Here's why Singapore couldn't top global transport satisfaction rankings

Almost 3 in 5 Singaporeans find it more stressful to use public transport.

Singapore lagged Mumbai and London in the global rankings for infrastructure satisfaction with an index score of 4.21, indicating that Singaporeans are generally displeased with the nation’s infrastructure system, global infrastructure firm AECOM revealed.

According to AECOM’s report, 58% find it increasingly stressful to travel via public transportation whilst 59% said that they would not be willing to pay higher fares for public transportation. The report was based on a survey of over 1,000 Singaporeans.

The weight of Singaporeans’ sentiment towards public transport increases as 84% use public transportation as their primary mode of transportation, of which 55% take the subway.

High fares and delays could play a role in people’s dissatisfaction, the survey revealed. A total of 22% rated overall public transportation as unaffordable, whilst 20% rated public transportation reliability as ‘poor’.

However, around 18% of the respondents are willing to pay higher fares for public transportation. Some 22% are also willing to pay higher taxes to fund improvements in infrastructure.

Less than half of the respondents (45%) think that the city government usually makes the right decisions about which large-scale infrastructure projects to fund, hence indicating that the majority of Singaporeans are dissatisfied with the decision-making process, AECOM added. As such, most Singaporeans (62%) agree that the private sector should be more involved in infrastructure development.

Half of the respondents felt that large-scale transportation projects were usually completed on schedule.

However, in the last 12 months, a large majority (64%) did not have the opportunity to provide feedback to a public transportation provider, and 36% said that public transportation providers had not interacted with them.

Moreover, less than half of respondents (40%) said city officials were clear about submission procedures when requesting citizen feedback about public infrastructure issues, whilst half of them indicated that they felt that requests for feedback on infrastructure improvements or investments come too late in the process for the feedback to be meaningful.