SINGAPORE: The Bedok Public Library officially re-opened on Saturday (Oct 28) at its new location at Heartbeat@Bedok.

The new library has a floor area of 4,150 sq m across two levels and a collection of approximately 200,000 books, more than 300 magazine titles and 13,000 audio-visual items, the National Library Board (NLB) said in a news release.

It features “senior-focused” services such as a large print collection, an electronic magnifier and a keyboard with larger alphabets, said NLB.

Aside from the elderly, children will have their own allocated space in the library with interactive eBooks and facilities to encourage story-telling.

Teenagers will also have their own self-contained study area space.

In order to integrate digitalisation with the library’s physical collection, analytics will be used to identify popular items and a specially curated virtual bookshelf will be available on each floor to promote eBooks, NLB said.

PRESERVING PUBLICATIONS IN DIGITAL FORMAT

Speaking at the library’s opening, Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim said that the Government was also studying how to archive works published in digital formats.

“Now a lot (of works) are produced digitally. How do we ensure that we collect that to preserve the history and the memory of Singapore for future generations?” said Dr Yaacob.

He said that he had asked NLB to look at how this could be done.

“One possibility is through our legal mandate, legislative amendments,” he said. “But we’ll consult widely so that people understand what we’re trying to do.”

Under the NLB Act’s legal deposit scheme, publishers must deposit with NLB “two physical copies of library materials that are published in Singapore”, according to NLB.

“To better preserve the digital content on our nation’s history and heritage, NLB will be looking into legislative amendments to the NLB Act, to include mandatory collection and preservation of digital content,” NLB added.

The board said that it will be holding consultation sessions with members of the public as well as dialogue sessions with stakeholders such as publishers and researchers on the issue.

Members of the public can submit their feedback through the REACH portal (www.reach.gov.sg) during the public consultation period from Nov 13 to Dec 13 this year. 

SINGAPORE: Where can you find rags, containers, disposable cutlery, mop heads, sanitary pads and condoms all in the same place? Not in the shops, but in the sewage pipes that carry Singapore’s wastewater.

Combined with gunk like grease and food fats, these items form a sure recipe for a fatberg choking up the pipes.

Of the total number of sewer blockage cases, 80 per cent are caused by people flushing down items indiscriminately, PUB’s director of water reclamation Maurice Neo told Channel NewsAsia in an exclusive interview.

The remaining 20 per cent of blockage cases are due to problems with the system such as aged pipes.

“People don’t realise that the floor trap in the corner (of the bathroom) is the start of trouble downstream if you don’t take care of it,” said Mr Neo.

He added that some people may be opening up the gutter trap so that water flows faster, but it also washes down everything else.

JUST HOW BAD IS THE PROBLEM?

It was reported in London last month that a “giant fatberg” – a congealed mass of fat, nappies and wet wipes – equivalent to the weight of 19 African elephants and the length of two football fields was found in a section of London’s sewer.

If it was not cleared, it would have caused raw sewage to flood the streets.

In Singapore, national water agency PUB said a fatberg of that magnitude is not likely to happen here for one main reason – unlike in London, wastewater and stormwater, which includes drains, are collected through separate systems.

Still, PUB attends to 36 sewer choke cases causing service disruptions per month, and that’s on top of scheduled cleaning and maintenance that is done regularly.

Overall across Singapore, rags and grease appear to be the most lethal combination in choking up the system.

PUB statistics show that between January 2015 and June this year, 73 per cent of sewer blockages happened because of these two items being flushed down the sink and gutter traps.

Grease, which usually comes from oil used in cooking, hardens within the pipe, either on its own or combined with items like rags. In fact, it becomes “as hard as stone”, said Mr Chiew Choon Peng, senior principal engineer from the water reclamation department.

He urged members of the public not to pour leftover cooking oil down the sink, but to bag it instead. They should also wipe grease off pots and pans before washing them.

WHO ARE THE CULPRITS?

Numbers from PUB show that 41 per cent of blockage cases between January 2015 and June this year happened in private residential estates such as condominiums and landed property.

Private estates where there are eateries accounted for 30 per cent of cases, while eateries alone made up 23 per cent. HDB flats and industrial estates, on the other hand, were responsible for 4 per cent of blockage cases and commercial properties accounted for 2 per cent.

