I heard that some experts are recommending that SMRT provide incentives in the form of monetary rewards to commuters to take the trains outside the peak hours. I think this is a very ingenious suggestion. How come no super talent can think of such a brilliant idea?
I am seriously considering doing that now and see how much money is SMRT going to incentivize me. Okay, my office starts work at 9 am. Now if I were to take the 7am train, I could miss the peak hours and get some money back from SMRT. If one way is 20c, two ways will be 40c daily. For 22 days, that will be a saving of $8.80 a month. Whoa, one year nearly $100! Not bad at all.
Now what am I going to do arriving at the office one hour earlier? One day two hours, one hour earlier to arrive and one hour later to leave, that is 44 hours a month or 500 over hours that I need to stay in the office.
Is it worth it for the $100 savings? Of course lah. Can spend more time doing own things or have more time to do office work. The bosses will be happy and may get higher variable bonuses some more. That means the monetary reward is more than $100 a year.
Ok, SMRT, please quickly implement this money reward schemes and reduce the jams during peak hours. It is definitely a win win win situation. I win, SMRT wins and my company also wins.
Simply brilliant.
I'm glad you blogged about this.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was the only person who thot the entire idea was stupid.
Any O level student would be able to come out with that kind of suggestion.
ReplyDeleteTo be effective and wasting people's valuable time, private and public organisations can stagger their workings with two options, 9-6pm or 8-5pm or variation of that where the staff are given the option to pick either one. For those that have to stick to one common working hours, just too bad, they will have to live with it. Many organisations can be flexible and may even be to the advantage of staff and organisation to have different working hours.
Then some can go early, some late, without wasting all the unnecessary time fiddling their fingers in the office.
Unbelieveable that they still can't get this going.
Getting foreigner experts to solve local problems is the MOST BRILLIANT SCHEME OF THE LOCAL LEADERSHIP. Just in case the solution fails to work, blames will be made on those foreigner experts. And the foreigner experts would be just happy to have collected their fees and not liable for any complication and consequence arising from their 'expertise'. It is a perfect SCHEME, win win for the Leaders and the Foreigner Experts. What can the People do?
ReplyDeleteI would rather pay 40cts more to guarantee seats both ways of my journey and ample breathing space. To be able to enter and exit the train in an orderly manner. Not to get crushed even in the stations. At the same time, I would like to stretch my legs out and have a short nap without hearing loud foreign language conversations and funny smell.
ReplyDeleteIf we continue to pay million dollar salaries to the ministers so that they can get expensive foreign experts to come in to offer an opinion , then something is very very wrong. Sinkies are more daft than what old man wants. Please wake up, the reason why these ministers are in place is to deliver the goods that they have been paid for. Ask foreigner to opine , LimPeh also know how to do, and I only ask for my CPF to be given back to me neah !!!
ReplyDeleteYou think you can get discount for traveling off peak? Tan Ku Ku. Knowing this gahmen,they will slap on surcharge for peak hour travel. $0.50 per trip surcharge. Then $1. Then $5. The Singapore gambling fund will go through the roof. HO HO HO
ReplyDeleteRB, your boss may object to your coming in 1hr earlier and going home 1hr. later because your doing so will incur extra power and water usage charges for lighting, for aircond.and washing and toilet flushes, etc. Unless your boss is not calculative.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they have considered this. As for my boss, no problem. You can come at 7 and leave at 10pm. The aircon will be on from 8 to6pm. You get suffocated or too hot, even the windows cannot be opened.
ReplyDeleteHere in the land of fat godless alcoholics, many businesses allow what is known as "flexitime". As long as you complete your work, and work a 38hr week, you choose the time you appear at the office.
ReplyDeleteBuggers like me who wake up at 0445 might choose to be at work at 7.That means I go home at 3. Some other frisky young buck who has been sexing all night might choose 1000hrs and goes home at 1800hr.
When you don't interfere and just allow people to choose, things work out. Good systems allow individual choice, and DEPEND on individual diversity.
Singapore still got a lot to learn about treating people like humans
Redbean,
ReplyDeletethey might already thinking of such scheme to incentivize the public but wait-long-long that they going to reduce the price.
Just like ERP:
- For those who use MRT during peak hours will need to pay 50cents, and the rest remains standard pricing.
How about that to incentivize the public ? I can be million-dollars minister too, or the next Cleopatra !
Just like ERP:
ReplyDelete- For those who use MRT during peak hours will need to pay 50cents MORE, and the rest remains standard pricing. and if situation still get worst, increase some more until public can tahan paying more for peak hour. PROBLEM SOLVED, and I didn't even have a PHD or million-dollars paycheck to think of that !
Both of you have your points. 5c creditted to those who ride outside peak hours and 10c hike for those during peak hours. This is called carrot and stick strategy. Sure work one.
ReplyDeleteHmm! Bringing the casino to the public and greed mentality in the making. Please, Singaporeans, have pride. Do not be greedy. If you have to, do it without monetary rewards. Don't follow the leaders. It is insulting that they always use $$$ to entice people.
ReplyDeleteOnce the crowd eased, the govt. will let in more foreigners and we are back at square one.
Hi anon 8:33, this idea is as good as those to prevent ponding.
ReplyDeleteBetterer still...those who want to travel during peak hours must bid for the right to do so. We can call it COT (Certificate of Travel).
ReplyDeleteRevenue from the COT will be used to improve the public transport system and to help the poor and the needy, improve the healthcare system and to ensure that singaporeans are gainfully employed.
Because the number of COTs is a function of the system capacity, there would not be any peak hour crush. Problem solved!
Wah this is dangerous idea man. From COE to COT, pronounce cock.
ReplyDeleteI must say it is brilliant. I like it : )
RB @1:39 PM,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you want to prevent ponding?
