Speech by Senior Minister of State for Transport Dr Janil Puthucheary at Travel Smart Day 2018

Introduction

1.     Thank you for inviting me to join you on our sixth Travel Smart Day. Thank you for joining us this morning.

2.     I am very happy to see the continued support of many long-time partners like IBM, Suntec Singapore, and Rajah and Tann. The support of our corporate partners, our community, is always important in making anything work well. How we make those individual personal choices, really does depend on that sense of partnership with employers and our community.

Making Better Use of Upgraded Public Transport Network

3.     We need to make better use of our upgraded public transport network and  that upgrading has been going on since our public transport network since our first Travel Smart Day in 2013. During that time, we have expanded the rail network by more than 50km, including the Downtown Line 3 which commenced operations in October 2017; Added 188 additional MRT trains, 29 LRT train cars, and more than 1,000 buses.

4.     The performance of our network has improved significantly. The Mean Kilometres Between Failure (MKBF) for the entire network has improved from 67,000 train-km to 555,000 train-km in the first quarter of this year. A huge order of magnitude improvement and a testament to the efforts of our engineering fraternity in land transport and our public transport network.

5.     We also moved to encourage more commuters to travel off-peak, when the network is less utilised to drive the more efficient use of our additional public transport resources. This included the introduction of Differential Fares Scheme in Dec 2017, which is a 50-cent discount to commuters making MRT journeys before 7.45am to encourage off-peak travel. And more than 300,000 commuters have benefitted from these Differential Fares, which is an 8% increase from last year. Commuters enjoyed the benefit of the differentiated fares, changing their travel patterns, moving from the peak of peaks, so benefitting everybody, not just the 8% who have chosen to make the change. It has also helped to improve cost efficiency, the use of resources in delivering the public transport services. Those of you who don’t make the choice still enjoy the benefits, your rides are less congested rides and you can feel the difference.

6.     There are other programmes that are complementing this differential fares scheme, such as the Travel Smart Programme. An opportunity for commuters to earn incentives by travelling off-peak and also getting our employers to become involved in how their workers choose their commute.

Building on our Travel Smart Initiatives

7.     Our Travel Smart Programme has grown from strength to strength and has built upon our initial set of initiatives. There are now more than 100,000 active users of the Travel Smart Rewards initiative. All of them stand a chance to win $1,500 for just using the app. So I hope all of you have downloaded the app and logged on and created your accounts.

8.     We have also included 220 companies. We expanded the network of corporate partners to include 220 companies for a total of 360,000 employees. Some of the companies that have made use of the Travel Smart programme are represented here today: Edmund Tie & Company, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Robert Bosch. Thank you for coming on board and getting involved in some of our partnerships.

#wetravelsmart Winners Announcement

9.     To recognise companies that are successful in encouraging their employees to Travel Smart, LTA has held the third round of the #wetravelsmart Corporate Challenge. The winners of the  Corporate Challenge 2018, with the highest increase in the number of active Travel Smart Rewards initiative members are: Arup Singapore Pte Ltd (among companies with 500 or less employees); and DBS Bank Ltd (among companies with more than 500 employees). Very impressive that you managed to encourage 500 employees to sign up for Travel Smart Rewards over a short period of time of six weeks. Thank you for the big push.

10.    We are very encouraged by the support of our partners like Arup and DBS which have committed to Travel Smart. Thank you for the support given to these programmes.

Travel Smart Information (TSI) Announcement

11.    We will continue to build on our Travel Smart initiatives. For example, to allow commuters to make more informed travel choices, LTA will pilot the “Travel Smart Information” initiative from July this year.

12.    Posters will be put up at the 20 busiest stations, detailing which train cars are less crowded and easier to board; and some information about the crowding levels at various times. The provision of incentives and rewards as well as the information to inform  commuters to make simple changes to their travel times to take better advantage of our off-peak travel incentive schemes, or even choose different where you board to improve their commuting experience.

Conclusion

13.    We have come a long way in our public transport network service since our first Travel Smart Day in 2012.

14.    However, just as our public transport system continues to grow and our commuters’ needs evolve, we have to continue updating our programme, our initiatives, our structures, our rewards to develop new ways using technology where we can, innovative incentives and interventions to encourage commuters to make best use of their public transport network, to help ourselves to be better commuters and create a better experience for everyone.

15.    Thank you very much for support all these initiatives and thank you very much for joining us here this morning.