Requests to public transport operators
For years, the Singapore public transport operators had made countless requests. Among which, the more memorable, frequent and recent would be passing on the increase of their operating costs to the consumer by means of increasing fares.
Perhaps it's time for the users to start making valid requests to these operators too, and I'll start by listing just a few.
1) Noise level
The reason to set the Ipod volume at 100 decibels and above? Just to hear what is being played while traveling in an environment that's already at 81 decibels. That is 4 decibels away getting hearing damage from long term exposure. And all along I believed that we're a conservative and cautious society who prefer to err on the safe side.
2) Acknowledge that they are monopolies in their respective mode of transport (Read: Comfortdelgro, SMRT)
Facts: From Comfordelgro, Annual Report 2006
a) Profit from Diesel sales - 4.1% of total profits or $14.6million.
What it means - Divided equally among all 15,000 Comfortdelgro taxis in Singapore, each cabbie will be about $973 richer in 2006.
b) Profit from taxi operations - $109 million
Revenue from taxi operations - $866.5 million
Profit margin from taxi operations - 12.6%
Group Operating profits - $305.4 million
Group Revenue - $2761.8 million
Group Profit margin - 11%
What it means - taxi operation is one of the more profitable business segments for the company, which brings us back to the question, who is more directly involved in affecting the cabbie's take-home pay? Who decides the cabbies' cost structure? Reducing the profit margin by 1.6% to 11% will save the cabbies $13.7million in 2006. That's $913 each. Including savings from the profit from diesel sales, that's $1886/cabbie. Sounds like a reasonable 13th month bonus.
c) Energy and fuel cost - $196 million
Staff cost - $862.9 million
Staff cost of top 6 Executives (taken at the lowest end of the renumeration band)
- $1,750,000 + $750,000 + $500,000 x 3 + $250,000 = $4.25 million
Operating Cost - $2487 million
Energy cost as a percentage of operating cost - 7.9%
Staff cost as a percentage of operating cost - 34.7%
What it means - 7.9% didn't seem as much a pressing concern or room for improvements compared to 34.7%. But increasing staff cost without increasing revenue will be hard to explain to shareholders. Increasing fares in a monopoly market to maintain/increase margins sits in better with shareholders and subsequently, performance-based renumeration. A monkey can run such an operation. The difference is you just need to pay the monkey peanuts.
Question at the end of the day: Why do you corporatize a national interest which happens to operate in a monopoly market, and then set up a Public Transport Council to oversee it? Politically sensitive strategy to enter overseas market? A fool will see through the cover with GLCs as the major shareholders.
3) Improve hygiene level
Is there a need for us to go through another SARS to keep our buses clean? It is hard-pressed to believe that a bus was cleansed frequently when you see the amount of grim accumulated on a 8am bus.
4) Be part of the new Clean & Green Singapore 2007
It continues to baffle me on the restriction of private vehicles to petrol-powered engines, while public transport continues their pollution with their diesel engines. Granted that new diesel engines might be cleaner than existing petrol engines but the majority of our buses and taxis hardly looks new. The state of our buses and taxis brings us back to point number 1 & 3. A quick & dirty Google search will yield this.
Anyone care to add any more to the list?
