SINGAPORE: Eight new bus services will be introduced in Tengah and Brickland by the end of next year to help ease residents’ connectivity woes, said Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow on Sunday (Jun 8). 

Complaints on the lack of amenities and transport options have arisen among early residents of Tengah, a new HDB town located in the west of Singapore. 

The first two bus services will be rolled out by the end of this year. Service 872, which will start from Tengah Bus Interchange and serve areas like Tengah Boulevard, Plantation Crescent, Bukit Batok, Jurong Town Hall and Chinese Garden MRT, is slated to start on Aug 10. 

The other service will start from Brickland and pass through Bukit Panjang and Jurong East MRT stations. More details will be announced at the start of the fourth quarter. 

By the end of next year, there will be two express services, one a city direct service from Brickland, and the other is a privately operated bus route from Brickland to the One-North area.

There will also be four express feeder services by the end of 2026, which will take residents from their homes to nearby MRT stations, such as Beauty World, Bukit Gombak, Bukit Batok and Jurong East MRT stations. 

Mr Siow was at a People's Association (PA) family event at Tengah Community Club called PA Family PLAYGround 2025, which is part of Singapore’s SG60 celebrations.

He was speaking to the media for the first time since assuming the transport minister role on May 23. 

He took over the position from Mr Chee Hong Tat, who is now the Minister for National Development. 

Mr Siow, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Brickland ward that is part of Tengah, touched on some issues faced by Tengah residents at Sunday’s event.  

Mr Siow said in a speech to residents at the community club that there are four "C"s that the government hopes to address: not enough coffee shops, not enough childcare centres, not enough transport connectivity and concerns with the centralised cooling system in their HDB units. 

He said that the government is “very focused” on tackling these issues, noting that a multi-agency committee has been set up to support those moving into new Build-to-Order (BTO) flats. 

He said that the chairman of the committee is Senior Minister of State Sun Xue Ling, who has appointments in both Ministry for National Development and the Ministry of Transport (MOT). 

“So just be a little bit patient, because I know we are doing these things as residents are moving in, and it will become better, very, very soon,” he said. 

The Tengah Bus Interchange opened on Jul 21 last year. With it, a new service 871 was introduced to connect Tengah to Bukit Batok West, Bukit Gombak and Beauty World. 

Two existing bus services, 992 and 870, were also extended to better serve Tengah residents. 

WHY PRIVATE BUS SERVICE TO ONE-NORTH? 

On why a private bus service instead of a public one is being planned to take residents of Tengah to the One-North area, Mr Siow said that it is among the options that the government considers when looking to augment the bus framework.

“We try not to do it extensively and only really for niche routes, because when we run too many private routes, we run the risk of cannibalising demand for the public bus network,” he said. 

He said that there are certain routes with enough demand that a private operator is prepared to take up but public transport operators are “not quite ready to do yet”.

“We can, in the short term, introduce some of these routes (and) if they work well, in the longer term, we can always consider incorporating them into the public bus network,” he said. 

As to why One-North, Mr Siow said that there is a demand from Brickland residents, as many of them work there. 

“And so that’s how we decided to trial and see,” he said. 

CUTTING DOWN PUBLIC TRANSPORT TRAVEL TIME

There are also longer-term aims for the travel time to be narrowed between taking private and public transport, particularly for HDB estates “a little bit further away from the city”, said Mr Siow. 

He said that while trains can get people to the city quickly, getting to the train stations can be time-consuming for many of these residents. 

“If we can try to do that a little bit better, improving the walkability of the town, improving the density of the bus network, we should be able to bring the journey times down and make public transport more competitive with private transport,” he said. 

He said that currently, the travel time from Tengah to the city is two to three times longer by public transport than it is for private transport, and he aims to cut it down to one to two times longer. 

“And we will be doing that all across Singapore at the estates that are further away from the city, that is my priority,” he said. 

FIRST THOUGHTS ON NEW JOB 

Asked about how he is settling into his new role as acting transport minister, Mr Siow said that he is no stranger to the transport portfolio.

“I’m very excited, I’ve hit the ground running and we are working on how to get LTA’s (the Land Transport Authority's) plans on track (and) continue to do the things we have been doing,” he said. 

Mr Siow held key appointments at the MOT, among others. 

“Going back to the ministry has been very positive for me,” he said. 

“I’ve been very happy to be able to reconnect with old colleagues, but also with the issues that I used to work on.” 

He said he had worked on the Jurong Region Line with the ministry, which is planned to operate through Tengah by 2028. 

“When I was an officer at MOT 10 years back, it was a piece of paper, and now it’s coming close to reality,” he said. 

“These are the things that a lot of us at MOT and LTA are very inspired by, because we do things that matter to Singaporeans, and these are the tangible products of our work.”