WITH 2009 shaping up to be a 'difficult year', the Government will try to moderate public transport costs next year, promised Transport Minister Raymond Lim on Sunday.
The Public Transport Council (PTC) will continue to take economic conditions into account in its annual assessment of bus and train fares, due in the second half of next year, he added.

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It is advisable for Lim to brush up on the concept of correlation. Nobody claims the relationship between oil prices and fare prices is 1:1. Neither is there a demand that the correlation be linear. Hence an increase of 40% in oil price is fully compatible with an increase of 0.7% in fare price (the latter being a rather arbitrary function of operator's profit). By the same token, the commuters fully expect that a substantial fall in the oil price to translate into a reduction in fare price. No excuses.

The commuters in Singapore require special protection precisely because the GLCs operate a virtual monopoly in the transport sector. In a free market, no operator should command a guaranteed profit. Profit and loss should be determined by the market. That it is NOT the case in Singapore has already translated into market inefficiency. MOT should spend its time to improve market efficiency instead of defending the operators' profits.

of course when oil prices goes up, train fares had to go up in tanderm...
but when oil prices go down prices DO NOT go in correlation..
when companys and GLCs wants to earn your money and gain record profits every year, you just have to keep paying...in good times and bad one as well....

Mr Lim, "will try" is not go enough.
This government has all the resources and power to impose a public transportation fare cut and give subsidies to the needy.

Govt MUST CUT transport costs.

Anything less than that, Mr Lim please resign.

hands up if you don't mind paying 8.5% GST to have 100% free public transport (excluding taxis)! this will benefit the poor more than the rich given their discretionary spending habits.

bullshit, they still want to have good profit, so do power company.

There are more foreigners taking our public transport (Buses & MRT), Singaporeans are mostly driving or taking taxis. So we should reduce public transport by too much, instead give subsidy to Singaporeans, i.e old folks, students or with special passes.

This explanation by Transport minister on bus and MRT fare increase have no relation to oil price hike is a full load of nonsense. When they increased fare, all reasons were tie to increase in oil prices. When oil now comes down so much, they deny such correlation. How can we trust our govt at all. This is absolutely outrages!!

In an earlier report, dated, 01 August 2008.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...364326/1/.html


Quote:
SBS Transit and SMRT attributed the need for a fare increase to soaring energy and fuel price

So, it is obvious that our Transport Minister did not get his facts right. Could he want to comment on this report backed dated in August 2008?

GLCs providing monopolised public services have to be mindful of their roles. doling out vouchers instead of working on affordability gives the impression that the society is full of paupers.