Within residential estates, 95 per cent of blockages were due to things like sanitary pads, wooden objects and nylon bags. Towels, containers and mop heads are also commonplace.

Other causes included sand and stones, usually from renovation at these estates. Gold and diamond rings have also been found.

Paper that is thicker than toilet paper, like serviettes and paper towels also clog up the system and should not be flushed down, said Mr Chiew.

“We always try to educate the public not to treat the sewage system like a dustbin although it may seem convenient,” he added.

REGULAR CLEANING AND INSPECTION AS PREVENTIVE MEASURES

PUB performs regular preventive cleaning and inspection of its pipes, which measure about 3,500km in total with about 90,000 manholes as access points.

Such routine maintenance helps ensure sewage pipes are in good condition and cleans the pipes of items that could eventually lead to blockages.

Channel NewsAsia got to witness such cleaning and inspection work during a site visit earlier this month to Geylang Lorong 29, considered a choke-prone area because of the many eateries there.

Eateries tend to wash down – instead of bagging and throwing away – fats, oil and grease which amalgamate and turn into hardened grease.

Maintenance work is usually done by a company contracted by PUB, under the supervision of PUB officers.

Cleaning teams and inspection teams function separately, typically with three men per team. Pipes are cleaned with a high-pressure water jet that is fitted to a vehicle called a hydraulic mobile cleaner.

During the site visit in Geylang, a pipe measuring 47m and 305mm in diameter was cleaned and inspected. 

Water from a high-pressure jet spray cleared the pipe, loosening hardened grease, as well as releasing stones that were later fished out from the manhole using a metal net.

Typically, a squeegee, a flexible rubber equipment, is then inserted to ensure that the pipe is sufficiently clean.

Cleaning takes about 60 minutes to more than two hours depending on the size and length of the pipe, and how dirty it is, said senior engineer Idaly Mamat who oversees sewer maintenance.

To assess the condition of the pipe, the inspection team lowered a surveillance camera with wheels into the manhole. One of the workers then watched a screen to check that the pipes in that length were in good condition, and that there was no choke.

The cameras are explosion-proof, to withstand the hazardous environment in the pipes, said Mr Idaly.

While such work helps to ensure the proper functioning of the sewage system, Mr Idaly said: “The public can help by separating food waste, bagging cooking oil and keeping their floor traps shut.”

SINGAPORE: Households and small businesses in Jurong will be able to buy their electricity from a retailer of their choice or continue with SP Group at the regulated tariff from April next year, with the soft launch of an Open Electricity Market.

This option to shop around for electricity suppliers will be extended to the rest of Singapore in the second half of 2018.

With this move, Singapore joins a host of other nations such as the US, UK and most recently Italy and Japan, in providing energy retail choice to residents and business owners.

According to Minister for Industry and Trade (Industry) S Iswaran, the move intends to give consumers more flexibility in choosing a retailer and a package that suits their needs, which will bring benefits and lead to greater energy efficiency.

But will it really?

The short answer is that it ultimately depends on the consumer’s usage patterns and pricing choices.

POTENTIAL SIZEABLE COST SAVINGS                              

There may be substantial immediate cost savings for consumers who decide to switch from SP Group to another service provider.

Established electricity retailers like Tuas Power and newly registered electricity retailers like iSwitch have advertised rates with cost savings of more than 20 per cent compared to SP tariffs.

But how much households and small businesses actually save also depends on the structure of pricing plans, which may incorporate some element of dynamic pricing that uses real-time data on electricity demand to assign prices.

Depending on how high peak pricing is, and how consumers adjust their own electric energy usage patterns with changes in price, consumers may or may not enjoy cost savings.

One caveat may be that electricity use is more difficult to adjust even if prices change.

Working parents with young children, particularly those without domestic workers, will be hard-pressed to shift much of their home-based activities to off-peak periods on weekdays.

They will almost certainly need to do their laundry, have dinner and tuck their children into bed after an evening of activity with little wriggle room to change their energy consumption habits drastically.

Time-of-use pricing, which sees rates vary depending on when electricity is used may be more suitable for elderly retirees and adults with flexible working hours, as they may stay at home for longer hours in the day, and can thus adjust their electricity use more easily.

