Singapore Buses 2017 - 2 Eastern Area
We begin part two of
the independent transport videos 2017 visit to the tropical island
city of Singapore visiting the eastern side of the island. As in part 1 we start our filming in central
Singapore on Havelock Road and witness the morning and afternoon rush on
Orchard Road at Dhoby Ghaut. Our cameras
then board SBS6778B, a Mercedes-Benz Citaro for a ride on route 16 to
Bedok. Action at this busy interchange
is captured before joining SBS7560E, a Volvo B9TL with Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 bodywork
on the SBS service to Tampines. Since
our last visit in 2002, Tampines has developed into a busy town with plenty of
bus action for you to enjoy. Leaving the
bus interchange we board another Citaro, this time it is SBS6484Z, operated by
Go-Ahead Singapore, to the pretty bus station at Pasir Ris. Set amongst lawns and tropical trees, even
the bus shelters have a look of Indian temples!
The bus station is operated by Go-Ahead Singapore and features a good
selection of vehicles from the Go-Ahead and SBS Transit fleets. We next travel onboard SBS7707A, another
Volvo B9TL, as we journey from Havelock Road to Hougang bus interchange. Hougang is home to a large SBS Transit bus
depot and a number of Citaros are seen from our bus out and about on training
duties. At the bus station we see some
of SBS’s Duple Metsec bodied Dennis Tridents, similar to the ones operated in
Hong Kong. These double-deckers were new
on our last visit in 2002 and now they are near the end of their days in
service! Sengkang is our next location
before reaching our final destination at Punggol. Punggol bus interchange is operated by
Go-Ahead Singapore and has only recently been built. There is plenty of action for you to see in
the bright sunshine with the temperature during our visit to Singapore reaching
35 degrees centigrade each day! We hope
you enjoy your visit here on DVD!
A good deal has
changed since our last visit in 2002.
Then the main operator was SBS Transit and Trans Island Bus Services
(TIBS) being the smaller operator, which in 2001 merged with the SMRT
Corporation, the operator of Singapore’s rapid transit railway system. SBS (Singapore Bus Services) was renamed
DelGro Corporation in 1997 and then ComfortDelGro in 2003, but the buses
retained the SBS fleet name. In 2001 the
buses were branded SBS Transit and this introduced a red, purple and white
livery. Moving forward to 2012 the Bus
Service Enhancement Programme (BSEP) was introduced which put into action many
changes. The Land Transport Authority
(LTA) had taken responsibility for all surface transport in 2009 and in 2014 it
moved towards a Bus Contracting Model (BCM). This means that the state owns all the bus
infrastructure, depots, interchanges and the vehicles with the bus operators
providing the services. The bus network
is being divided into packages, each covering several routes. The routes, at the time of filming in
November 2017 were operated by SBS, SMRT, Australian owned Tower Transit (Tower
Transit Singapore) and British owned Go-Ahead (Go-Ahead Singapore). A new livery of all over lush green has been
introduced to all vehicles regardless of operator, but the vehicles carry the
fleet name of the respective operator.