Ponding is good because when there is ponding, there is no flooding.
Ponding solves the problem of flooding.
This is by far the best reason I have seen. It is even better than GST to help the poor.
ReplyDeleteThank you: )
Deduct MRT fares from our CPF since we are never going to live to see it anyway
ReplyDeleteThe ideas are getting more frightening. The moment one bright spark discovers that there are so much money in cpf, they will raise fares and claim that the high fares are affordable. All can afford to pay mah. Everyone will end up lan lan liow.
ReplyDeleteWe are Lan Lan Already anyway , Parliament 81 majority , whatever issue debated is just Show . Which issue in Sinkie Land is not Lan Lan one ? Can anyone point out to this daft sinkie here prease ?
ReplyDelete@anon 2:03 PM,
ReplyDeleteIt is not 'prease', it is 'please'. You plick!
Even if those 81 PAP MPs does not agree with their master, they still need to vote for anything dish out from their master otherwise they will receive party-whip, so they realize that they rather whip themselves to vote whatever policies and thus can continue themselves with lavish position and salary, perks than to lose their highfalutin jobs.
ReplyDeleteWhat the F is this whip thing ? Damn stooopid . Must have whip to remind these Pigs to sing in unison isit ? Cartoon sial. Prease understand , this is my way of saying it can ?
ReplyDeleteAnon 2:03, crever leply..
ReplyDeleteOk guys , point taken. Please don't degrade our english standard any lower , I was just jesting. do mind your "R"s and "L"s. Sorry horr...
ReplyDeleteOoooops. I was praising anon 2:12.
ReplyDeleteAnd anon 2:33, okay to have a few righter, I mean lighter moments. My Engrish now suffering from bad influence: )
I think the best solution is for the government to encourage telecommute.
ReplyDeleteWhip the sadist first!
ReplyDeleteWhat a stupid idea to recommend paying commuters to travel outside peak hours. Who's the moron?! This moron must be some elite who can work at any time or don't need to show up for work if he/she don't feel like it i.e. the elites.
ReplyDeleteFor the rest of us who need to work till the day we die, we need to report to work ON TIME, meaning we'll need to travel during peak period. We don't have the luxury of choosing when we want to start work.
The better recommendation would be to stop influx of FTs. For the existing FTs and PRs, they should stop renewing their permits.
The recommendation to pay people not to travel during peak hours proves one point i.e. overcrowding of the trains + lack maintenance = train faults! Those morons are seriously idiots. Paid them millions, yet they come up with idiotic ideas and at the same time slapped themselves in the face.
Mind you. Fortunately, there is no Nobel Laurette who was the expert in MRT operation. LTA and NUS have engaged Stanford University professor to study this suggestion, that is, how to incentivize people to not take MRT during peak hours to solve the congestion problem. Heard the project costs $250K. NUS also get associated with one of the world famous university and becomes an ANUS (Associated NUS). Not too distant ago, our MND had also spent $250K to seek an appropriate name for Marina Bay and the recommendation is Marina Bay (no change in name with payment).
ReplyDeleteIf one has an opportunity to visit USA, one would witness the present status of MRT in USA. One would wonder what this Stanford Professor could contribute something that cannot do in his own country.
In fact, we are paying $250K to help training this Stanford Professor so that this will go into his personal CV for further similar future jobs in other country. He will not get the similar project in his own country because the country now has no more money to do anything on infrastructure. USA needs to spend money to maintain its navy in Asia Pacific while domestic problems like healthcare, schools and infrastructure are getting worser each year.
We need a Nobel Laurette to solve our transport problem. We need another Nobel Laurette to solve our floods problems. We need another Nobel Laurette to solve our...
ReplyDeleteWhat are our highly ranked universities doing? Are they still learning from those inward looking Americans?
My friend recently went to a water institute of NUS and was surprised to see almost all the staff, students, workers there are Indians and most are from India. The Indian chief is also an Indian from India. My friend thought this water institute could be actually an Indian institute located in Singapore for some unknown reason. But, I think it is because in this world only India has water problems so Indians are the expert.
Recently, it could be a case that US government wanted to justify their future presence and actions in the Asia Pacific region. They desperately wanted more information about the nuclear weapons status of China which they find little information as this is top secret in China.
ReplyDeleteUSA government or CIA had engaged an American Professor (likely an inward looking type) and his students to do the research. They found that China has 3,000 nuclear warheads so this justify US presence in Asia Pacific region to counter China. They did the research on web and blogs, and even movies.
This is what many USA professor do in his research and he is appointed by the US government to do the research. This is really a joke.
The moral of the story is that Sinkapore should never blindly engage any professor from the US because many of them are inward looking type. Their view is only in the USA and the most Europe. You will be surprised many of them do not know anything about Asia. I personally come across many US scientists who have never traveled to Asia and know very little about Asia. They still thought Asia is very rural and undeveloped. Was that Stanford professor surprised that Sinkapore has a very modern and advanced MRT system except that it has not been properly maintained for mis-management? The problem here is that so long as it is from famous US university they must be good.
If we continue to foolishly throw money at foreign talents and disregard our local talents, not only would we make a fool of ourselves, make our super talents looked stupid, it will deprive the chances for out own talent to prove themselves, to learn and to gain confidence in their ability to be as good if not betterer than foreigners.
ReplyDeleteThis is like not using our own MediaCorp artistes and keep getting foreing artistes to star in our own production. How silly can we be?
Our bankers and finance professionals are looking so stupid now that all the top positions are handed to foreigners who have lousier qualifications than them but given the chance to experiment and learn on the job.
So far all the recommendations by the experts are not something that you and I cannot think of even without being professionals in the business. So who is the bigger fool?
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