As a corollary, just think about whether the Electronic Road Pricing has altered your travel pattern as a driver.

Your answer is likely to be a mix of no, because the road you use is the only one to get to work and yes, because you stay away from the downtown area on weekday evenings if you don’t already work there.

Nevertheless, having a greater variety of pricing plans offers the potential of allowing consumers to choose one that best meets their personal needs.

After all, electricity prices in the UK dropped following the liberalisation of the energy market, due to efficiency gains and the industry’s increased competitiveness. The first wholesale electricity trading market went live in 2001, pushing prices 2.6 per cent lower in 2002, and then 13.6 per cent lower in 2004. 

Even though prices have risen since then, due to the combination of climate change, rising consumption of electricity and investments in infrastructure, the country continues to reap energy efficiency gains.

NEW BUNDLES

Over the first year when the market is fully liberalised, there may be some period of trial and error, as households and small businesses shop around to try out various retailers to find a bundle that reaps the best value for them.

Electricity retail markets in the US and Europe have evolved to an extent where electrical services companies offer competitive, bundled services.

These offers include tariff vouchers, the use of green electricity, integrated billing solutions which offer usage analytics, and even charity donations on behalf of the consumer, catering to various consumer preferences and introducing an element of product differentiation.

Such are just some examples of innovations derived from increased competition, all of which improve consumer welfare based on individual preferences.

The available bundles may be highly customised to consumer preferences and individual electricity consumption patterns. In Sweden, electricity companies offer a total of 4,200 types of contracts to households.

We may see an initial spike in activity, as companies embark on a customer acquisition frenzy with highly publicised attractive packages.

In some segments, there may be inertia if consumers take time to trust the reliability of the electricity services provided by new entrants, do not actively search for alternatives or switching requires administrative hassle. 

Many may also wait for early adopters to assess complex pricing options to give their take and report on the benefits from their experiences.

The likely outcome is that most Singaporean households will remain with SP Group and the default pricing plan for a while.

More small business owners may move, as the predictability of their load patterns and greater cost savings make switching more attractive.

AFTER THE SWITCH

Once a consumer switches, however, it is no guarantee that low costs can be sustained, as there may be underlying price mechanisms that could increase electricity costs.

Large cancellation fees for switching prior to contract expiration, a minimum lock-in period, and minimum monthly usage penalty fees may be imposed, as is the case with retailers operating in some states within the US.

Just as if you end your mobile phone contract with a telco early, termination fees often cited as necessary to cover administrative costs will likely be charged, leading to demand stickiness.

Certainly, the availability of pricing information will help inform household and business choices and aid the authorities in regulating contractual arrangements both to safeguard consumer and business interests, and to ensure sufficient choices are available for effective retail competition.

With the retirement of old electricity generation plants in the coming years, the supply of electricity is projected to decrease, based on the 2016 EMA outlook report.

Taken in conjunction with an expected demand increase, this could be a source of concern for electricity prices, although EMA’s commitment to maintaining a 30 per cent minimum supply cushion will do well to allay fears.

Perhaps a relevant reason for liberalising the retail electricity market is to empower consumers who can conveniently make use of smart devices to reap potential cost savings.

The ability to automate household appliances so that they turn on or off based on pre-set price and demand thresholds is just one such example.

Benefits to consumers or otherwise, one key criteria by which to assess the success of an Open Electricity Market may be whether it incentivises consumers to be more prudent in their energy usage patterns.

A good outcome would be if households and businesses cut down on usage.

But if electricity plans impose minimum usage penalty fees or rates that are significantly discounted below SP tariffs, consumers may have less incentive to cut back on electrical consumption.

Minimum usage penalty fees have been defended by retail providers, to allow them to recover their operating costs associated with meeting the diverse needs of consumers. Such fees are common in the state of Texas, US, for instance.

It is still early days, and difficult to say if electricity demand is really that price sensitive and how much of the purported benefits of energy efficiency will be realised in the coming years.

But if you knew that your electricity rates will be reduced when you switch operators, wouldn’t you be less inclined to be mindful of your electricity usage?

Allan Loi is a research associate at the National University of Singapore’s Energy Studies Institute.

