Singapore: Choosing mode of Transport !

Singapore is great ! It has excellent means of transportation when you need. It is up to you to decide whether you want to take a Bus, MRT or Taxi. It is not true that the Taxi will always cost you more than the bus(well in $ terms yes !)....lets take an example here to explain this !

You(total 4 people) want to goto IKEA from Hougang during non-peak hours on weekend. You have 2 options Bus or Taxi.

Taking Bus

• Using the http://www.sbstransit.com.sg website we can plan the journey
• The service 27 will go directly to IKEA from Hougang Central Interchange.
• The cost will be $1.18 per person = $4.72
• The time to reach is probably around 30 mins.

Taking Taxi

• Take a Taxi from same starting point to IKEA
  
• The Fare would be around $6.30 for 4 persons
  
• Time to reach IKEA(at drop-off point) is max 15-20 mins as we go by Highway !

So its upto you to decide when to take a Taxi or Bus depending upon your mood, convenience. As sometimes it rains so heavy in Singapore that you will be half-wet by the time you reach the Bus Interchange from your house !

But the same math is tricky when you are going during peak hours & during weekday. As it adds Peak hour charges & ERP charges which are quite high depending on the time of the day.

This was just an example. When going long distance & where MRT station is direct on the same line, MRT is the fastest & cheapest mode of transport.

I will write more on this subject & means to save cost while traveling in Singapore ;)

enjoy !

Bangalore Pune Volvo NH4 experience !

I was in Pune for 4 days. It was a short trip. I was expecting some rains in pune but it was not much. Though while going from Bangalore ..on road in Karnataka ..there was good rains after Tumkur.

I took KSRTC Volvo - Airavat. It was good & comfortable ride to Pune in 16 hours with stopping at Tumkur/Davangere/Kolhapur/Katraj Ghat ..

This was my 2nd trip in Volvo bus by KSTRC ..It was good experience overall. The drivers seems to be good in driving & do not overtake too much (which is a usual practice on Highways by buses & Cars).

The NH4(Mumbai-Chennai) is supposed to 4-Laned by 31-DEC-2006 as per PMs statement last week. The status is available on the Website : http://www.nhai.org. Here is the latest MAP with status:
From the MAP it seems that most of the work is completed. Also it is completed at most of the streaches. But whevever the work is not done or abondon because of re-tendering or whatever reasons. Its the worst part of NH4, the road become narrow & traffic plays from both sides. There is no tar work & its very dangerous to drive for those streaches in night specially. I saw one Truck loosing its control & accidently fell on the dich on the side of the road(there is no road infact ..just mud!!).

I am sure everybody must be feeling bad about the fact that, after spending so much the 4-laning of highways is taking so long just because our govt. do not have control to make sure that the work happens as per the deadlines in tender. Once the govt. in power changes everything stops & waits for nod from new govt to continue ..

I took almost 1 hour to reach Yashwantpur from Bangalore Bus Station. From there till Tumkur the road is 4-laned, but there is heavy traffic of Trucks & lot of people/vehicles crossing the highway. The best part of NH4 is from Belgaum to Pune(till you reach Katraj Ghat !!). The road is perfectly done with good quality material(you can see the difference from your eyes !!). Once can easily drive at the avg speed of 75 kmph at that streach in non-peak hours.

Katraj Ghat realignment is something I am looking for when I go next time pune :) ..if that is done before dec-31 people will save almost 1 hour.

Overall its good to see that something is happening :) ...we in india sometimes are too accomodative or too aggressive !!

I am looking for a day when one can reach Mumbai from Bangalore(1000 kms) in 12 hours :)