【正文】 Netherlands (Ploeger and Baanders, 1995。 Cheungand Hoen, 1996。Cities, Vol. 20, No. 3, p. 205–216, 2020? 2020 Elsevier Science Ltd.All rights reserved.Printed in Great Britain02642751/03 $ see front matterdoi:(03)000143ViewpointImprovements andintegration of a publictransport system: the caseof SingaporeMuhammad Faishal Ibrahim?Department of Real Estate, School of Design and Environment, National Universityof Singapore, 4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566This paper illustrates the initiatives undertaken in Singapore to improve and enhance the publictransport system. Being a small citystate, with limited land supply, encouraging the use of publictransport and restraining car ownership and usage seems to be an obvious choice in managing thecitystate’s transport problems. Policy covers not only improvements of the public modes but alsoenhancement of all intermediate and endpoint facilities, such as linkways, customer service andservice information. In addition, policy makers are also moving towards various aspects of integrationin the pursuit of achieving seamless travel via the public transport system.? 2020 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.Keywords: public policy, information technology, planningIntroductionThere has been a dramatic growth intravel over the past two decades. Forinstance, in Great Britain, the aggregatedistance travelled has increased by 45%over a period of about 25 years(Department of Transport, LocalGovernment and the Regions, 2020).Mackett (1994) suggests three mainreasons for this, including increasingcar use, changing trip patterns and dispersal of urban activities. However, thetrend of increasing travel demand,particularly by motor vehicle use, isincreasingly being an alarmingthreat to the global environment (Roseand Ampt, 2020), and Gardiner (1991)?Email: 205mentions that transport is the cause ofmany of the worst sustainability threats. Awareness of sustainable development has bee significant since thereport of Club of Rome. This awareness surged in the late 1980s and1990s, with more publications relatingto environmental policy, such as theBrundtland Report in 1987, the RioDeclaration on Environment andDevelopment in 1992 and the UnitedNations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1994 (Button et al.,1996) and the Kyoto Meeting in 1997.In recent years, sustainable development has been amongst the top agendaitems of governments, as well asresearchers, across the globe (forexample, Mackett, 1994。 Jorgensen, 1995。 Gurney et al, 1998).The heightening of awareness of sustainable development and environmental pollution issues has resulted in atrend towards planned and integratedland use and transport development,with land use policies being geared toinfluencing the location of developments, situating future developmentsclose to centres of population andnodes of transportation, increasing thedensity of developments and encouraging a mix of land use. Equally, policies should consider a large scale andlong term investment in public transport which attempts to provide a widerchoice of modes, as well as a fortable, convenient, reliable, and attractivealternative to the private car. ThisViewpoint: Muhammad Faishal Ibrahiminvolves the provision of an equitableenvironment that provides accessibleand good quality facilities for all sectors of the population. Conitantly,the use of the car should also be regulated, as it emits a high amount of carbon dioxide and consumes greaterenergy per person than other modes oftransport. Therefore, over the years,many governments are beginning toturn towards greater planning intervention in land use and transport planning. As the above developmentsgather pace, it is envisaged that muters will have more choices,between better quality public transportmodes, in terms of fort, reliability,and flexibility. Over the last few years,many countries have also attempted torestrain the use of cars (Mackett, 1994).These policies exist in countries suchas France (Harrison et al., 1998), Germany (FitzRoy and Smith, 1998), Britain (Mackett, 1994。 and theNorth–South line from Marina Bay toJurong East via Woodlands. Construction of another 20 km NorthEast MRTLine (NEL) is in progress. The NELwill run underground from Punggol inthe Northeast to the World TradeCentre in the South and will link upwith the existing work at DhobyGhaut and Outram Park Stations. Whenpleted in the first half of 2020, theNEL will add another depot and 16 stations to the existing MRT system (referto Figure 2).The MRT forms the backbone of thepublic transport system in Singapore.The route has been planned to runthrough the most densely populatedareas of Singapore. It serves not onlyto connect the various satellite townsbut also to link these major housingareas with the Orchard Road corridor,the Central Business District and industrial estates. Today, more than a millionpassenger trips are made on the MRTdaily, a tenfold increase pared to1987. More than 60% of Singaporeansuse the MRT to travel to work, to homeand to play. Since its first operation,many initiatives have been taken tomake the MRT safer, more convenientand muterfriendly.Covered linkways and integration withother modes Covered linkways havebeen built to link MRT stations tobuildings for smoother journeys andtransfers. As part of the integrationamong the transport modes, taxishelters/passenger pickup points andbicycle stands are also provided outsidethe MRT stations (refer to Figure 3).Television The SMRT in collaborationwith the Singapore Cable Vision haveinstalled televisions which show trailers of popular movies, snippets ofsporting events and music videos toreduce muter