Mr Speaker, hardly anyone in this House will disagree that our openness to the world and our world-class infrastructure are key reasons for Singapore's prosperity. Our major gateways like Changi Airport and the Port of Singapore have enabled our nation to punch above our weight. Our future success will rely on us being at the forefront of connecting people, markets, ideas and capital.
Today’s motion affirms the role of a world-class infrastructure in reinforcing Singapore’s position as a global transport hub, and anchoring good jobs in Singapore. All of us here can appreciate how and why this is important.
However, I hope the House will join me in reflecting whether our world-class infrastructure should only have the purposes of consolidating our status as a transport hub and anchoring jobs here. Should we not ponder on the question: “Who should our world-class infrastructure serve?”
Should our world-class infrastructure merely facilitate the movement of capital, goods and talent across borders? Or should it also improve and enhance the everyday lives of ordinary Singaporeans?
My answer, Mr Speaker, is that our world-class infrastructure should not just create economic opportunities for Singaporeans. No doubt, that is an important objective. However, it is also imperative that our world-class infrastructure is something that serves our citizens directly.
As far as possible, our infrastructure should not merely facilitate Singaporeans getting good jobs, but also tangibly improve the lived experiences of our people. By this, I mean ensuring that Singaporeans can genuinely enjoy or benefit from our infrastructure.
Changi Airport offers an example of what I mean. Changi is unquestionably a world-class aviation hub.
It is also well-loved by Singaporeans, something that we are all proud of. Even if one is not catching a flight, one can spend an afternoon at Jewel. Families can gather there for a meal at one of the many wonderful restaurants, couples can go for a date at the Canopy Park, and everyone—young and old—can enjoy the Rain Vortex.
Changi Airport is an excellent model of infrastructure that generates economic value, while simultaneously enriching the everyday life of Singaporeans. Yes, the airport creates job opportunities. But it also offers social and recreational amenities to ordinary Singaporeans, including those who are not frequent flyers.
And I think it is good that Changi Airport is not merely the preserve of a jet-setting elite, but open to all Singaporeans in the sense that there will always be something for someone to do there, even if they are not catching a flight.
Sir, this element of public access is what our world-class infrastructure should always aspire to include. In our pursuit to be “a globally connected aviation, maritime, and logistics hub”, we must ensure that Singaporeans are not, and do not feel, alienated from the world-class infrastructure which underpins and makes possible that hub status.
Allow me to further illustrate my point with the more mundane example of the expressways. They undoubtedly facilitate trade and logistics. Goods can be efficiently transported from our port terminals to our industrial estates and commercial zones, and vice-versa.
But while we appreciate the economic efficiencies created by our network of expressways, we should also keep in mind the two-thirds of Singaporean resident households that do not own cars, including myself.
Non-car-owning Singaporeans can only directly benefit from an eight-lane expressway if they are riding in a private hire car or on one of the bus services that ply an expressway sector.
It is thus heartening that the upcoming North-South Corridor is designed to be multi-modal, with dedicated bus lanes and cycling paths to allow as many ordinary Singaporeans— including those who don’t own cars—to directly use and benefit from the new expressway.
These two examples of our airport and our expressways hopefully clarifies my point: that our infrastructure should be designed with public access in mind. Our people should be able to use our world-class infrastructure to enhance our immediate quality of life.
Sir, while we are on the topic of public access to our world-class infrastructure, I want to reiterate the Workers’ Party’s call for public transport to be made free for seniors and people with disabilities during off-peak periods.
I have previously raised in this House that the Freedom Pass in London is a worthy model to consider emulating. The Freedom Pass is given to London residents above the age of 66 and those with eligible disabilities to freely travel across the Transport for London network. There are however peak-hour restrictions on weekday mornings for holders of the Older Person’s Freedom Pass.
There is a study on the Freedom Pass which was published in 2014, and I hope to read part of the abstract into the record. In their article “More than A to B: the role of free bus travel for the mobility and wellbeing of older citizens in London”, the authors stated that: “Travelling by bus provided opportunities for meaningful social interaction; travelling as part of the ‘general public’ provided a sense of belonging and visibility in the public arena – a socially acceptable way of tackling chronic loneliness. The Freedom Pass was described not only as providing access to essential goods and services but also as a widely prized mechanism for participation in life in the city.”
