• LTA and ESG have provided training opportunities for chartered bus service operators so that they can improve their business processes
• While some bus operators are willing to go digital, one-man bus operators said they rely on traditional methods to get their customers
• Some owners of bus firms said they will not pass their business on to their children as it is not lucrative

SINGAPORE — When Mr Chan Guan Liang, the owner of Guillemard Bus Service, found out about a pilot to help the chartered bus service industry digitalise, he got three out of his fleet of 15 buses to sign up.

For the pilot, cameras will be built into his buses to monitor drivers’ behaviour, an app will help track young school children when they board the buses, and a warning system will warn if buses veer off out of their lanes, among other things.

The Covid-19 pandemic had reduced the number of trips his buses make to about 50 per cent compared to the same time last year, and the 37-year-old is using the down time to make these upgrades.

“This will help improve the efficiency (of the bus services) and make it easier to plan routes and help save on fuel,” the 37-year-old said. “Parents will also be able to see where their (children) are and be more assured.”

While these measures will cost about S$6,000 per vehicle, the Government will subsidise 70 per cent of this sum.

The authorities have over the past few years urged small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to go digital, and last week, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and Enterprise Singapore (ESG) announced a new push towards digitalising this industry to help firms improve their business processes.

Bus operators will receive grants and subsidies, training for employees and advice from consultancies. This will help these SMEs to “transform their business operations, increase productivity and improve efficiency for better service standards”, LTA, ESG and the Infocomm Media Development Authority said in a statement.

The Singapore School and Private Hire Bus Owners’ Association (SSPHBOA) is also collaborating with ESG to pilot a cloud-based smart fleet management system, the one that Mr Chan is on.

The pilot will help these companies upgrade digitally with route optimisation, e-wallet payments and integrated fleet management systems.

SSPHBOA did not comment on how many bus operators have joined this pilot so far.

However, most chartered bus service operators that TODAY spoke to were unwilling to digitalise their services.

For Mr Michael Goh, his customers know about his bus service through word of mouth. To win jobs offering school bus services, he looks at a bulletin sent to his physical mailbox by the SSPHBOA.

This is how the 61-year-old has operated his one-man bus service for 20 years, and he is happy to do this until the day he retires.

Other one-man operators like Mr Goh likewise said they are not interested in these new initiatives, saying that their traditional methods have worked well for them, and that they do not have the bandwidth to learn new skills.

Other operators, especially those with larger bus fleets, acknowledged that their industry is one that has fallen behind the times. They are open to digitalising, but added that even then it will be difficult to get younger people like Mr Chan on board to sustain their trade.

According to data on the LTA website, the number of chartered buses has marginally increased over the past few years, from 9,113 in 2010 to 9,903 in 2015.

Currently, the chartered bus services sector comprises 10,600 buses owned by 3,500 different individuals and companies.

However, a spokesman from SSPHBOA said that their number of members has fallen from about 2,000 in 2010 to about 1,000 this year. This is because many of the bus operators have aged and thus given up their trade, the spokesman added.

Covid-19 has also badly impacted the industry, said the bus operators. They said that even after demand had climbed after the circuit breaker period, they were still seeing only 50 to 70 per cent of their pre-pandemic revenue.

Apart from a drop in demand for their services due to more people working from home, tour buses that used to ferry tourists are now also fighting for a slice of the pie, they added.

RELUCTANT TO BUDGE

A one-man bus operator, who wants to be known only as Mr K C Lim, said he will not tap the new incentives on offer by the authorities, as he envisions difficulties learning new skills due to his poor command of English and his qualification level.

“I only completed primary school,” the 60-year-old told TODAY in Mandarin, “so I don’t think I can easily understand all the new advancements.

“Even when I go online, everything is in English so whatever they are saying, I cannot understand… even if I tried, the operators who are better at English would do better than me.”

Before the Covid-19 crisis, he earned about S$2,000 to S$3,000 a month, but it has dropped to only about S$1,000 as he primarily picks up office workers, many of whom now work from home.

He has taken to using his 13-seater bus to pick passengers up on ride-sharing apps to make ends meet.

Mr Goh is doing a little better and has managed to retain about 70 per cent of his revenue, which comes largely from his school bus service. He is content with his customer base and is reluctant to pursue the new initiatives.

“I don’t look forward to (going digital), I just stick to what I’m doing,” he said, adding that he treats this as a “retirement job”.

Even some larger bus companies are unwilling to digitalise, as they believe that it will be difficult for them to recoup long-term costs.

Mr Chan Wei Yien, a partner in a company that has more than 20 buses, said that even with subsidies, the digitalisation efforts come at an additional cost, and so he will not take them up.

“Currently we already have systems helping us to keep track of the trip and GPS to help us know where the driver is; the technology is more or less there already,” the 40-year-old said.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY A CHALLENGE

For Ms Angie Ng, whose business owns three buses, the number of trips fell by as much as 70 per cent during the circuit breaker period but has since recovered to close to pre-pandemic levels.

While she has yet to sign up for the new government initiatives, the 62-year-old is open to them as they can help to transform her business model which has been slow to evolve.

“In the future, companies are going digital and it’s a matter of time,” she said. “We really need to go for all this training.”

She added that a digital solution to better coordinate pick-up timings would help streamline her services.

“Those workers who are part work-from-home and part work-from-office, it’s good for them to update us (through a digital platform), so I can have better planning,” she said.

While there are some companies like Ms Ng and Mr Chan’s that are open to breathing new life into the industry, the fact remains that younger people do not see this as a lucrative career option.

Mr Chan said bus operators his age remain a rarity, having taken over his father’s business five years ago at 32 after quitting his banking job.

“I realised that it’s a family business after all, so I decided to give up my full-time job to join my father.”

The other SME bus operators TODAY spoke to said they rarely see new entrants under the age of 50 joining the industry.

Ms Ng said that while she looks to innovate her business, she would not encourage her children to take over.

“I don’t want them to follow my footsteps because I know what I have gone through and our returns don’t tally… the capital is so great, but the returns are not.”

Mr Goh added that the trade was lucrative when he first joined in 2000, because operational costs such as bus rentals, Electronic Road Pricing and parking were cheaper.

“In the beginning, it was a very good job… the income was good but over the years, the profit margins tightened,” he said.