Park Byung Joon has written a good opinion piece in yesterday's The Straits Times titled: "Making Public Transport Accountable".
In light of the spate of MRT breakdowns and disruptions affecting thousands of commuters every month, many Singaporeans, including myself have called for the nationalisation of the MRT system as this will shift the profit-oriented focus of the MRT operator into a more public-service oriented mode.
Drawing on cases in London and highlighting the fact that the tracks and system in our MRT system has been operating for more than 20 years which inevidently means that the tracks and rails need more maintenance to be in good conditions, Park opined that a new private entity could be set up to look into the servicing and maintenance or rail tracks while SMRT or SBST focuses on their sole priority: running train services with LTA keeping the regulatory function.
I think this is quite a good idea.
In light of the spate of MRT breakdowns and disruptions affecting thousands of commuters every month, many Singaporeans, including myself have called for the nationalisation of the MRT system as this will shift the profit-oriented focus of the MRT operator into a more public-service oriented mode.
Drawing on cases in London and highlighting the fact that the tracks and system in our MRT system has been operating for more than 20 years which inevidently means that the tracks and rails need more maintenance to be in good conditions, Park opined that a new private entity could be set up to look into the servicing and maintenance or rail tracks while SMRT or SBST focuses on their sole priority: running train services with LTA keeping the regulatory function.
I think this is quite a good idea.