Survey Shows People Are Less Happy With S’pore Public Transport in 2020

Unless you’re fortunate enough to own a private vehicle, taking public transport is unavoidable.

Even if you’re scared to stand next to a person sneezing during COVID-19.

Though for a good portion of last year, trains and buses looked a tad emptier thanks to the pandemic.

And especially during the Circuit Breaker, which actually saw an increase in satisfaction with public transport from May to July.

But what about the overall for last year?

Survey Shows People Are Less Happy With S’pore Public Transport in 2020

Sadly, it isn’t a positive number.

The overall satisfaction with public transport last year has fallen from 99.4 per cent in 2019 to 97.6 per cent in 2020.

This came from a survey conducted by the Public Transport Council (PTC).

Around 4,110 commuters were surveyed online, using QR codes placed at MRT stations, bus stops and interchanges.

The chart below shows the data from the last five years.

While not as bad as 2016 and 2017, we still dropped by two per cent for buses compared to last year and slightly less for MRTs.

For those who didn’t know, this survey isn’t new and has been around since 2006.

With that in mind, more data from the PTC reveals that despite lower numbers, not all is totally bad.

They said that on a 10-point scale, mean satisfaction remained constant at 7.8 for 2019 and 2020.

This is apparently due to the higher ratings given by commuters for individual service attributes.

It includes the following:

• safety and security
• wait times
• reliability
• service information
• bus stop/interchange/MRT station accessibility
• comfort
• travel time
• customer service

Better Score For MRT Services

And while overall satisfaction has dipped, some areas have also seen a few improvements.

PTC said the mean score for safety and security for MRTs went from 7.7 in 2019 to 8.3 last year.

They cited the deployment of more public transport workers and ambassadors to ensure orderliness and safety as a reason.

Service information’s mean score also went up from 7.4 to 7.8, as well as travel time from 7.5 to 7.8.

Overall, the mean satisfaction score went up from 7.7 to 7.9 between 2019 to 2020.

So after reading this, maybe you have some hopes that the bus scores would be good too.

Well, no.

Bus Services Slightly Less Satisfactory

The grass was definitely greener on the MRTs side.

Overall mean scores for bus services dropped from 7.9 in 2019 to 7.8 last year.

A major factor contributing to this was waiting time, dropping from 8.0 to 7.0.

PTC thinks that it’s due to adjustments of bus services to match lower commuting numbers due to the pandemic.

But overall, I guess we can be grateful that it’s not the worst year for public transport.

Never forget that horrifying train collision incident back in 2017.

Featured Image: TY Lim / Shutterstock