Speech by Minister of State for Transport and Law, Mr Murali Pillai, at MOT Committee of Supply Debate 2025

Buses: Workhorses of the Road 

1.     Mr Chairman, let me begin by addressing the issue of safety on our public buses, which Mr Saktiandi Supaat has asked about. As Minister Chee has announced, I am pleased to report that the Bus Safety Tripartite Taskforce has completed its work. The Government has accepted the recommendations of the Taskforce, and will work closely with our tripartite partners to implement them over the coming years.

2.     Mr Chairman, buses are the workhorse of our roads. Every day, four million trips are made on our public buses by commuters. At the peak, about 6,000 public buses ply our roads. A system at this scale – which includes almost 10,000 bus captains – requires sustained and unceasingly effort to maintain a strong safety record. The Government, together with our tripartite partners, are fully committed to this.  But to succeed, we need the public behind us. 

3.     As part of this effort, the Bus Safety Taskforce was formed in July last year.  

4.     The Taskforce approached this exercise in the spirit of ensuring that commuters, bus captains, and other road users continue to have strong confidence in the safety of our public buses. We would like to thank all stakeholders who participated in this important work.  

5.     We are starting from a position of strength. The annual number of serious road accidents involving public buses has been stable in the past few years. 

6.     Nevertheless, there is room to improve. Members of public gave feedback on bus captains’ driving, the design of buses, as well as bus scheduling. Bus captains offered suggestions on similar issues – in addition, they shared real life challenges faced while on the road - motorists encroaching into bus priority boxes, yellow boxes or bus lanes, as well as with cyclists who cycle close to the blind spots of the bus.

7.     The Taskforce has taken a serious look at all these suggestions, and consulted with both local and international safety practitioners and experts from the bus sector, before arriving at our recommendations. 

Issues Identified and Key Recommendations

8.     Mr Shawn Huang asked how we can better support bus captains in carrying out their role. Indeed, a common thread throughout the Taskforce’s discussion is that bus captains have a demanding job. 

9.     In my first meeting with public transport union leaders after we formed this Taskforce, Brother Peh Chee Kang, Vice President of the National Transport Workers’ Union, pointed out that driving a public bus is like piloting an aircraft. Besides operating large vehicles through busy streets while staying on schedule, bus captains must take care of the safety of passengers, and help commuters navigate to their destination. Unlike planes, there is no autopilot available for bus captains – they are constantly multitasking and looking out for other road users. 

10.    The Taskforce was clear that ensuring bus safety means giving our bus captains the best support to do their job well – our recommendations were focused on two major aspects (i) equipping bus captains with the right tools and (ii) providing them a conducive working environment.

11.    Today, I will highlight a few key recommendations. 

The Human Dimension of Safety 

(A) Equipping Bus Captains with the Right Tools 

12.    The first area are technologies to improve the situational awareness of our bus captains. The Taskforce has recommended that the Government equip our buses with 360-degree collision warning, anti-fatigue, and camera mirror systems. 

13.    Bus Captain Mohammed Syazwan Bin Mohammed Salim from Tower Transit Singapore is one of those who experienced first-hand how anti-fatigue systems can enhance road safety. The system actively prompted him when he yawned, which was useful in maintaining his alertness while driving and ensured the safety of the bus captain as well as commuters. 

14.    Second, technology helps our commuters and other road users stay safe when they are on or around buses. In this regard, the Taskforce recommended a number of safety features such as better torque management, audio safety announcements onboard buses and an enhanced rear electronic display system. 

15.    To address the feedback by bus captains on having to multi-task, LTA will also explore whether the number of display units in the driving cabin can be reduced to lessen the cognitive load on bus captains. 

16.    The Government will review the various technologies recommended by the Taskforce through pilots and study the feasibility of incorporating such technologies into existing fleets and making these technologies a requirement for upcoming bus purchases.

(B) Improving Internal Processes and Practices 

17.    Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked how we can further improve the working conditions of bus captains to help manage their workload. This brings us to the other major set of recommendations by the Taskforce that deals with the human dimension of safety – focussed on creating a more conducive working environment for bus captains to perform their roles effectively. 

18.    We have a range of recommendations in this area, and I will focus on bus runtimes and training for bus captains, which we believe will have the broadest impact. 

