The Public Transport Council (PTC) said that the adjustments will take effect on December 27. Express buses, such as City Direct Services, shorten travel times from the heartland to cities and major job locations. The bigger rate rise for express buses does not affect express feeder services, which were introduced in December 2024 to give residents with faster access to town centres and vital transportation nodes like as MRT stations.

Announcing the adjustments

On October 14, after its yearly fare review, PTC stated that express bus services are more expensive to operate than normal bus services, and that the changes would better reflect this and increase express services’ financial sustainability. This is the first time that the fare difference between express and normal bus services has been altered since distance-based fares were implemented in 2010. According to PTC CEO Leow Yew Chin, the plan is to raise the prices for express bus services to better reflect the costs of providing them. “Hopefully, in doing so, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will also have more room to introduce even more City Direct Services to benefit commuters,” he told reporters on Thursday, October 14.

Mr Leow said the cost to operate such services is 1½ times more than a standard bus service, and the latest fare adjustment will help reduce the gap between costs and fare revenue.

He added that about 28,000 journeys are taken on express bus services, forming around 1 per cent of all daily bus journeys.

City Direct Services operate between major residential estates and the Central Business District during peak hours on weekdays, and are meant to serve as alternatives to existing public transport connections to the city centre. According to LTA’s MyTransport.SG app, there are 23 City Direct Services and 22 express services.

After factoring in the fee increase for basic bus services, the cost of a 10-kilometer express bus ride for an adult will rise from $2.37 to $2.86. A senior taking the same ride will pay $1.72, not $1.48. PTC stated that even with the rise, express bus tickets will remain lower than those given by privately operated premium bus services, which charge $4 to $5 per trip on average. The MyTransport.SG app lists 30 such services. Ms Sarah Mahalingam, 44, who takes the express bus to and from work in Promenade every day, believes a 20-cent hike is more realistic.

Despite this, the human resources and accounting executive, who resides in Sengkang, is resigned to the rise and will continue to utilise the service because the alternative is to spend an additional 30 minutes commuting by train, rather than 40 minutes overall with the fast service.

Similarly, software programmer Siti Syuhadah, 32, stated that despite the fee rise, she will continue to use an express bus from her downtown Singapore employment to her Sengkang home. “I will continue to take the (express) buses because… it is around 20 minutes faster,” stated the lady.

Associate Professor Walter Theseira, a transport economist at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, argued that more emphasis should be paid to the function of express buses in the overal transport network.

This is because some of the services ease the pressure on congested MRT lines, such as the North East Line, he added, questioning why such a big fee is required to use express bus services when commuters should be encouraged to do so.

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