What the research suggests is that providing free travel on public transport helps with seniors’ well-being and enables their civic participation. Crucially, it makes senior citizens feel like they belong and have a place in society. This comes back to my earlier point that Singaporeans must not feel alienated from our world-class infrastructure. Singaporeans, regardless of age or means, must be able to use that infrastructure, not merely benefit economically from them.
I should acknowledge that my Honourable Friend from Sengkang, A/P Jamus Lim, had also called for off-peak public transport to be made free for seniors and persons with disabilities during the 14th Parliament. The then-Minister for Transport S. Israwan rebuffed this proposal with the warning that the ensuing financial burden “is by no means insignificant".
The Workers' Party has consistently argued that public transport should be viewed primarily as a public service rather than a profit centre. Especially for our seniors, public transport helps to fulfill important non-material needs, such as for companionship, community, and belonging. These are sometimes overlooked when we consider the matter only in terms of dollars and cents.
Sir, the Freedom Pass has demonstrated its value for the senior citizens of London. As Singapore becomes a super-aged society, I believe that our senior citizens here similarly deserve their own Merdeka Pass.
Mr Speaker, the motion also mentions the role of frontier technologies in anchoring good jobs in Singapore. While AI threatens to change the face of many professions, we continue to face persistent labour shortages in the public transportation sector.
Currently, less than a third of bus captains are Singaporeans. The Acting Minister for Transport has also acknowledged that recruitment and retention are the biggest challenges preventing further expansion of the bus network.
Frontier technologies like autonomous vehicles, or AVs, could offer a potential solution. AVs have already been trialled in Punggol to ply short fixed-route services, and self-driving public bus services will also be piloted on in Marina Bay and one-north from the second half of 2026.
Should the self-driving public bus service pilots in Marina Bay and one-north be successful, I would like to suggest that the LTA next consider deploying self-driving public buses to build a network of night bus services.
We could start by running self-driving night buses along existing MRT lines when these lines are closed during the overnight hours.
Late-night bus services have in the past suffered from low ridership and the NightRider and Nite Owl services have been discontinued since the COVID-19 pandemic. But even before the pandemic, we have never had a proper network of late-night bus services that replicate, even on a limited basis, the connectivity provided during daylight hours, unlike in other major global cities like London, New York, Hong Kong, or Beijing.
The pre-pandemic NightRider and Nite Owl services only operated unidirectionally from the City to various housing estates and primarily serviced people having a night out in the city.
But a proper network of self-driving late-night bus services running along existing MRT lines would be truly revolutionary for Singapore. It would not just benefit Singaporeans enjoying the nightlife, but also people who finish or start work after the MRT shuts down, and staff and travellers going to the airport for late-night flights.
Affordable late-night mobility should be part of a vibrant world city like Singapore, and with AVs, what was previously economically and logistically infeasible could become a reality.
I urge LTA to seriously consider trialling self-driving buses on bus routes overnight as well, as this is a use case that could benefit many Singaporeans while traffic levels and any risks posed by AVs to public safety are also much lower.
Eventually, we could even consider expanding AVs to support school bus services, which is another area where a shortage of drivers and rising cost pressures have made it more difficult for school bus operators to sustain operations. For example, AVs could be used to shuttle students who live more than 4km from their schools, since bus operators are now no longer contractually required to serve them.
This is not to suggest that automation is not a substitute for valuing human work. Even with AVs, Singapore will continue to depend on thousands of bus captains for the foreseeable future. While we rely on AVs to supplement our manpower needs, we must continue to make sure that bus operators enjoy the wages, career progression and working conditions that are commensurate with the skilled and socially valuable work they do. Bus driving should be seen as a profession Singaporeans should be proud to enter, and not simply one we struggle to fill.
Sir, in this speech, I only want to affirm that ordinary Singaporeans should not feel alienated from the world-class infrastructure sitting in our own country. As we have seen with Changi Airport, Singapore is capable of building infrastructure that both impresses the world and benefits the lives of Singaporeans. Changi drives our economic competitiveness while simultaneously being a place for Singaporeans to gather, relax, celebrate and create memories.
So as we develop the infrastructure befitting a global hub status, I hope the House can appreciate that the real measure of a truly world-class infrastructure is whether the people who built our country can truly enjoy it.