19.    Firstly, on the management of runtime. The runtime is the total time taken for a bus captain to complete a route. It affects safety because if runtimes are not scheduled correctly, bus captains come under pressure to stay on schedule. Today, bus operators, bus captains, together with LTA already do regular reviews of runtimes to account for changes in traffic conditions and travel patterns. They will continue to do so. 

20.    But beyond having realistic runtimes, the Taskforce felt that runtimes should not be too long. As Mr Ang Wei Neng pointed out, we have some routes with scheduled runtimes exceeding two hours, and bus captains gave us feedback that such prolonged period of continuous driving can cause discomfort for them, such as the need for toilet breaks, and could cause lapses in concentration. 

21.    LTA has committed to not introducing bus routes with scheduled runtimes exceeding two hours. In addition, LTA and bus operators will review our existing bus services with long runtimes, to see how we can make them more manageable for our bus captains, such as by adjusting the routes or swapping bus captains in the middle of a long route. As any adjustments will have an impact on commuters, we will review such routes carefully and implement any changes progressively.

22.    Besides scheduling, the Taskforce made a number of recommendations on bus captain training. In our engagements, the Taskforce observed different models both locally and abroad, of how a strong training regime can make a difference to driver confidence and retention. Some of the good practices we saw, such as more personalised training and peer support, can be more prevalent across the bus sector. 

23.    I’m glad to announce that we will be introducing an industry-wide training point system, as recommended by the Taskforce. Under this system, bus operators will track the number of training points that their bus captains obtain per year, corresponding to a baseline level of continuing training each year. This ensures all bus captains receive the necessary training to refresh their skills and keep up to date with best practices.

24.    On the Government’s part, the Singapore Bus Academy will improve its training offerings, to better support bus operators and bus captains to achieve their training targets. We will share more details on these in due course.

(C) Improving the Road Environment 

25.    Besides improving the working conditions for bus captains, Mr Saktiandi will be glad to know that the Taskforce has also made several recommendations to improve the road environment to better support bus operations. 

26.    One aspect that affects all road users is the management of road works. Bus captains told us that they encounter situations where barriers are placed improperly, resulting in difficulty faced in manoeuvring buses through affected stretches, or when inexperienced road marshals do not provide proper guidance. 

27.    To address this issue, LTA will work with relevant agencies to upskill workers responsible for managing traffic during road works, to make sure that contractors are able to comply with regulations. We will also review the penalty framework, to take a tougher stance against contractors who do not comply, and cause obstructions.

28.    Finally, commuters and other road users have an important role to play too in ensuring the safety of buses. LTA and the bus operators will continue to work with organisations like Traffic Police and Singapore Road Safety Council, to carry out publicity efforts to improve commuters’ awareness of safe practices onboard buses, as well as other road users’ awareness of and compliance with measures to facilitate bus movement. 

Conclusion

29.    We will provide more details on how we will be implementing these and other recommendations of the Taskforce in due course. 

Maritime

30.    Let me now speak about Maritime Singapore. 

31.    As Minister Chee mentioned, Maritime Singapore did well last year, breaking several records:

a.     Annual vessel arrival tonnage reached 3.11 billion Gross Tonnage, and Singapore’s container throughput crossed 40 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, for the first time.

b.     Total bunker sales hit a new record of 54.92 million tonnes, with sales of alternative fuel crossing the 1 million tonne mark for the first time.

c.     The International Maritime Centre grew in scale and diversity too, with close to 200 shipping groups with a presence in Singapore, and more than 30 companies were established or expanded operations here. 

32.    Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked how we achieved these records. These achievements did not come easy. While other ports in countries with more land and labour can compete on cost and larger consumption bases, Singapore competes on efficiency and reliability. Due to the Red Sea crisis and congestion in ports around the world, shipping lines relied on Singapore to handle increasingly complex cargo movements and demand as they unloaded cargoes bound for Asian ports beyond Singapore and used Singapore to rearrange containers on vessels to mitigate delays. 

33.    Through these challenges, we remained resilient, thanks to our tripartite partners and the hard work of maritime workers.

Looking ahead: Navigating geopolitical waves

34.    With strong competition and an uncertain outlook ahead, we cannot rest on our laurels. 

35.    Because of our stable political environment, we are able to plan and build for the future with the multi-decade development of Tuas Port. Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked for an update. Eleven berths are operational, and seven more are scheduled to commence operations by 2027. When completed in the 2040s, Tuas Port will have more than 60 berths.

