Sunday, 13 March 2016

Singapore: Lush Green for their buses




Back in Singapore, LTA (Land Transport Authority) have announced that 'Lush Green' has been voted for by the public as the new colour for their bus liveries. This is a quick news update from my previous article.


The votes are in! Singapore has chosen Lush Green for the new unified livery for the Singapore Bus. It was a close call with Lush Green edging out Bright Red by just 144 votes in the public voting exercise which ended on 5 February 2016. In total, 57,505 valid votes were cast in the one-month voting period.


The colour green depicts environmental friendliness and is a symbol of growth, vitality, prosperity and progress. Members of the public can expect to see the brand new livery on new buses starting from the middle of this year.

The unified livery colour is a major milestone in the transition to the Bus Contracting Model that will begin in the middle of this year. With the transition to this new contracting model, the Government will gradually own all public buses and the common livery will create a unified and distinctive identity for our Singapore Bus.

Ive also found out that Alexander Dennis has unveiled their Enviro500 (3 axles) with 3 door and 2 staircases.


The chosen bus colour was unveiled by Senior Minister of State for Transport Ng Chee Meng on the sidelines of the inaugural Bus Carnival held on Friday (Mar 11).

At the carnival, the public will be able to give feedback on how the interior of the new buses should look like based on two new concept buses.

The concept buses on show had three doors and two staircases, with new features like USB charging ports and a Passenger Information Display that will give real-time information on the next bus-stop along its route.

LTA said that with three doors and two stairways, the aim is to speed up boarding and exiting of the buses.

"So with the separate door - the third door - what we hope is that people would be less adverse to moving into the buses, and also when they are alighting the bus, there would be less conflict with them and those boarding the buses. So then we will reduce pick up times at bus stops," said Mr Yeo Teck Guan, group director of public transport at LTA.

Some commuters Channel NewsAsia spoke to said there is room for improvement.

"I think the design has to be improved further, so that passengers, once you board the bus, you cannot hang around in the front," said Mr Neil Ho, a retiree. "You must move inside to make way for other passengers to board. And secondly, the lower deck of the bus should have more seats, because not all elderly, or handicapped people or even children will climb the stairs. That is in itself, especially for handicapped people and the elderly, is a problem."

"The driver's service is very important as well," said Ms Rita Gan, an operations director. "Besides knowing the language and knowing the locations, to also explain to the tourists where it is to direct them. As well as also, with the additional door, when kids are rushing in from the back door, he must have the right attitude based on safety, it's most important."

Image taken from Asia One News article.


So the New Routemaster is to feature an extra door and staircase at the rear to improve the flow of boarding. TFL ordered another 200 New Routemaster buses, yes, those hybrid buses with 3 doors and 2 staircases and as the New Routemaster designs continue to evolve we now see the Alexander Dennis Enviro400H City, but the question is 'after the New Routemaster project ends with a fleet of 1,000 will TFL require operators to buy buses with the extra door and staircase?'

Its interesting to watch how transport services around the world progress and hopefully we'll continue to see new innovations in the bus industry.

Here's a quick update on the New Bus for West Yorkshire:




I also wrote an article about their project, so it's a shame that the project was cancelled; hopefully First West Yorkshire will roll out buses with the designs based on the New Routemaster, like the Enviro400H City.

As always, you can follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Google Plus which is @CLondoner92

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