Buses with rooftop gardens to ply Singapore’s roads

SINGAPORE: Buses with rooftop gardens will begin plying Singapore’s roads, as part of an initiative to study possible energy and cost savings for bus operators.

The Garden on the Move initiative, which was launched on Sunday (May 5), will see 10 SBS Transit buses ply Singapore’s roads for at least three months. The routes include one through the Central Business District and another through Orchard Road.

Fares for these buses are the same as for regular buses.

Touted as Asia’s first green-roofed bus initiative, the buses are outfitted with a soilless roof system – instead of conventional soil, the plants are secured on a lightweight mat used for skyrise greenery, said GWS Living Art, Moove Media, National Parks Board (NParks), Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) and Temasek Foundation in a joint press release.

This makes it cleaner, easier to maintain and more economical than other conventional green roof systems, which are primarily soil-based, the release said.

The aim of the three-month study is to confirm that the green roof will lead to a drop in temperature within the interior of the buses, and a reduction in the fuel consumption used for air-conditioning, the release said.

Mr Oh Cheow Sheng, group director of NParks said: “This is a creative initiative that seeks to extend Singapore’s greening efforts, and which truly encapsulates the vision of a biophilic City in a Garden. We hope that this will spur others to explore other similarly innovative ways to green up Singapore.”

“Building upon the success of our Live.Work.Play.Green campaign in 2018 where we garnered massive support from the public on green buildings, this new initiative aims to once again drive green building awareness to the forefront of the public’s consciousness,” said Dr Ho Nyok Yong, president of the SGBC. 

“We hope to sustain interest in green buildings by putting one of the most recognisable elements of a green building onto a very public platform.”