Saturday, April 23, 2011

Efficient MRT systems owned by the government

To add on to the post here about the efficiency about government owned MRT systems, I did a little digging and realised that other than Taipei, 2 of the other MRT systems that I admire, namely Tokyo and Hong Kong, are both also majority owned by the government.

The Tokyo Metro is 100% owned by the Japan government (about half of which is owned by Tokyo), while the MTR Corporation that runs the MTR line in Hong Kong is 76% owned by the government of Hong Kong. Do note that the MTR Corporation has also won big in the Metro awards, and mainly on the awards that count.

Therefore, I do not really understand why Singapore can't do the same. It's quite obvious that the duopoly situation in Singapore is not improving the MRT service levels at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Temasek Holdings owns 54% of SMRT.

Guess who controls Temasek Holdings?

So in some way, our public transport is controlled by the government.

chantc said...

That is different. Temasek holdings is well known to be a sleepy shareholder, only contributing in terms of it's monetary strength. They have time to time
emphasized that they will not involved in the operations of the company.

Currently all the actions undertaken by SMRT shows no involvement at all. I hope for a more direct involvement by the relevant authorities.

Visit Rhinestic's Knick Knacks @ Etsy for handmade goods and supplies!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...