SINGAPORE: He spots an open cake amid the used cans, old clothes and other rubbish. “There are three rules when it comes to eating food from a dump,” explains Mr Daniel Tay, 38, as he puts them into action.

First, he examines the cake for mould, then sniffs it and finally licks it. This time, however, he does not take a nibble as he usually does when testing whether such scraps are safe to eat.

Something else catches his eye. “Ben and Jerry’s!” he exclaims, before fishing out a pint of half-eaten ice cream. “It’s still cold. It has ice crystals on it.”

He adds triumphantly: “Some people from our community said that I’d never be able to find ice cream!”

He is referring to the dumpster-diving community who forage for food and other items. That night, cake and ice cream are not all that he finds: He also rescues untouched mango pudding in cups.

On another occasion, while out scavenging with a group of 16, he digs through bags of trash to get to half-eaten chicken wings. “They’re in a box, they should be fine,” Mr Tay says nonchalantly about eating the drumsticks.

The thought is enough to make most stomachs churn, but he insists that such a reaction is psychological.

Not too long ago, he found a box of Essence of Chicken that expired in 2005. After applying the three rules of dumpster-diving, he gulped down a “perfectly fine” bottle. “Expiry dates are for retailers … not for consumers,” he says.

Mr Tay is a freegan, from the words “free” and “vegan”, which the dictionary defines as a person who rejects consumerism and seeks to help the environment by reducing waste, especially by retrieving and using discarded food and other goods.

Or as he puts it: “Freegans are people who spend very little money, and they want to try to rescue and reuse the stuff that people throw away.”

When it comes to food, for instance, he does not spend a single cent, although dumpsters are not his only source of subsistence.

“I get my food from my (three) neighbours, their leftover food – food that’s perfectly fine to eat but … they have too much, they can’t finish,” says Mr Tay, who lives in a three-room flat in Ang Mo Kio.

DEPRESSED OVER MONEY WORRIES

His freegan lifestyle of the past year has saved him not only money but also rescued him from depression.

The chemistry graduate was working for a non-profit organisation from 2005 to 2010 when he first began to worry about money. His salary had not increased much, and he felt that he “wasn’t earning enough”.

He thought to himself: “In future, if I’m going to get married, have my own family, how am I going to have more money? So I started learning about money.”

He was first diagnosed with major depressive disorder in 2009, triggered by that very worry. 

A year later, when he got married, he became a financial planner. But while he soon had clients telling him that his help gave them financial “peace of mind”, that same goal still eluded him.

He kept questioning himself: “What’s wrong? How come I have all these back-up plans in place, I know exactly how I’m going to achieve all my goals, (but) I still worry about money?”

The turning point came last November, at an event he attended called an honesty circle, where people talk about money. The dialogue is run by social enterprise PlayMoolah with the aim of helping people develop a healthy relationship with money.

That was when he met his freegan mentor, Colin, whose opening line to the participants was, “I don’t worry about money because I get everything for free”, Mr Tay recounts. He added: “That hooked everybody.”

THE FREEGAN ‘KAMPUNG’ LIFE 

There were three things Mr Tay learnt to get started as a freegan. The first was to ask his neighbours for leftover food. At the time, all he used to do was to greet them, so to break the ice, he said he was doing a project.

Not only did they agree to his request, they were also grateful not to waste food.

“It was a surreal experience – people giving me food and thanking me for taking their food,” he says. “Today, the relationships are stronger than before… because we’re more like a community.” Where once their doors were always closed, there are now days when they gather outside to chat.

“It’s a very kampung feel,” says Mr Tay.

The leftovers he gets from them are also more than he can finish. “I got kind of fat on all the rice I was eating,” he says wryly. “I started to eat more of the dishes.”

So as not to waste rice – last month, he had seven packets in his fridge – he decided to ferment it to make rice wine. “It’s quite nice-tasting,” he says of his first batch, and offers a sample.

FREE FRUIT FOR SHARING

Stage two of Mr Tay’s freegan journey was to go round the back of supermarkets and vegetable sellers to see what they had thrown away. The first time he did so, he saw more fruits than he could carry. “I was just speechless,” he says.

