Tower Transit Swops Drivers Mid-Route on Longest Bus Service to Ease Stress, Fatigue

This allows them to have a designated break at the midpoint of the three-hour journey

- Vanessa Paige Chelvan

Tower Transit Singapore (TTS) has become the first of four public bus operators to give drivers on long-haul journeys a designated break by swapping them out mid-route.

TTS is implementing this on loop service 858, the longest bus route in Singapore. At 73.4km, it has a run time of more than three hours—about the time it takes to drive from Singapore to Melaka, as one bus driver pointed out.

This move is in line with the recommendations of a task force formed to scrutinise the safety of public buses here.

It had urged the Land Transport Authority (LTA) not to introduce new routes with a run time of more than two hours, and to look into shortening the run times of 54 existing routes that are over two hours long. Run time is the time taken to complete a bus route.

"Longer journeys can result in lapses in concentration and cause stress to bus drivers," the March 5 report noted. "This could increase the risk of accidents occurring."

LTA had said that a possible way to address this is by allowing "mid-route swapping" of bus drivers.

Since March 18, about two weeks after the release of the report, TTS has adjusted the rosters of its 115 bus drivers on service 858 to give them more rest at Changi Airport, the midpoint of their journey.

Previously, the drivers did not have a designated break upon arriving at Terminal 2, but could hop off the bus to use the toilet if they needed to.