In a recent trip to Singapore, we took advantage of their excellent public transportation system to teach our daughter about commuting using public transport. It will be useful for future travels especially in countries we plan to visit that also have similar transit systems.
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| Descending to the subway station near our hotel |
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| At the station level, one needs some sense of direction and the layout of the station to know where to get a card or tickets and where to enter the station towards the platforms. |
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| Station and train information are available and very visible in SMRT stations |
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| Network maps help one plan a trip including determining where you can transfer from one line to another. While there can be many transfer stations, the key is to determine the least number of stations as presumably this will lead to less travel time. Offhand, a familiarity with stations may also be useful to determine where it is easier to transfer (i.e., same platform for two lines rather than having to walk, ascend or descend to transfer). |
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| Singapore’s transit system employs ezlink cards for the convenience of commuters. We got one each and its nice that we got these cards with the Doraemon design. EZLink cards regulary have many nice and attractive designs that help popularize its use. These have already become collectibles among commuters and visitors. |
It took only a couple of rides for our daughter to learn how to commute in Singapore. That’s how easy it was and it should be very similar if we’re traveling to Japan or Korea, even Europe at some point. The public transportation in cities in those countries are really good and easy to figure out and use. Hopefully, we can soon take her to learn how to use the LRT in Metro Manila and perhaps also the bus and jeepney. That will be an interesting experience.
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