1 November 2006 – SBS Transit is glad to learn that satisfaction amongst bus commuters has grown in the last one year and will continue to improve on its service offerings and find ways to address areas of dissatisfaction.

Survey findings released by the Public Transport Council (PTC) today showed that 8 in 10 respondents were satisfied with basic bus services, an increase over the 7 in 10 (70%) found in the 2005 survey. On a 10-point scale, the average overall satisfaction rating rose to 6.8 in 2006, as compared to 6.4 in 2005.

This, said SBS Transit Executive Director, Mr Ong Boon Leong, is good news.

“We are heartened to learn that our efforts at improving service quality has not gone unnoticed. We have worked hard at delivering good service at affordable prices and we are glad our customers appreciate it. But we recognize there will always be room for improvement and we will definitely continue looking at ways in which we can do better.”

According to the survey, the rating on bus services’ value-for-money also improved from 6.1 to 6.4. In all, 8 in 10 commuters surveyed felt that their daily expenditure on bus and train fares was affordable.

Equally significant was the fact that average satisfaction ratings for each of the 11 specific attributes cited by the PTC – including safety and security and walking time – saw an improvement over last year.

SBS Transit constantly refers to information gleaned from the annual PTC surveys, our own customer satisfaction surveys and customer feedback to make improvements to our bus and train services.

For example, to offer commuters greater value-for-money, SBS Transit recently launched SeasonPass, a monthly pass which offers users unlimited bus travel for a fixed price of just $98. Reception to this new product has been overwhelming, over more than 3,000 applications received in the month since launch.

SBS Transit has also been rolling out new services to cater to the different needs of consumers. Since last year, we have introduced 31 new services providing faster connections to new destinations.

To address issues like waiting time, which continue to be cited as an improvement, we have purchased 200 new air-conditioned, double-deck buses at a cost of $100 million. These investments are necessary in order to provide new services and cut down on waiting time for our commuters. Going forward, we intend to increase the number of buses we operate so as to improve the service frequency of our buses and meet our obligations required in the new Quality of Service Standards.

In our rail business, we have also continued to fine-tune and improve our service offerings. For example, to improve morning peak travel, we will be adding an additional train this month to reduce the waiting time for commuters from 3.5 minutes to 3 minutes. An additional train will also be added on Saturday and Sundays to reduce headway from 6.5 minutes to 6 minutes for most parts of the day.

And it’s not just our operations that have been continually upgraded. In May 2006, we relaunched our website (www.sbstransit.com.sg) to make it more commuter-friendly. A whole new range of e-services is now available to all our customers including:

• Downloadable credit-card sized timetables and computerised mapping to illustrate a service’s route
• Journey planner with estimated travel time based on either the cheapest or quickest way or one with least walking involved; and
• Emailing free service updates and promotions

We will continue to look at new ways to improve our service offerings in a cost-efficient manner.