He was also nervous about bringing them home. “If you take from rubbish, (it’s) not stealing, right?” he asked himself. There were watermelons, papayas, pineapples, peaches, apples, pears and oranges behind just one supermarket. He took only a few.

Later, Colin told him that the food he left behind would be “going to the incinerator”. “The next day, I came back. I took everything,” recalls Mr Tay. But there was too much for him to finish eating.

That was when he started giving food away, to his wife and parents first, his neighbours next and then his friends, by starting the Facebook group Freegan in Singapore, which has close to 330 members now.

Since July, he has been leading weekly vegetable hunts in places such as Little India, Pasir Panjang and Toa Payoh, where there are wholesale distributors and “loads of food, good vegetables” are discarded.

The freegan groups are able to cart off only half of what they collect each time, donating a lot of their haul to migrant workers and charities.

EDUCATING UNDERGRADS

Mr Tay’s efforts soon came to the attention of National University of Singapore assistant professor Andrew Quitmeyer, who used to dumpster-dive for fruits and vegetables back home in the United States.

The communications and new media lecturer has jumped at the chance to get his students to experience first-hand the problem of waste.

“Dumpster-diving is a much more common thing in the US among activists and volunteers, but nobody in Singapore I knew had seemed to have heard of it, much less actually do it,” he said.

“My students thought it was cool but still seemed shy about it.

But once they heard their classmates went and heard their professor was jumping into dumpsters, finding food and electronics to donate, they quickly understood that they, too, could help.

“It gave them a lot of agency,” the lecturer said.

On one recent veggie hunt in Dunlop Street, the group of NUS students were shocked at the amount of fresh food, from kangkong to spinach to potatoes, that had been thrown out.

“We saw long beans and stuff like that (which) we could have taken home, but because (they weren’t) disposed of properly, then it resulted in food wastage that even we couldn’t help,” said Ms Roe Curie, 23.

Mr Tay, who now gets invitations to speak on eco panels, believes that consumers can make a difference.

“If consumers make it known to the businesses they patronise that they’ll buy ugly fruits and imperfect vegetables, then why would supermarkets and sellers not want to sell them?” he says.

“I don’t have that power, unfortunately, because I don’t buy anything.”

TREASURE – AND SECRETS – IN THE ESTATE DUMP

Mr Tay is not kidding about forsaking purchases these days.

Cans of abalone that he says retail at S$85 a can line a cupboard in his home, a find he made during the third part of his freegan journey: Walking around public estates to look for what people dump.

His home is a treasure trove of other people’s trash. There is a telescope in “perfect working condition” in one corner, folded chairs stacked against a wall, and a fish tank that is now his indoor garden.

He has a coffee machine that he is proud of because it reminds him of a bygone era when things were made to last. “Dumpster-diving is really like present-day archaeology,” he remarks.

You learn things like why a Philips coffee maker that was made in Singapore in the 1980s still works, but something that was made in 2010 in China cannot.

“It’s not just the difference between Singapore and China. It’s about the quality of parts. Things today are designed to fail after a certain number of years, so that businesses can continue to sell stuff.”

One of his rooms is the “Freegan Room”, with four washing machine boxes – two filled to the brim with bits and bobs. Wires, toiletries, beauty products, books, lamps, speakers and fans are lying around. “I’m clearing out stuff today,” he says by way of explanation.

He has even found folders of client information from an insurance company – “that’s dangerous” – and information about a patient who had a lump in her breast and was recommended a mastectomy.

“Everything was there – IC number, whole reports,” he says. “I’m definitely not going to that doctor… I know this is important for clinics because some of my friends who are GPs tell me that (patient) confidentiality is of utmost importance.”

WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF HIM

When he goes out dumpster-diving, which is twice or thrice weekly, he is armed with his custom-made trolley, a trolley bag and scissors, but no gloves.

Pointing to a headlight, he adds: “Before I used this, I was using my handphone, but I was always terrified of my handphone dropping into the trash, so this is better.”

WATCH: What he finds amid the rubbish (6:22)

He is, in fact, “averse to terrible-smelling stuff” and avoids refuse disposal areas with a whiff of rotting food as well as bugs.

“(But) not all bins smell bad. Some smell quite nice because people throw away detergents and shampoo bottles,” he says.

Initially, he also wondered what people would think of him rummaging through rubbish.

