Propagator

In response to a friend who exclaimed ‘you’re really into Economics huh?’, I said the following, unaware of the irony until much later:

I’m not exactly into economics; it’s just that I happen to believe in comparative advantage and it seems that I manage to do (and enjoy) this subject better than anything else I do. So in order to contribute to the efficiency of mankind, I’ve decided to work on Economics.

The 8 year old scientific calculator that I’ve been using finally surrendered after a nasty fall from my dining table while I was working on some Math problems for my tuition kid. The red cable feeding the screen with power was kind of broken. To fix it, I’ll need to solder it back the cable but without any tools for that at present, the calculator is effectively out of service. I contemplated for quite a long time and eventually decided to get a new calculator. I decided on an ‘upgrade’ to Casio’s fx-991MS from my previous fx-95MS.

Since it’s a more ‘hi-tech’ calculator, it not only cost me more but also require more tinkering to learn how to use it. It can perform Base-n calculations, which is very valuable for programming purpose and computer exams; it works with complex numbers, useful for engineering students and other studies involving vectors; it can also do definite integrals and differentiation. If these features sound too good to be true, it probably is because even the manual gives a disclaimer for features like the ‘solver’ function:

The SOLVE function may be unable to obtain a solution, even though a solution exists…
Due to certain idiosyncrasies of Newton’s Method, solution for the following types of functions tend to be difficult to calculate (read: takes ages for the calculator to provide any decent solution)…

Nevertheless, the fact that it computes complex numbers never fails to amaze me. I used to think that only the graphic calculators were capable of that but it appears that the algorithms governing complex numbers is not that complex after all. Same goes with those for computing the arguments of complex numbers. The ability to do vector product is also going to be exceptionally useful for vector calculations.

Well, more exploring to do.

Since erpz.net was registered, it has always been linked somehow to education, humour and politics. My interest in Economics made it somewhat central in the ERPZ project. We’re now at a point where there’s much to think about on the future of the entire website and project. It has started some time in the beginning of 2009, benefited quite some students and friends and is growing along the direction of expanding academic resources as well as stuff to do with college and scholarship application.

Some day, ERPZ will have to stand on its own; so it will probably start getting more advertisers and hopefully tie up with businesses to help promote educational products. The day should come fast.

Today my mum pointed out to me a case where the Distance Fares resulted in much higher cost for travel. She traveled to Orchard Road and then came back within the 45 minutes time limit. The cost? $1.01. In the past we only had to pay $0.88.

Reason was that the one way trip there is approximately 3.2km. That means that she’ll pay $0.71 for the first ride instead of $0.69 in the past. That’s an increase in cost of $0.02. Then comes the return trip, where she’ll only spend $0.19 in the past due to the rebate. Now, she has to pay another $0.30 because she clocked an additional 3km, which cost 10 cents/km. That’s a cost difference of $0.11. In total, the new system cost her $0.13 cents more than the old system, a substantial blow on one’s purse if it was carried out daily.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous analysis, the firm rakes in particular profit for journeys that are within 6.2km that includes a single bus transfer. This is a very common sort of journey in Singapore and thus could generate quite a substantial increase in revenue for the firms.

The new ‘distance fares’ thing is up and after a couple of bus rides over the weekends I wrote an analysis of the new fare system on ERPZ. It covers only buses and so the conclusion was that ‘distance fares’ is cheaper over longer distances or short trips that would need much more transfers. I have friends who commented that it seem to be more expensive when coupled with the fares from the rail.

I’m not sure how the rail fares are added but if it indeed starts counting from distance 0km when you get on the train, it will really be expensive to include a train journey between bus rides because your distance counter ‘resets’ for the train ride. If the distance counted for bus and trains are not in the same pool and additional fares charged from train rides after taking a bus is not the marginal cost at those distances, consumers could end up paying more than if there were rebates in place.

This point is vague and not really explained in the public posters for commuters. The cost of train rides is pretty high for the North-East Line as well as the Circle Line. In any case, the fare revision news release from the Ministry of Transport hinted at future changes that may affect consumers negatively.

For a start, fares for aircon bus and basic rail will be identical as their current fares are quite similar. However, their fares may diverge over time as they are essentially different services with different operating costs and service quality.

Time for you to read up the PublicTransport@SG website to travel smartly.