Ong Ye Kung Hopes Workers Can Travel During Off-Peak Hours To Reduce Public Transport Crowds
As the Covid-19 situation improves in Singapore, many measures have gradually been eased, including allowing most workers to travel to their workplaces.
On Tuesday (6 Oct), Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung took to Facebook to urge employers to allow their workers to report to work after the morning peak hour.
He said this may help lower crowds on public transport and the corresponding risk of Covid-19 infections.
Public transport passenger volumes restored by 50-60%
In his post, Mr Ong shared that passenger volumes on our public transport today is about 50-60% of what it was before the pandemic. This applies to both peak and off-peak hours.
Despite the increase, Mr Ong assured Singaporeans that there’s no reason to worry as “trains are much less crowded than before”.
However, Mr Ong predicts that more companies in Singapore will soon allow their workers to travel to their workplaces.
This is in response to MOH’s easing of measures, allowing more workers to return to their offices for up to 50% of their working hours from 28 Sep.
Workers Can Go Back To Offices, For Up To Half Of Work Hours From 28 Sep
Ong Ye Kung hopes workers are allowed to report to office after 10am
To help better manage passenger volume on public transport, Mr Ong urged companies to exercise flexibility with their worker’s schedules.
In particular, he encourages employers to allow staff on Work From Home (WFH) arrangements to start work at home in the morning, and only travel to the office during off-peak hours after 10am.
Mr Ong said this would allow more people to commute to work using public transport, yet at the same time, reduce crowding.
Hope companies would be cooperative
Though many workers would welcome the fact that they can now return to their workplaces for longer periods of time, this should perhaps be done strategically.
We hope companies would be cooperative and stagger their workers’ reporting times to reduce the risk of infection on our public transport.
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Featured image adapted from Facebook.
