Public transport satisfaction “high in 2019” but netizens question its accuracy

Singapore – The Public Transport Council (PTC) released the findings of its Public Transport Customer Satisfaction Survey (PTCSS) on February 7 (Friday) and noted that satisfaction with public transport stayed high in 2019.

“Mean satisfaction scores for reliability saw its largest improvement,” said the PTC when the results of the annual survey conducted from September to October 2019 were announced.

According to the findings, the mean satisfaction score for public transport was at 7.8 (out of 10) for 2019, compared to 7.7 and 7.9 for 2017 and 2018 respectively.

The biggest improvement came from MRT reliability, said the PTC. The score, which went up from 7.6 in 2018 to 7.9 in 2019 could be attributed “to the significant improvement in the MRT network’s Mean Kilometres Between Failure (MKBF), from 690,000 train-km in 2018 to over 1 million train-km in 2019 – a result of increased maintenance efforts by public transport operators and Government’s investments over the years,” the council added.

Satisfaction for bus services also ranked high with a mean satisfaction score of 7.9 while the score for waiting time was at 8.0 compared to the score of 7.4 in 2018. “This could be the outcome of the improved service levels with the Bus Service Reliability Framework, which incentivises the operators to minimise excess wait time for commuters,” the PTC said.

A total of 4,997 commuters at MRT stations, bus interchanges and bus stops during both peak and off-peak hours served as the respondents for the study. They were asked to rate a specific list of service attributes, such as safety and security, reliability, waiting time, accessibility, and comfort, from 1 to 10 based on satisfaction.

Netizens, however, are doubting the validity of the study, given that it was the PTC who commissioned the PTCSS to conduct the survey.

“Ownself survey ownself to make ownself happy,” noted a certain Jiale Leong while another hinted that “Self-appraisal is the most cost-effective for them (PTC).”

Still, there were those who agreed with the results, such as Jack Tsoi and Robin C H Chua who also gave high marks. “Very few breakdowns with much improvement,” said Mr Tsoi. Mr Chua commented, “not only reliability has gone up, [but] the travel speed has also gone up.”

Meanwhile, Mr Andrew Bulldawg Lee shared that the only real thing that went up was the fare.

Details on the survey results could be accessed below: