Buying a car in Singapore is hugely expensive, not to say insanely expensive. As a consequence we will not have a car when we move there. Part of today was dedicated to understanding and experiencing public transportation.
Singapore public transportation are claimed to be very efficient and that might be true once you have figured out the rules of the game.
First challenge (and probably biggest challenge) there is not really an overview map of the whole system. One can easily find the map of the MRT (read subway), but not of the bus lines. Lena gave us a little book with all the bus lines where each line is described in a table format, but that's not very helpful when you don't know where things are. Actually to travel very efficiently in Singapore you need to be online so you can acces the different Apps that exist and will help taking you from A to B. Much more advanced that what we are used to.
There are at least three Apps one should have:
- gothere.sg which will tell you how to get from A to B, in any mean if transportation.
- mytransport.sg which will tell you where the bus is so you can timely step out of the house and don't waste time waiting.
- smrt which allows you to order a taxi directly from the App. It's locating you via tha phone GPS and taxi will know where to come. All of that in one touch.
On top of the Apps, you need a EZ-Link card that you charge with money. Every ride will be deducted as you travel. The further you go, the more you pay. The more you travel, the more you pay. Net it feels indeed that there is a very well thought through system in place. It will take probably a few weeks or months until we fully masterize it. Assuming it's possible :)
First challenge (and probably biggest challenge) there is not really an overview map of the whole system. One can easily find the map of the MRT (read subway), but not of the bus lines. Lena gave us a little book with all the bus lines where each line is described in a table format, but that's not very helpful when you don't know where things are. Actually to travel very efficiently in Singapore you need to be online so you can acces the different Apps that exist and will help taking you from A to B. Much more advanced that what we are used to.
There are at least three Apps one should have:
- gothere.sg which will tell you how to get from A to B, in any mean if transportation.
- mytransport.sg which will tell you where the bus is so you can timely step out of the house and don't waste time waiting.
- smrt which allows you to order a taxi directly from the App. It's locating you via tha phone GPS and taxi will know where to come. All of that in one touch.
On top of the Apps, you need a EZ-Link card that you charge with money. Every ride will be deducted as you travel. The further you go, the more you pay. The more you travel, the more you pay. Net it feels indeed that there is a very well thought through system in place. It will take probably a few weeks or months until we fully masterize it. Assuming it's possible :)
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