LTA calling for public feedback to make buses safer
Public feedback is being sought to improve the safety of public buses following a recent spate of accidents involving these vehicles.
The Land Transport Authority on Aug 23 launched an online survey inviting the public to rate how safe they feel when travelling on public buses and to send in suggestions for how safety can be improved.
In a Facebook post on Aug 23, Minister of State for Transport Murali Pillai encouraged Singaporeans to share their frank feedback, which he said would help the authorities find solutions that would “benefit bus captains, commuters and other road users”.
The survey is one of the measures by the Bus Safety Tripartite Taskforce headed by Mr Murali, which seeks to identify ways for the bus industry to make further improvements, and build on safety initiatives and practices.
“In the months ahead, the task force will be engaging different stakeholders, including commuters and bus captains, for their views on what more we can do to improve bus safety,” Mr Murali wrote on Facebook.
The task force comprises representatives from government agencies, the National Transport Workers’ Union, all four public bus operators and the Singapore Road Safety Council. The four operators are SBS Transit, SMRT Buses, Go-Ahead Singapore and Tower Transit Singapore. In all, they operate about 5,800 public buses.
The latest effort follows a number of accidents involving public buses. In June, there were at least five such accidents.
The Government had said previously that the number of serious accidents involving public buses has remained stable each year over the past few years. There were 75 such accidents in the first five months of 2024, compared with 207 in the whole of 2023 and 207 in the whole of 2022.
In 2023, 3.75 million public bus rides were taken each day, on average.
Mr Murali also pointed out that the number of workplace injuries for rail and bus operations has dropped. There were 37 such cases in the first half of 2024, down from 49 over the same period in 2023, said Mr Murali, who also spoke at a ceremony for the Public Transport Safety and Security Awards on Aug 23.
“While these trends are moving in the right direction, we must stay humble, remain vigilant and build on these improvements, to reduce workplace injuries further,” he said in his speech.
Mr Murali also said it is important to have the mindset that “every accident is an accident too many”.
“This is why whenever any accident occurs, it is extremely important for us to come together to investigate root causes and implement improvements, so that we can move closer to our collective target of zero accidents,” he added.
The survey can be found at go.gov.sg/bussafetyfeedback
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