36.    As PM Wong said in his Budget speech, global economic competition is intensifying, and we will be left behind if we fail to stay competitive. 

37.    Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked how we will ensure that we remain competitive amidst fierce competition in the region. We plan to seize opportunities amidst future growth and challenges in three areas: 1) Technology, 2) Decarbonisation, and 3) Talent Development.

Technology

38.    First, we are leveraging technology to sharpen Maritime Singapore’s competitive edge. 

39.    To Mr Gan Thiam Poh and Ms Poh Li San’s questions, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, or MPA, will use technology to streamline port and marine services to enable the industry to enjoy higher productivity and reduced costs and manpower needs.

a.     One example is the use of AI to streamline the processing of Port Clearance Certificates by reducing the need to manually input information from multiple ship certificates. This system will be implemented over the next few years, and enhance the accuracy of data entry and verification, and reduce the time taken to obtain the Certificate from up to three days to just a few minutes! 

40.    We will facilitate the development of new solutions for the maritime ecosystem.

a.    We will be expanding our maritime innovation test-beds and regulatory sandboxes to more locations within the port for testing of new solutions, such as remote or autonomous operations. 

b.     MPA is on track to complete the third and final phase of Maritime 5G coverage by this year. Stronger connectivity, more consistent data coverage and bandwidth will enable the provision of new maritime services. 

c.     Together, this means that successful pilots for innovative solutions will more quickly become a part of day-to-day port operations. We will also develop response capabilities using drones to track and enhance safety for first responders.  

Decarbonisation

41.    Next, we will position ourselves as a bunkering hub for alternative fuels.

42.    Building on our hard-earned reputation as a reliable bunkering hub, we are committed to support the industry’s safe transition to alternative fuels. To answer Mr Neil Parekh’s question, we are taking the lead to develop Technical References for alternative fuels, which provide shipping companies better quality and quantity assurance when bunkering alternative fuels in Singapore. 

a.    We are upgrading the provisional national quality standard for marine biofuel into a Technical Reference to include biofuel blends up to 100% biofuel and non-FAME products. 

b.    This complements the International Maritime Organization’s recent announcement that conventional oil tankers may soon be allowed to carry biofuel blends containing up to 30% biofuel instead of the current limit of 25% biofuel.

c.    For methanol bunkering, two sets of standards will be launched in March 2025 – MPA and Enterprise Singapore will launch a standard on the requirements for methanol bunkering, and MPA will launch standards on the equipment and operational efficiency for methanol bunker tankers. This marks an important step towards operationalising methanol bunkering at scale in our port. We are also targeting to launch a new standard for ammonia bunkering this year. 

Talent Development

43.    Finally, we will press on with talent development.  

44.    Mr Gan Thiam Poh, Mr Neil Parekh and Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked how we can ensure that we have a robust pipeline of talent with the right skills and competencies to maintain the competitiveness and productivity of Maritime Singapore. MPA, together with industry and unions, are doing so at two levels:

a.     First, we will groom future leaders of the industry by raising the annual intake of the Maritime Leadership Programme, or MLP, from about 20 to 25 places to admit industry leaders from adjacent trading and logistics sectors. 

b.     MPA will also support the onboarding of MLP alumni to the Singapore Leaders’ Network, a leadership community that prepares Singaporeans for regional and global leadership roles by providing overseas transition support and mentorship opportunities. 

c.     Together, these changes will strengthen cross-sector collaboration and provide opportunities for maritime professionals to learn about adjacent sectors, and vice versa.

d.     Second, we are equipping workers with new skills to better meet industry’s needs. MPA has established the Maritime Energy Training Facility to train the global maritime workforce in safe handling and operating of vessels using alternative fuels. MPA is also on track to launch the Maritime Testbed of Shipboard Operational Technology System, or MariOT, by March 2025, which provides training in cybersecurity for operational technology systems in a realistic shipboard environment. Over the next three years, we expect more than 300 students and professionals to benefit from this simulation platform.

45.    Working with our partners, we will continue to invest in a strong pipeline of talent to the maritime industry.

46.    Sir, transport is a vital public service that moves people across our island and plugs our economy into the open seas. On both land and sea, you will see that it is our people that make the difference, and this Government will continue to invest in this critical human dimension, for now and into the future. 

47.    Thank you.