Maybe he has fallen on hard times, or maybe (he has) got some kind of mental illness … That was my own impression of myself as I was doing it.

“After a while, I started to realise that nobody cares. Nobody looks at you. You’re invisible to them,” he says.

Human resource specialist Lim Wensu, 29, who has dumpster-dived with Mr Tay, is all praise for his open-mindedness and sharing of knowledge with others.

“It takes guts to do it, and how he started on dumpster-diving was pretty amazing for me, given we tend to save face in Singapore society,” she said.

While some people would have negative perceptions about those they see dumpster-diving, Mr Tay says one of the freegans he knows is a retired millionaire: “He does it because it’s damn fun, and because you save a lot of money.”

MONTHLY SPENDING HALVED

Sales and marketing manager Tiew Xin Yi, 24, can attest to that. She started dumpster-diving in April because it sounded interesting and now likens it to a treasure hunt.

“I’ve also managed to reduce my living expenses and impulse buying,” she said. Her monthly expenditure, inclusive of transport and bills, has been halved from S$800 to S$400, “sometimes even dropping to S$300”.

She has brought home half-used make-up kits, such as a blusher palette, as well as stuff for her mother, who was admittedly a bit superstitious at first.

Older people have the perception that if you wear someone else’s shoes, for example, the spirit will follow you home.

“But now she uses small things that I bring home, like bags and stationery,” said Ms Tiew.

Good shoes are one thing Mr Tay appreciates, as he walks a lot, and after he became a freegan, he started coming across pairs of them.

“So I started to wear the shoes that I found … And you upgrade as you go along. So you start with Bata, then you upgrade to Sparx, then you upgrade to Timberland,” he says.

Recently, he found a big plastic bag at a void deck. Inside, there were six pairs of shoes, including from Clarks and Dr. Martens.

His monthly spending has dropped from S$2,000 to S$1,100, comprising S$500 on his mortgage, S$200 on insurance, S$200 on a long-term savings plan and S$250 “on everything else” – transport, utilities, Internet and mobile. His one “luxury”: S$50 on his pets.

BEING HAPPY WITH VERY LITTLE MONEY

More importantly, he has not had a depression episode for more than a year because of what he has learnt: “Having not enough money and the fear of having not enough money are two separate things.”

He says: “Since I became a freegan and gradually adopted this way of life, where I use very little money and end up with a lot of savings, (money) is no longer a trigger for me.”

Part of the realisation that he “can be very happy with very little money” came from collecting so many items from dumpster-diving that he has had to give away “90 per cent” of them.,

The more I give, I find that there’s less that I want. I can’t explain the mechanism. I don’t know why … All my needs and wants are met.

He has donated items such as prams, umbrellas, Tupperware, clothes and stuffed toys to migrant workers – enough for them to fill washing machine boxes of their own to send back to their families. And he has opened his home for them to take more.

“I don’t give money to charity anymore, I give thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to charity,” he adds.

So where does he go from here, and where does he see himself five years from now?

He says: “(If) you had asked me one year ago, would I be where I am today, I’d have said no… What life has in store for you sometimes is way better than anything you could plan.

“(If) you asked me six months ago, where would the freegan movement be… I wouldn’t have been able to say that people are inviting me to sit on panels to talk about food waste. It’s beyond the realm of my imagination.”

For more unusual and inspiring profiles like these, check out CNA Insider.

SINGAPORE: If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you going to call? We’re not sure how helpful the Ghostbusters will be here in Singapore, but there’s no denying the recent spate of strange occurrences happening all over our island-city.

With streaming platform Netflix releasing the highly anticipated season two of their hit sci-fi horror series Stranger Things on Friday (Oct 27), we thought there was no better time to look at the “stranger things” that have been happening in our own backyard. Who knows, they might very well serve as inspiration for the show.

TAMPINES NAKED UNCLE        

Just last month, the Internet was ablaze with photos of a man roaming around Tampines wearing nothing but boots, spectacles and a lanyard, plus a very essential mobile phone in hand.

The unidentified uncle was walking near Block 523C Tampines Avenue 9 and Block 728 Tampines Street 71. He was also seen standing on board a public bus, which Channel NewsAsia understands to be bus service 168. 

