Virtual bus lanes

In terms of Singapore transport history, Lorong Ah Soo has hardly made a mark.

It began life as a nondescript track off Upper Paya Lebar Road, possibly sometime in the 1930s - it first appeared in the newspaper archives in 1938. It fortuitously survived urban renewal in the early 1980s. When Hougang New Town came up in the area, it was not expunged; instead, it was lengthened to meet newly-built Hougang Avenue 3 and serve the flats of the southern part of the town. Today, it remains a relatively humble two-lane dual carriageway.

Lorong Ah Soo in 1954, highlighted blue.

Lorong Ah Soo today. Credit: Google Maps.

Now, however, it may make transport history, by becoming the first road in Singapore to trial virtual bus lanes:

When a road is too narrow to accommodate an actual bus lane, how can traffic planners give priority to buses?

Answer: By implementing virtual bus lanes.

This is being considered in Lorong Ah Soo, a two-lane road in Upper Paya Lebar which sees a relatively high volume of buses.

In response to a query from The Straits Times (ST), the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said: “This is a potential research collaboration between LTA and TUMCreate to explore the use of sensor technology as a way to improve use of the bus lanes, while giving priority to public transport when needed.”

The LTA said details of the collaboration are being finalised.

TUMCreate is a public transport research platform manned by researchers from the Technical University of Munich and Nanyang Technological University.

It is funded by Singapore’s National Research Foundation as part of the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise. According to researchers, Lorong Ah Soo sees up to 35 buses per hour heading towards Hougang Avenue 3.

At an online symposium on Dec 1, TUMCreate researcher Andreas Rau said that a 900m stretch of Lorong Ah Soo is being considered for the virtual bus lane trial.

ST understands that the system will flash a “Clear Left Lane” sign when it senses a bus approaching to persuade motorists to filter to the right and allow the bus to pass.

Credit: The Straits Times.

The idea is not completely new.

Variations of virtual bus lanes have been proposed or trialled in cities in Britain and Switzerland in recent years.

Earlier this year, transport researcher Meng Xie spoke about a dynamic bus priority system in a TUMCreate journal.

She said the virtual right of way “aims at improving bus operation while minimising potential negative impacts on private vehicles”.

There are 211km of bus lanes in Singapore, which give buses right of way from 7.30am to 9.30am, and from 5pm to 8pm on weekdays. Of these, 23km are full-day bus lanes, which operate from 7.30am to 11pm from Mondays to Saturdays.

The upcoming North-South Corridor, a highway linking Woodlands to the city, will have bus lanes along its entire 21.5km length in both directions.

Asked if virtual bus lanes would work, lawyer Sarjeet Singh, 54, said: “Like most things, this will work if one is fined for ignoring them.”

But he added: “Bus lane restrictions are generally observed here.”

Singapore University of Social Sciences transport economist Walter Theseira said: “Giving way to emergency vehicles and priority vehicles is the responsibility of all motorists in the area - not just the ones directly in front. We have to get motorists into that mindset.”

It will be interesting to see how virtual bus lanes turn out. Like the lawyer quoted above, I believe it will work only if one is fined for ignoring them. And it might work better for suburban town roads that see lower traffic volumes, as compared to busier city roads.

Ultimately, virtual bus lanes should not be an easy way out, detracting from Singapore’s car-lite goals. Going car-lite should still mean striving to reduce the city-state’s private car population and reliance on private cars, not finding ways to accommodate private transport alongside public transport. Virtual bus lanes should be a means to an end, not the end itself.

A trip to IKEA

Yes, I braved a trip to IKEA with Tiak, and I have photos to show for it!

Teo Kah Seng

Introducing my paternal grandfather, Teo Kah Seng, born 1906, died 1959. His ancestral hometown was Tong’an, Xiamen, Fujian, China.

After three attempts and a mini treasure hunt of sorts, I finally found his grave!

I was interviewing my dad about his family, when he mentioned that my grandfather was buried in Bukit Brown. As the latter had passed away suddenly in 1959, 13 years before the municipal cemetery at Bukit Brown was permanently closed to burials, it made sense that he would be buried there, instead of being cremated and laid to rest in a columbarium.

I decided to ask my dad to take me to the grave, so I could document it and add another layer to the research into my family history. My dad told me he last visited the grave more than three decades ago - he stopped doing so after his mother passed away in 1988.

However, he thought he could remember the rough location of the grave. He pointed out the area on a map of Bukit Brown I printed. The area was in the northern half of the cemetery, after it had been sliced in half by the concrete and asphalt monstrosity that is Lornie Highway.

So we headed there last weekend. My brother dropped us off at Sime Road, and we walked in via a track off a slipway feeding into Lornie Highway. Alas, we could not find a way to the spot he had pointed out - there was no clear path there, and the surrounding forest was too thick to traverse. After an hour of searching, we gave up.

My dad then rang his sister - who has been visiting the grave for Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day) every year - for directions. She offered to take us to it.

Yesterday, her husband drove us to... not Bukit Brown, but Kopi Sua, a cemetery just south of Bukit Brown, separated from it by Mount Pleasant Road and Onraet Road. I was speechless when my aunt stopped the car along Mount Pleasant Road and said “yes, we have to stop here and walk in”. My dad had made a complete mistake about his father’s grave’s location - Kopi Sua was more than a kilometre away from the part of Bukit Brown he had pointed out!

More disappointment followed. My aunt led us inside the cemetery, but inexplicably, she could not locate the grave, despite having visited it only 20 months before. We combed the area for more than an hour, but to no avail.

My dad and aunt in Kopi Sua.

After we had departed for home, my dad recalled two more clues: The grave’s number was L52, and there was a coconut tree near it.

Refusing to give up, I made another trip to Kopi Sua the following day, today. This time, I went alone. I entered from the south, through an opening in the grass verge of the Pan-Island Expressway. I found out that the graves in the south were numbered in the 100s and 200s, so I trekked north through knee and thigh-deep grass.

The south side of the hill called Kopi Sua.

Eventually, I reached the area where my aunt had searched yesterday. The graves there were numbered in the 50s, so I knew I was very near. I started systematically scanning every grave.

After a few minutes, I found it: Grave L52. There was a coconut tree nearby, and coconuts scattered around the grave.

Success!

It helped that I had done research on traditional Chinese graves for my work, so I knew what to look out for.

The main information of the deceased is in the middle of the gravestone, running top to bottom:

The first two characters are merely respectful placeholders: Xian Kao means Prominent Deceased Father. The third and fourth characters are Jia Cheng in Mandarin, or Kah Seng in Hokkien - the deceased’s given name. The last three characters are Zhang Gong Mu, meaning Honourable Mr Teo’s Grave.

I offered my Ah Gong an Old Chang Kee curry puff and a can of Carlsberg beer. As Old Chang Kee was created in 1956, he might have tasted the original food just before his untimely death.

I spotted my dad’s given name (Eng Chee in Hokkien, Ying Zhi in Mandarin) on the gravestone (circled):

The grave looked like it needed a lot of cleaning, though. Years of moss caked the stone:

The grave mound from the back:

It was a very satisfying day. My dad - the typical Asian dad - is usually reticent, but when I called him excitedly to tell him I had found his father’s grave, he exclaimed “Well done!”.

We’ll be back the following weekend to clean Ah Gong’s grave. He’s back with us now!