Dear Mdm Saw,

The above statement gives me the impression that if you can legally do it, you would have us all pushed in every single train the way wool is stuffed into a pillow.

Well, it is my considered opinion you should (and must) take the trains incognito at least twice a day (especially during peak hours) for at least one full year to experience for yourself the service (or rather the lack of) your company is delivering to the general public. You have clearly no idea what many of us lesser mortals are going through day after day. In fact, you should use it for as long as you are CEO of this company. Take your trains as often as possible, along with members of the Public Transport Council, and Transport Mini$ter Raymond Lemon Lim. After all, all of you clearly have no fxxking clue why at times we choose not to squeeze in.

To be frank with you madam, I understand your predicament. It is not entirely your fault that the trains are packed to the brim. First of all, it is partly the city planners fault and even so, a part of how our little island city is organised is a legacy of our nation’s history and not entirely their fault. I am quite sure it would have made my day had Sir Stamford Raffles landed near Taman Jurong and not the mouth of the Singapore River.

Secondly, you have to keep shareholders happy by maintaining reasonable earnings per share. However, it is clear to all that in spite of the amount of salary the amount of effort (if any) you spent on improving the service is hardly noticeable. I make no apologies feeling that you are yet another elitist square peg in a round hole. Elite you may be, but hardly suitable for the task that is trusted upon you.

Have you ever wondered why we complain over the most insignificant increase in fares no matter how justified and really insignificant the increments maybe? Even though the more fortunate and more intelligent among us purchase SMRT shares and make use of the price differences and dividends to ‘self finance’ the fare increments and more, we are not actually happy with the money we are making out of our very own discomfort and misery. In fact, at times I have to wonder whether you have considered increasing the fare so you can run the trains at even higher frequencies for better commuter comfort. Had you been able to deliver a service above what is delivered now, perhaps commuters may actually love you as if you are Mother Mary or Kuanyin Ma even though they are paying more! Certainly Singaporeans loved our esteemed leaders by paying them more than any other political leaders in the world, yes?

Since I ain’t no elitist square peg, I do not pretend to be capable of counselling you on how to better do you job. Yet from the position of my humble and insignificant existence, I plead to share with you what some of us are experiencing as a result of your insistence on running trains at their current capacity and intervals. It doesn’t really matter how the Stooge Stooge Times report just how greatly Foreign Talents from the Sahara Desert or the Amazon Forest think of your service, you know?

For starters, if by some rare astral arrangement that happens in a million years we are fortunate enough to get a seat (after beating someone to it), it does not necessary mean we have ‘struck gold’. The person beside us could be a ‘commuter from hell’. It is not the commuter with body odour (either from a days hard work or the lack of a morning shower), nor ‘the sleeping guy without a backbone’. It is ‘Homo Scrotum Maximus’ – the one suffers from some kind of testicular disease which causes them intense pain if they don’t sit with their legs wide open. I had the bad experience of encountering one of these the other day and when I refused to budge even while he forcefully pushed his thigh against mine, he ‘blessed me with a barrage of Hokkien vulgarities’ after a long contest of strength. He claimed he has ‘tolerated me for a long time’ though the reverse is true, since I was sleeping quite peacefully within the confines of my puny seat until he decided to push against me halfway on my trip home. Even though I pointed out to the cock-eyed sod the faint line between our seats and how far he has extended beyond, it infuriated him even more. It was to my good fortune the guy next to me got off at the next station and I moved further away to avoid further confrontation.

Still, occupying more space than they are entitled is not the worst. Some shake the leg that rubs against another commuter. If it is not leg shaking as the source of constant irritation, it is the young lady who can’t stop fidgeting. She will be taking out her make-up, mobile phone, purse or music player out of her handbag more than just once. Any attempt to catch a short rest on your trains becomes an exercise in futility.

Well, I suspect you would say that SMRT is only responsible for the transit and the service does not guarantee a seat and a good rest. In fact, it wouldn’t really surprise me if you suggest that we just stand for our trip if sitting down is so bad. I’ll excuse you for your ignorance because having never use your own service frequently, you have probably never meet the ‘backpack guy’ who keeps backing into another person. Nor have you met those who seemingly like the close proximity, and to rub off some of themselves on other people. Are you aware that there is only enough room for 2 people standing almost back to back in the open space between the seats, but some end up standing in the middle while struggling to hold on to the vertical pole to keep their balance? It leaves no room for an alighting passenger, and when your ‘bee-you-ti-fool’ trains suddenly brakes or goes over a rough spot, some of them will be tumbling onto someone and everyone.

Clearly by now you wonder what is my point since the behavior of commuters and their predicament have the least to do with you? I do not really expect you to understand how often we run into more of these unpleasant individuals is indirectly a result of how your company runs the service. In your position, simply mathematics like having more commuters per train, simply means more assholes unpleasant individuals on it and a higher chance of others running into them is none of your concern. Your own concern is merely the bottom line, isn’t it?

Still, while running more trains might not put an end to the mad rush for seats, a lot of us do think it will still do the bottom line of your company some good when you remove the need for all that constant announcements to give way to alighting passengers. You do not need to be reminded that you may need to update those announcements in the future if future technological advances requires it, right? Take for example, the day where SMRT will be using holographic projections to remind commuters to be considerate.

Anyway, do your company some justice and specify what exactly are peak hours because I am seriously infuriated with the trains coming at intervals of 4 ~ 5 mins between 7pm ~ 730pm while a lot of people are still just getting off work. While statistically one train coming at 4 ~ 5 mins and another coming at 2 mins gives you an average interval of 3.5 minutes a train, that is not the same as trains coming at a constant interval 3.5 mins. Running some of your trains at higher load than another is creating uneven wear and tear on your trains and the tracks and it definitely hurts your bottom line.

It is baffling how such intervals are acceptable to you when Hong Kong is running theirs at half the time. What good is it for the government gahmen to encourage companies to stagger their working hours when some people are coming off work and your trains are still running at well… peak hour load and coming at such atrocious intervals? Do you even know I never ceased to be bewildered whenever a SMRT train pulls into station even in the late hours of the evening, packed as if it was peak hour? I doubt you will ever know because you are having a comfortable time at home enjoying the finer things in life during those hours.

Now that we are on the matter of the finer things in life, I want to know why there seems to be an increase in cases where the air-conditioners do not seem to be working properly. Did you recently require SMRT to go the extra mile in providing commuters the suana experience on a hot day? Perhaps your technicians and staff were too busy adjusting the air-conditioners that they failed to notice the Swiss guy giving you a hand in decorating the trains.

That aside, your trains also have a knack in amplifying the rainy weather conditions and provide everyone the Antarctic experience. Perhaps you want to encourage some of us to go explore the South Pole but it would be much appreciated if you would just keep everything within the comfortable range all the time.

Yours sincerely,
A Lesser Mortal Commuter

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