To improve the commuter flow, three-door buses will soon be introduced in Singapore. But before this, Land Transport Authority (LTA) has deployed two of these buses on the city roads to study the impact of such designs in improving the commuter flow. The trial will be for a period of six months.
The double-decker bus is being operated by Tower Transit on Service 143 from March 13 while the single-decker bus will be run by SMRT from second quarter of 2017. The service number for SMRT will be announced at a later date. The services will cover both residential and commercial areas and will allow LTA to gather feedback from a diverse group of commuters.
The above step has been taken to improve commuter flow, especially during boarding and alighting. The bus will also have two staircases – one going up and the other coming down – giving commuters a dedicated exit route from the upper deck and out directly through the third door.
The buses also have enhanced features like designated wheelchair spaces, a passenger information display system and USB ports.
The concept of three-door buses was introduced in the Bus Carnival, 2016 where about 90 per cent of 22,000 people surveyed supported having a third door on buses while another 95 per cent said a second staircase on double-decker buses would be useful.
Yeo Teck Guan, LTA's group director of Public Transport, said," The three-door bus concept was a hit with the public at the bus carnival last year. Deploying the three-door buses will allow us to study this concept further by observing commuter flow and how the bus adapts to the existing infrastructure. The review of public bus design is a key part of making public transport a choice mode of transport as we move towards a car-lite society.”
People can give their feedback on the three-door bus at www.lta.gov.sg/feedback/.