We’re surprised that the residents of Tampines didn’t give the man a dressing down. Perhaps they were still in shock and horror at witnessing the events of that fateful Sep 14 morning. Or maybe they just simply couldn’t bare it.

WOMAN ON THE ROOF OF A MOVING CAR 

In the wee hours of Jan 16, a woman was spotted perched on the roof of a moving car along Eu Tong Sen Road. According to reports, the woman, who was wearing white, waved back at a taxi driver who waved at her at a traffic light stop. 

Dashboard camera footage of the incident provided by the taxi driver showed the woman – reportedly in her 20s – lounging on top of the moving car, leaning back on her hands.

Under the Road Traffic Act, motorists convicted of dangerous driving may be fined up to S$3,000 and jailed for up to a year. Repeat offenders may be fined up to S$5,000 and jailed for up to two years.

Pulling perilously strange and stupid stunts such like this, we reckon the title to this young woman’s movie should be Driving Miss Crazy.

DANCING LADY IN BEDOK TOWN CENTRE

On Sep 10, a 39-year-old Vietnamese woman bizarrely began to boogie at Bedok Town Center along New Upper Changi Road. This happened at around 7am.

According to a local Chinese daily, she danced alone for eight hours until 3pm, refusing to stop even in a bout of heavy rain. She also systematically shed her clothes as the day wore on.

Initially, no one paid any attention to her, netizens said, until her dancing became increasingly erratic and maniac.

A resident eventually called the police when she was stripped down to her undergarments and her dancing became progressively racy and suggestive. This strange antic landed her in the custody of police and in the Institute of Mental Health for psychiatric assessment. Talk about literally dancing up a storm.

MYSTERIOUS “GHOST CAR” CAUSING A COLLISION

Everyone who has seen the video posted online is understandably divided. The dashcam video shows a “ghost car” that seemingly appears out of nowhere to cause a collision. The footage has had everyone scratching their heads trying to figure out whether the camera angle hid a blind spot or was this just one massive inexplicable optical illusion.

While many were ready to decree paranormal influences, some eagle-eyed netizens claim to be able to see the car, pointing out sensible reasons to plausibly debunk the “ghost car” theory. Whichever side of the fence you sit, one thing is for sure – this was a mystery that got the rest of the world speculating. The baffling video has been picked up by international media including the New York Post, Yahoo Australia and the Daily Mail.

EVERY OTHER THING IN YISHUN

From a woman found with 39 pet cats caged in her HDB flat and huge monitor lizards appearing outside lifts, to buses catching fire and freaky car accidents happening 15 minutes apart, poor Yishun has unfortunately cemented its reputation as Singapore’s epicentre for truly mind-boggling occurrences.

But buried beneath the barrage of reports about murder cases, animal abuse, drug busts, traffic accidents and fireworks being set off illegally is a neighbourhood ready for a positive image re-brand.

That said, embracing all these strange things in good humour isn’t such a bad idea either. After all, the northern suburb became a viral Internet sensation (and cult spectacle) when Netflix used it as a backdrop for their Stranger Things marketing campaign for the first season.

Now, they’ve posted a new teaser on their Facebook page on Thursday (Oct 26). This time, a photo of Eleven and her friends at our iconic Singapore dragon playground was shared. We’re guessing there must be another Yishun-inspired video in the works. As the saying goes: Everything must go wrong, before it goes right. 

SINGAPORE: The opening of the third phase of the Downtown line on Oct 21 and the accompanying delays some commuters experienced marked the continuous efforts and challenges Singapore faces in meeting increasing transport demand.

Singaporeans are no strangers to the pain points that accompany an MRT delay – especially when train services on North-South Line had to be halted in early October, owing to the flooding of a section of the tunnel between Braddell and Bishan MRT stations.

Poor maintenance might have caused this latest incident, but as Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan points out, SMRT staff’s energies have been focused on rail and train signalling.  

The delays on various lines this week also caused inconvenience to commuters, some of whom lamented that they now expect delays on a regular basis and check on the status of train lines as frequent as they do the weather.

GROWING TRANSPORT DEMAND

Many large modern cities in Asia today including Singapore confront a common challenge of accommodating fast growing mobility needs resulting from population growth and economic development.

