How inefficent the 'first world' Singapore is.

Resorts World Sentosa (RWS)'s Casino opening indeed has created a continuous flow of human traffic at the HarbourFront MRT Terminal, VivoCity and the bus stop outside VivoCity which RWS8 shuttle service stops to pick up passengers to RWS.

I did notice everyone be it SBS, VivoCity's mangament, Traffic Police deployed resources to ensure smooth operations with the huge crowd. However, the long queue at the MRT station general ticketing machine (GTM) exposes how third world standard are of our public transport fare collection system.

So much of the ESC's report of encouraging people to invest more to improve productivity when the the public sector isn't willing to spend capital to improve current system themselves.

There was a massive long queue for tourist to purchase and return their single trip ticket farecard to collect the $1 deposit on top of commuters who might wish to top up their farecards. I roughly counted that there was 40 - 50 people queueing at any one time. It seems queuing is getting to become a part and parcel of a typical Singaporean's life.

It's costly as the tourist might have more time to shop to purchase goods or the positive impression they've for Singapore's infrastructure. All these factors aren't going to be able to be counted in real monetary terms.

Back in late December I suggested to LTA about using RFID chip to act as the single trip ticket medium to increase efficiency. It has been done in Taipei. Yet it was shot down citing it being too costly to upgrade the system.

I'm dumbfounded. If Singapore can spend billions onto building more and more MRT lines and we can't even spend money to improve on our current facilities, what does it show? Firstly, it's like one Chinese phase, aiming high when you can't get your basics done.

Secondly I wonder are we getting complacent, thinking we should content with what we've now? Or is it wait till others overtake us and we've lost of attractiveness to foreign investors before we buck up? W/o natural resources, it's practically suicide. Anyway in the first place, if cost is an issue, how could we have money to build new MRT lines? Isn't it contradictory?

In fact Taipei's MRT service level is much much better in terms of service, efficiency, frequency than SMRT. I salute to the Tapei MRT's management as the system being BOT (build operate transfer), profitability is harder to achieve compared to SMRT and yet able to provide better MRT service than Singapore.

In Singapore LTA plans, build the MRT line and stations. It would then be given to operators to operate with a concession, after which the operational profits would be kept by the operator. But this cannot be said for BOT projects whereby the operator would build from scratch and eventually operate the line themselves. Hence they could only recover their investment in the construction phase years later.

Investment in productivity and efficiency requires effort, the will to get it done and capital to start with. At the same time the effect of better profitability would only be seen around 5 years later (not instant results). Hence we have to do away with obsession on short term profit gains before it's too late into creating an economy with better leading edges against other economies in the long run.

Oh well, back to myself watching the movie starring Fann Wong on Channel 8 on the perceived typical government department bureaucracy.

Economic Strategy Committee report

Overall the report highlights did point out the path the country needs to take in order to survive in the compeititve world in the next 5 - 15 years.

But I hope it would really materialise simply because organisations might be turned off into invest to improve productivity in the name of profits. One example I could think of is the inefficient single trip MRT ticket system. I'm told by LTA that it's not possible to upgrade to using the efficient RFID chip as like in Taipei, ROC because of 'cost'.

I think we should start to rethink should we continue on building MRT since it cost billions and yet upgrading of current systems of solving our current problem and basics is not a priority citing 'cost'. Seems we've forgotten how we came from - of getting the basics settled before moving on further.

At the same time land usage has to be prudent. I hope no more of the flop of having 2 Boon Lay Bus Int to occur again elsewhere. It ends up counterproductive.