members of the public to be more involved in the planning of bus routes.
The process of the public's involvement in bus route planning may start with the provision of suggestions of either new bus services or amending existing bus services. The suggestions are then thoroughly reviewed by the LTA based on a set of established criteria. If the suggestions are feasible, the LTA will then decide whether the new/amended service(s) should be implemented based on one suggestion from an individual or an integration of suggestions from several people. These approaches of involving the public in the planning of bus routes can be packaged into the form of a contest on a quarterly basis, where rewards can be given to members of the public whose route suggestions are officially implemented partially/fully as a new service.
While this concept is currently being tested briefly with the introduction of Beeline in April 2015, this concept can be further expanded into public bus services, where commuters are able to better provide feedback on the type of public bus services they want through their suggestions. Through this process of collecting route suggestions from the public, the LTA will have an opportunity to learn about the bus service connections that commuters truly want and improve their internal processes of bus route planning, thus improving the type of bus services introduced/amended over time. It is noted that while this process of collecting route suggestions from the public proceed, the LTA should continue with their planning of bus services based on their own statistics as part of the BSEP.
Here is a summary of some advantages and disadvantages of allowing the public to be involved in bus route planning, as well as the criteria that the LTA can use to review the route suggestions from the public:
Advantages of Public Involvement in Bus Route Planning
- Allows the public to voice out their opinions on the existing route structures of bus services
- Allows the public to provide feedback on the lack of bus connections in certain parts of Singapore
- Improvement in the quality of bus services introduced over time with greater on-the-ground exposure based on suggestions from the public
Disadvantages of Public Involvement in Bus Route Planning
- Inability to meet all the suggestions from members of the public due to limited resources (i.e. bus fleet, parking spaces for buses)
- Not all route suggestions from members of the public may be logical due to their lack of knowledge in bus route planning
Possible Factors in Reviewing Route Suggestions from the Public
If I am not wrong, in London, there is a forum owned and managed by the UK government. The purpose is for the public to suggest bus routes.
We are doing something similar here. Except SGforums is not by the Government. It is by a few private individuals, some of whom may not even be Singaporean; they may be from other countries like Johor Bahru, etcetera.
If the government really wants, it could use its existing forum called "Reach" (https://www.reach.gov.sg/) and create a thread meant for suggestions of bus services.
LTA receive so many suggestion/feedback of new routes/services, but it cant be implementing everyone of them.... everyone would like to have a direct service to their destination, but that is not possible at all....
Originally posted by lemon1974:LTA receive so many suggestion/feedback of new routes/services, but it cant be implementing everyone of them.... everyone would like to have a direct service to their destination, but that is not possible at all....
Which is why it would be helpful to have both a dedicated committee (with LTA members) and experienced members of the public to judge whether the suggestion of new/amended route(s) are acceptable and workable, before actually submitting these proposals.
I am currently supportive of jurongresident's idea. It would be better to have a dedicated forum for the public to discuss and reconsider bus route proposals (with the guidance and advice of these committee members), than to have everyone bombard LTA directly with their wild ideas.
Yes they should have a committee and a group of professionals who takes buses, not those who drives and expects bus routes should be amended to where and where.
All, how to judge? Who is experienced and up to what level the experience the guy in the public has? Based on what sort of expertise to differentiate between each and every guy who provides suggestions? This is too subjective and it may incur much more severe problems. Some people may not like it when their suggestions are given and LTA took another guy's suggestions. By opening the floodgates to the public, the authorities will invite lots of questionings into their policies and causing unhappiness especially the bus community groups. Seriously, they should not do that. Cheers. Thanks.
Originally posted by AJQZC:Which is why it would be helpful to have both a dedicated committee (with LTA members) and experienced members of the public to judge whether the suggestion of new/amended route(s) are acceptable and workable, before actually submitting these proposals.
I am currently supportive of jurongresident's idea. It would be better to have a dedicated forum for the public to discuss and reconsider bus route proposals (with the guidance and advice of these committee members), than to have everyone bombard LTA directly with their wild ideas.
dedicated forum? in this small forum, there are already arguments over the route suggestions... so in the end, if involved more people, sure will be more messy.. wont be easy....
Let the number of passengers do the talking. Majority wins. If a destination is popular and the existing bus services there experience high loading, there will be new bus service there. If a neighbourhood is new, there will be new bus services to provide the basic bus connections. It's actually pretty straight forward. Let the numbers and new neighbourhoods do the talking.
Why do I feel that the objective of this thread is actually to close down the route suggestions thread? :(
Just for fun, I randomly went to search for "route plannng principle" on Google.
I found a few interesting articles.
Apparently, some countries have their own guiding principle when planning bus route.
I only read one, from USA:
the article outlines the following principles of a local bus route,
It was this that motivated me to come up with the suggestion of route 517, from Boon Lay to Punggol.
here is another one, by a University:
https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/281552/ip15-dodson-et-al-2011.pdf
I did not really read this, but a quick look at it suggest that it is about planning route networks.
Perhaps we may want to read online articles about route planning. This way, we may be able to come up with better route suggestions. :)
Better not la,Later everyone want their piece of mind to become reality.