According to the Household Interview Travel Surveys conducted by the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the total number of trips made by Singaporeans everyday increased from 8.9 million in 2004 to 12.5 million in 2012.

Given Singapore’s severe land constraints and associated externalities of driving including road congestion and transport emissions, increasing the number of private cars or taxis are not sustainable solutions to meet the urban transport needs of Singapore residents.

There are also limits in expanding the road networks in Singapore – a country where roads already take up more than 12 per cent of land.

MRT’S PIVOTAL ROLE

Indeed, the public transport system, with the MRT as its backbone, has to play a pivotal role in meeting the mobility needs of Singaporeans.

The local authorities know this. In the past several decades, we have witnessed the continuous expansion of the MRT network to approximately 200 km. The total track length will be further increased to 360 km by 2030 according to LTA’s long-term plan.

Eight in 10 households are projected to live within 10 minutes of a train station by then.

That the LTA has decided to cut vehicle growth in private passenger cars and motorcycle from February next year suggests a stronger push to steer Singapore towards a car-lite society.

These developments are in line with reducing car dependency and promoting public transport, the two pillars of Singapore’s approach to manage individual travel behaviour and achieve sustainable mobility on a national level.

Indeed, for many years, Singapore has been a pioneer in the world in implementing novel policies such as the requirement of a Certificate of Entitlement and Electronic Road Pricing to increase the cost of driving and shape decisions to purchase and drive private cars.

The MRT’s expansion in the past decade must be seen in this same context – as it aims to enhance accessibility for commuters, by reducing the travel time and accessiblity of public transport.

Empirical studies in Singapore have confirmed the effectiveness of the expanded MRT lines in reshaping individual travel behaviour.

Our research at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology shows that households living along the Circle Line (CCL) corridor have shifted toward public transport after the opening of the CCL.

We observed a significant increase in MRT usage and decrease in car trips in the proximity of CCL stations after the new line began operations.

In particular, the CCL has also increased the share of trips by MRT and reduced the share of trips by driving by approximately 20 percentage points among residents living in areas within 500m of a CCL station, relative to residents living in areas beyond 1km from a CCL station.

Similar behaviour patterns were also observed when comparing residents living between 500m and 1km of CCL stations and those living further away from a CCL station.

But when the rail system so critical to our sustainable transport strategy meets with delays or breakdowns often enough, will commuters still see the MRT as a reliable mode of transport?

THE COMMUTER’S CHOICE

In their daily commute, individuals have to make decisions about how to get to their intended destination. Each mode of transport represents a bundle of service attributes such as travel time, travel cost and reliability.

Individuals choose the optimal mode of transport to maximise their utility.

Easy accessibility to MRT stations is but one component of the equation. Changing service standards could have significant effect on individual mobility decisions, which can impact travel patterns and transport outcomes in turn.

The continuous expansion of the MRT network and its success in attracting ridership have led to greater challenges as ridership growth has challenged the ability of operations and maintenance to keep up.

Coupled with issues of maintenance and signalliing, when such challenges are not properly handled and disruptions occur, service levels deteriorate with negative knock-on effects for MRT ridership.

In a recent study, a group of researchers from NUS evaluated travellers’ preferences regarding various service attributes. They used a high-frequency administrative dataset containing transaction records of millions of EZ-Link cards in Singapore to model the mode choice of public transit riders.

Their results reveal interesting patterns among groups of transport riders.

Unsurprisingly, senior citizens, students and children are generally more sensitive to travel costs, while working adult commuters are more sensitive to travel time.

Travel time and transport reliability affect most work-related trips, presumably due to the higher penalty of running late. 

Their findings suggest that frequent service disruptions could reduce the service reliability of MRT, thus encouraging travellers to switch to other modes of transport.

For working adults who can afford cars, the more reliable alternative is clear.

Expanding overall MRT capacity while sustaining service levels is still a challenge facing the operators, which may require more time and resources to resolve.

Unfortunately time is not on the side of transport policymakers – nor is time friendly to their objective of nudging the population to be car-lite, where MRT delays and breakdowns may incentivise more to own a car.

Diao Mi is assistant professor in the National University of Singapore’s Department of Real Estate. His research interests include travel behaviour, transport policy and urban planning.