The Economic Times
18th Jan 2008
SINGAPORE: Singapore intends to open up its bus service sector to more competition following a review to improve public transport, the government said on Friday.
This could raise the number of bus operators in the city-state from the current two, ComfortDelGro's 75 per cent owned SBS Transit and rail operator SMRT, which is 54 per cent owned by state investor Temasek Holdings.
"There are limited economies of scale for bus operations above a fleet size of 500 buses. Hence, our current bus industry of about 3,700 buses could potentially support more than the current two operators,"
Transport Minister Raymond Lim said in a speech to announce the results of the year-long review. Lim said the intention is for operators to compete periodically for the right to provide bus services, adding that these operators "will have to fulfil service obligations or risk being replaced when their term is up".
The introduction of competition will be implemented after another year or so of studies, Lim said. The review will also change the way bus operators plan their service networks, putting the decision into the hands of the government.
SBS Transit currently operates more than 2,800 public buses while SMRT has 860. The government in 2003 liberalised Singapore's taxi industry by issuing new licenses to private operators, ending the duopoly also held then by government-linked ComfortDelGro and SMRT.
But ComfortDelGro continues to dominate the industry with about 16,000 of the 23,000 taxis plying the city-state, while SMRT has 3,000 and four other private operators split the remainder.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/International__Business/Singapore_to_open_public_bus_sector_to_competition/articleshow/2710195.cms
