GST hikes

Today is July 1st. What is so special about July 1st? It is the first day whereby GST (Goods & Consumer Tax) is officially increased from the 5% to 7%. In fact months before July 1st, some of the items for instance the price of coffee has already been raised by additional 20 cents! Never mind what other’s say, the cost of almost everything seems to be on the hike. Transportation cost has increased multiple folds. I have to top up my EZLink card more frequently and mind you, the SMRT business profit has increased despite the fact that the company has reported that it has spend more to upgrade its bus and train fleets. Furthermore public transport is not supposed to operate based on profit basis. How does SMRT keep up with maintaining the profits despite the increasing expenditure? Well it’s simple, by increasing the bus and train fares.

Singapore has overtaken New York in terms of being the more expensive city to live in.
It is not something I am proud of by the way, to live in a city that is rank top in terms of cost of living. We used to hear about how Singapore has achieved world-class standards in terms of transportation, health care and education. Are we really and truly living a in a world-class city with regards to this? I doubt so.

One of my friends works in a local computer IT company mentioned that her company is currently engaged by SMRT to develop a GPS system to track the SMRT bus fleets while on the road. It is hope that such systems would result in a more accurate and timely manner for projecting bus arrival and departure time. Trial runs were being conducted in and around the Changi International Airport vicinity.

There are proposal to install display panels on some of the bus stops to indicate the arrival time of the next bus. Commuters would know when the next bus arrival time. All this seems pretty cool; I bet the bus fare is going to rise once they start to implement this system though. Just the other (yesterday evening to be exact) I had to wait for almost 40 minutes to catch the bus service 911 from Woodlands Regional Interchange to my home in Woodlands Street 82, so much so for world class transport and high tech vehicle tracking system.