Singapore MRT service

First thing when you touch down from the air plane at Changi Airport. Go to the MRT counter at Terminal 2 to purchase a EZ-link card. It is a need for you to travel around within the island.

You can use the EZ-link card for Bus, MRT and even some of the SMRT taxi. It is cheaper to travel using the EZ-link card compared to using cash or one-off reload card.



I bought a Street Directory book (which comes with a CD) and a Bus Travelling Guide for SGD12.90 and SGD2.50 respectively. It is not a must especially for the Bus Travelling Guide because you can get your reference from the SMRT or Transitlink web site. But the small Street Directory book does come in handy when you need to go to some place by foot, you can refer it there and then (if you do not have a GPS phone).

You do not really need the Bus Travelling Guide because on every bus stop there actually has a notice board that shows all the routes for the bus which passes by this bus stop. So you can know where you are going. Rule of thumb is that if you do not sure, just travel back to a MRT station and uses the MRT to commute to a place that you are familiar, because the route of the SMRT is published everywhere.




  The Bus Travelling Guide book is helpful only when your route in the bus is very long, you might miss the bus stop if you are not familiar. The bus conductor shall not annouced the bus stop name like the SMRT announcing the station name along the way. So you might loss count the number of stop the bus passes by (no stop if no passenger).



Singapore MRT Route Map



I normally shall use the journey planner to plan my journey to a new place where I never go before. You can know your fares also. From 3rd of July 2010, Singapore introduced a new fares system called Distance Fares, which suppose to be cheaper. My own experience is that if you are travelling in short distance without changing your mode of transport (meaning from MRT to bus or bus to MRT), the charges shall be more compared to the previous fare. But if you are travelling far and changing your mode of transport along the way, the overall Distance Fares is actually lower. Here is the Distance Fares Calculator to plan your journey.

I can says that the public commute system in Singapore is much more advance and comfortable as compared to Malaysia. The waiting time between each train is minimum in Singapore, no misses as Malaysia's KTM. The bus transport in Malaysia is no where near Singapore (although Singapore's also has its own flaws). Not enough numbers and limited route. Hence, in Malaysia, it is still very difficult to travel around without car. In Singapore, we able to reach our required destination by public transport.

Anyhow, I still miss driving around in Malaysia =p