Commuters were even more indignant at the fact that the two public transport service providers were public-listed companies. There were charges of a conflict of interest between the drive for profitability and shareholder returns — which necessitated cost-cutting, for example — and the provision of a public service. SMRT Corp was also a landlord. In its FY2012 annual report, released shortly after the December 2011 disruptions, it said it leased out some 34,400 sq m of commercial space within the train network.
SINGAPORE (May 20): Two-minute intervals between trains. Fewer breakdowns. Clean, new buses running at a higher frequency. Bright LED screens displaying details of stops on both buses and trains. To many commuters who are enjoying these benefits, the meltdown of Singapore’s transport system in December 2011, and again in July 2015, is a distant memory.
Certainly, services have improved significantly. There are new trains and buses, while existing ones have been spiffed up. There has been an overhaul of the older rail systems, presumably including fixing the grips for the electricity rail that were, at one point, secured by plastic cable ties. Indeed, the train disruptions were blamed on severe shortcomings in maintenance, as well as a lack of investment in upgrading what was a heavily used, 25-year-old network. There were also complaints about the unreliability and poor frequency of the bus services — which struggled to cope with the hundreds of thousands of commuters who spilled out of the train stations during the disruptions.
