Commuter satisfaction with public transport drops
Commuter satisfaction with public transport dropped last year, following serious incidents such as the MRT tunnel flooding in October.
The Public Transport Council's (PTC) annual public transport satisfaction survey, conducted in October, found that commuter satisfaction fell from 96.4 per cent in 2016 to 94.5 per cent last year.
The PTC interviewed 5,007 commuters, aged 15 and above. They were asked to rate public transport on factors such as travel time, reliability and accessibility of nodes.
Overall satisfaction ratings were brought down by satisfaction scores for MRT services, which fell to 91.8 per cent last year from 96 per cent in 2016.
When asked if public transport had improved between 2016 and last year, 67.3 per cent of respondents said they agreed, compared with 67.6 per cent in 2016.
The number of those who said MRT services had improved fell significantly to 50.3 per cent, from 60.6 per cent in 2016.
Satisfaction with MRT reliability saw a 13.4 per cent drop, from 86.8 per cent in 2016 to 73.4 per cent last year. The PTC attributed this to delays on the North-South Line due to testing for the new signalling system.
Areas such as waiting time, comfort and service information also got lower scores.
Only MRT station accessibility improved, increasing slightly from 93 per cent to 93.2 per cent - something the PTC attributed to the expansion of the rail network.
Meanwhile, satisfaction with bus services held steady at 96.7 per cent.
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