Singapore - What costs will go up next ?

Transport costs go up... Utility costs go up... Next to go up ? PM, ministers & MPs pay to go up again next ?

Electricity tariffs up 5 cents

Tue, Sep 30, 2008

my paper

New rate is 30 cents per kWh but rebates will more than offset rise. -myp By Marcel Lee Pereira

FROM tomorrow, taxi driver Amir Hamzah will keep his water heater switched off, and take cold showers instead.

That's when the highest electricity tariffs since 2001 will kick in, and Mr Amir, 33, his wife and three-year-old son - who live in a five-room flat in Sengkang - could end up paying almost $23 more a month for electricity. "We will try and save on electricity as much as we can, and the water heater uses a lot of it," he told my paper. The latest tariffs, announced by SP Services yesterday, mean households will need to pay 30 cents per kWh of electricity, an increase of about 5 cents over the existing tariff of about 25 cents per kWh. Electricity prices have been rising every quarter since last July. The latest hike was due to higher forward fuel-oil prices for the last quarter of the year, said the Energy Market Authority (see box). With the increase, the total utilities bill for families in oneto three-room flats will go up by between $90 and $223 thi year. However, they will receive rebates of between $310 and $330 this year, which will more than offset the rise, said EMA chief executive Khoo Chin Hean. Those in larger flats will pay between $316 and $433 more in total for utilities this year, but will get rebates of between $130 and $295. Fuel costs make up 60 per cent of electricity tariffs, with the remainder coming from the cost of transmitting electricity, as well as machinery and equipment costs, among others. Since 2004, electricity tariffs have been pegged to forward oil prices, instead of spot prices as was the case before, said Mr Khoo. Pegging tariffs to spot prices makes electricity prices very volatile, he explained. Mr Khoo said that though crude-oil prices seemed to be sliding now, it is actually forward fuel-oil prices that are used to set electricity tariffs. He said: "When the spot price comes down, the forward price will follow, but after a time lag."However, he added that in a situation when fuel-oil prices are rising, pegging tariffs to forward prices means they generally will be lower than when pegged to spot prices. Tariffs are reviewed every quarter, and if forward fuel-oil prices come down next month, the tariff for the January to March quarter next year will be reduced accordingly. Mr Khoo added that about 40 per cent of households here are using more electricity than the average household, and encouraged consumers to do more to cut usage. Mr Amir, who currently pays about $90 in utilities a month, said: "I'll ask my wife not to turn on too many lights at night, while I'm out driving."

Singapore - Transport fares go up again!

Transport fares go uo in Oct 2008. Should SBS & SMRT ask themself this question - are their bus drivers & staff providing quality service to us, public taking transport daily to work... ? What do SBS & SMRT expect fare-paying public to do when drivers kept their golden mouths shut & don't even make the effort to ask people who are fearful of ghosts at the back of the bus ? When can the ghost at the back of the bus mentality be solved ? Don't the layout/design of those new double-deck buses make this problem worst ? The over crowded situation will still persist & the flood gates of this tiny island are allowing more foreign workers here. PTC, SBS, SMRT... shouldn't only just justify that transport fares need to go up because of higher oil prices. What kind of service quality these transport providers give us in the first place ?

Singapore transport fares - Why raise fares now ?

Why raise fares now ?

Mon, Sep 15, 2008

The Straits Times

Public Transport Council has announced new fares for transport from Oct 1. One journalist gets a few pressing questions answered. -ST Maria Almenoar THE Public Transport Council (PTC) yesterday announced new fares for public transport, which will take effecton Oct 1.

MARIA ALMENOAR gets the answers to commuters' pressing questions.

With inflation riding high, why must fares be raised now? Fares must be raised for the long-term viability of the public transport operators,so they can continue to make capital investments and provide the quality service expected. The amount of household income spent on public transport, expressed as a percentage of household income, dipped from 7 per cent in 2003 to 6.2 per cent last year. In other words, transport fares have remained affordable for most commuters at a time when the unemployment rate is at its lowest in five years. The PTC said, however, that it was mindful of the prevailing economic conditions and overall cost-of-living issuesthat commuters faced. By raising the transfer rebate this year and making operators absorb the bulk of the cost, thePTC said it had 'struck a balance' between the needs of commuters and the operators. Fares for nine in 10 journeys will change, ranging from about 7 cents less to 4 cents more, depending on the commuter's travel pattern. The average bus and rail fares here are still lower than those in Hong Kong,London and New York. How far do the fare changes affect the transport companies? The fare-cap formula the PTC uses puts a cap on transport operators' revenue from fares. The cap during this review was at 3 per cent but overall, the transport operators will earn just 0.7 per cent more in fare revenue. The PTC also checked the transport operators' Return on Total Assets or Rota a measure of how much profit acompany generates for every dollar of assets invested. The Rota for SBS Transit is 8.6 per cent, and for SMRT, 11.1 per cent. Holding these up to Rotas of other industries,the PTC said it did not think they were 'excessive'. A check against transport operators such as Hong Kong's Transport International Holdings and MTR, the multinational Stagecoach Group and Singapore Airlines, found them to have Rotas ranging between 2.8 per cent and 10.1 per cent. By absorbing a larger share of the transfer rebate, the operators here will jointly give up over $30 million in fare revenue. SBS will earn 0.9 per cent or $5.8 million more in revenue, and SMRT, 0.6 per cent or $4.3 million more. Why the 10-cent across-the-board increase for those who pay fares in cash? Cash fares have stayed unchanged since 2005, and the gap between them and those paid by ez-link cards have sincenarrowed. When the ez-link card was introduced,concessions were given to encourage their use because it costs transport operators more to handle cash fares. The new distance-based fares are supposed to address the current lopsidedness of making commuters who opt for transfer routes 'cross-subsidise' those who take direct routes. How does this work? Currently, a commuter who chooses a transfer route to get from Point A to Point B pays more than a commuter who takes a direct route, even for the same distance. The commuter taking the transfer route is thus being unfairly asked to keep the fare for the direct-route commuter lower than it should be. Eliminating the transfer 'penalty' will correct this imbalance. With the fare review, the transfer rebate was raised from 25 cents to 40 cents. Another 20 cents will be given in the next fare review. This article was first published in The Straits Times on Sept 13, 2008