Ahh... Good morning to you folks! Today as I was poring through my blog, i nearly spilt my milk over the sudden overnight response on my entry on Singapore's Transport System. My first reaction was wow... My second reaction was the rate determining step... [ok,not farnee, not farnee...]
On hindsight, my entry did appear to me as a random rambling of a typical Singaporean dispousing his grouses. Well, on that i have no comment. But i do have an issue with the rather flawed method of comparing to others so as to prove a point that we are better off than others. As such the effective use of such a method is not about fair comparison but about contrasting yourself with an inferior individual to make your lacklustre points stand out. This unfair practice has been employed too many times as i can bear witness to but today, i think that something or someone ought to put a stop to it.
A caveat here before i begin though, i mean no insult nor any ill will towards any individual here. All that's being conveyed is simply plain counter argument.
I was told that Beijing, Seoul or Tokyo experience a far more chronic problem of overcrowding than does Singapore. Fair enough... I have heard stories of professional "pushers" hired by Japanese subways specially meant to "squeeze" more commuters onto already packed carriages. But one question i need to ask. Why these three cities? Have you have any idea how much commuters these 3 cities each have in comparison? Here's a breakdown:
Beijing's metropolitan population: 12.8 million
[and this is not counting the migrant workers that call Beijing home]
Seoul's metropolitan population: 9.5 million
Tokyo's metropolitan population: 12.3 million
Let's assume that 60% of the metropolitan population takes the subway to work and back...
[By the way, this is a conservative estimate...]
Beijing: 7.68 million
Seoul: 5.7 million
Tokyo: 7.38 million
By comparison
S'pore's population: 4 million
[Applying the same assumption]
Train commuting population: 2.4 million
Length of Tokyo's total subway network: 286.2km
Length of Beijing metro network: 114km
Length of Seoul's subway network: 287km
Length of Singapore's SMRT network: 109.4km
Are the numbers sufficient to prove my point? Need i say anymore?
Surely one can tell that be it the commuting population or the rail network coverage, Singapore and the other aforementioned 3 cities are simply not in the same class and thus fair comparison is not possible.
Even if you want to debate, take a look and think about it. The chronic problem of the other 3 cities are so because of the sheer loads they have to transport everyday. Whereas in Singapore, the passenger loads that we have to grapple with is just a wee in comparison. Even so, Singapore is not burdened with a problem of having a polygot of transport operators who are poorly synchronised. Neither does she have to service a vast extensive network as compared to Tokyo
Yet, our system has began to show strain at this relatively low loading level. This just shows me plainly that our system is not very scalable. No doubts about it.
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