I AM not surprised that public transport usage has dropped, going by my experience of the quality of service.

Though I have a car, I sometimes use the MRT, and on rare occasions, the bus services.

My first experience with the electronic bus arrival information system recently left me with the impression that it is useless.

I arrived at a bus stop on Victoria Street, around 3.45 pm on 21 Oct, hoping to hop on a Service 851.

The electronic board indicated that the bus was expected to arrive in three minutes. And, after three minutes, the board indicated that Service 851 had 'arrived'.

Well, if it did, it was invisible to me.

The next bus, the board said, would arrive in about 7 minutes.

Though somewhat bewildered, I waited for this one.

It was good that I did not wander around the shops nearby, thinking I could be back in a few minutes and still catch the bus.

That is because the bus that was supposed to arrive after seven minutes showed up in less than three.

Perhaps regular bus commuters could give more feedback on the accuracy of this system.

If the system is incapable of delivering accurate arrival times, the money spent on maintaining it can be put to better use.

Richard Lim

This article was first published in The New Paper.