Donations fund 80% of Marine Parade shuttle service costs

Free bus service for residents, now under one-year trial, costs lm a year to operate

- Kok Yufeng

A free shuttle bus service for residents in Marine Parade GRC, MacPherson and Mountbatten costs about $1 million a year to operate, with the South East Community Development Council (CDC) providing a one-off $200,000 seed grant to support the pilot scheme.

The remaining 80 per cent or so comes from donations raised by the CDC, and by the respective grassroots organisations, Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth Alvin Tan told Parliament on Aug 7.

"Essentially, the Government matches donations raised by the CDCs with grants, which the CDCs can use to support groundup initiatives," Mr Tan said in response to questions from opposition MPs about the cost of the service and how it is being funded.

The total cost of the one-year shuttle bus trial, which started on July 8, works out to about $150,000 per division for each route. The South East CDC grant amounts to about $2,400 per division each month, he added.

The five CDCs here were established in 1997 under the People's Association Act, which comes under the purview of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

Mr Tan said the seven shuttle bus routes in the Marine Parade cluster are operated by seven buses that ply the roads during nonpeak hours from 10am to 4pm on weekdays, excluding public holidays.

To date, more than 10,000 Marine Parade cluster residents have registered for the shuttle, with more than 40 per cent of them being seniors aged 65 and above.

Over the past three weeks, about 1,000 residents have taken the shuttle service each week.