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.
