".......FROM 1 July, bus and train fares will go up between three cents and 10 cents. About 87 per cent of commuters will have to pay more for using the public transport....In the year ending 31 March, SBS Transit profits dipped 22 per cent to $39.6 million, while its operating expenses went up 5.6 per cent to $501 million. ...In May 2002, SMRT announced that its expenses went up about 26 per cent to almost $320 million for the year ending on 31 March 2002. Revenue, however, increased by only 21 per cent to $500 million. Its net profit for the year dropped almost 45 per cent to about $57 million...."
(Read more here...)
FLASHNOW 2005
"....SMRT Corp reported a record net profit of $126.9 million in the last financial year. ComfortDelGro - due to release its full year results next week - recorded a two-thirds rise in net earnings for the nine months ending Sept 30, mainly from overseas contributions...."
(Read more here...)
I seldom take the MRT or busses since The Don usually sends me to work in the mornings and fetches me from work. And when I do take the public transport (on my Girls' Night Out for eg), I hardly ever take note of the fare and deductions to my EZ Link card. Imagine my surprise that day when I forgot to bring my EZ-Link card and had to purchase a single trip ticket for my journey home. I held 3 fifty cents coins in my hand as I approached the ticket machine, not sure of the exact fare but convinced surely it couldn't be more than $1.50. After all the max train ticket was $1.60 (or so I thought) and I wasn't even travelling from one end to the next. Boy was I wrong !! My fare home costs a whopping $1.90. And with the $1 deposit (refundable) for single trip ticket, it was a shocking $2.90. My eyes nearly popped out looking at the amount flashing on the tiny screen. A quick eye-scan of all the stickers pasted showed they do not accept Nets. If I opened my mouth and asked if they accepted plastic, I'm sure I'd get the evil eye look of the lime-green man, sitting behind the glass panel, eyeing me (while pretending not to look) suspiciously. I'm sure he must have had one finger on his terrorist alert button, just in case I turned out to have wired live dynamites or something beneath my tudung. (veil)
I dug hard into the crevices of my wallet. Some 7 ten-cent and 14 five-cents coins later, (see, I always knew that'd b a time those 5 cents I keep in my wallet for years will come useful) I managed to finally get my ticket. I never knew it costs so much to get home. And that doesn't even include the fare for the feeder bus I'd have to take to get home from the train station. Dun even get me started with that. The 80 cents they charge now hardly seems fair especially since its the same even if my house were 1 bus stop away from the interchange.
I shudder to think how much more it will cost after the almost-definite fare hike come July.
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