Latest news with #transportministry
CNA
3 days ago
- Politics
- CNA
8 new bus services in Tengah by end-2026: Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow
SINGAPORE: Eight new bus services will be introduced in Tengah by the end of next year to help ease residents' connectivity woes, said Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow on Sunday (Jun 8). Complaints on the lack of amenities and transport options have arisen among early residents of Tengah, a new HDB town located in the west of Singapore. The first two bus services will be rolled out by the end of this year. Service 872, which will start from Tengah Bus Interchange and serve areas like Tengah Boulevard, Plantation Crescent, Bukit Batok, Jurong Town Hall and Chinese Garden MRT, is slated to start on Aug 10. The other service will start from Brickland and pass through Bukit Panjang and Jurong East MRT stations. More details will be announced at the start of the fourth quarter. By the end of next year, there will be two express feeder services, one a city direct service from Brickland, and the other is a privately operated bus route from Brickland to the One-North area. There will also be four express services by the end of 2026, which will take residents from their homes to nearby MRT stations, such as Beauty World, Bukit Gombak, Bukit Batok and Jurong East MRT stations. Mr Siow was at a People's Association family event at Tengah Community Club, where he was speaking to the media for the first time since assuming the transport minister role on May 23. He took over the position from Mr Chee Hong Tat, who is now the Minister for National Development. Mr Siow, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Brickland ward that is part of Tengah, touched on some issues faced by Tengah residents at Sunday's event. Mr Siow said in a speech to residents at the community club that there are four "C"s that the government hopes to address: not enough coffee shops, not enough childcare centres, not enough transport connectivity and concerns with the centralised cooling system in their HDB units. He said that the government is 'very focused' on tackling these issues, noting that a multi-agency committee has been set up to support those moving into new Build-to-Order (BTO) flats. He said that the chairman of the committee is Senior Minister of State Sun Xue Ling, who has appointments in both Ministry for National Development and the Ministry of Transport (MOT). 'So just be a little bit patient, because I know we are doing these things as residents are moving in, and it will become better, very, very soon,' he said. The Tengah Bus Interchange opened on Jul 21 last year. With it, a new service 871 was introduced to connect Tengah to Bukit Batok West, Bukit Gombak and Beauty World. Two existing bus services, 992 and 870, were also extended to better serve Tengah residents. WHY PRIVATE BUS SERVICE TO ONE-NORTH? On why a private bus service instead of a public one is being planned to take residents of Tengah to the One-North area, Mr Siow said that it is among the options that the government considers when looking to augment the bus framework. 'We try not to do it extensively and only really for niche routes, because when we run too many private routes, we run the risk of cannibalising demand for the public bus network,' he said. He said that there are certain routes with enough demand that a private operator is prepared to take up but public transport operators are 'not quite ready to do yet'. 'We can, in the short term, introduce some of these routes (and) if they work well, in the longer term, we can always consider incorporating them into the public bus network,' he said. As to why One-North, Mr Siow said that there is a demand from Brickland residents, as many of them work there. 'And so that's how we decided to trial and see,' he said. CUTTING DOWN PUBLIC TRANSPORT TRAVEL TIME There are also longer-term aims for the travel time to be narrowed between taking private and public transport, particularly for HDB estates 'a little bit further away from the city', said Mr Siow. He said that while trains can get people to the city quickly, getting to the train stations can be time-consuming for many of these residents. 'If we can try to do that a little bit better, improving the walkability of the town, improving the density of the bus network, we should be able to bring the journey times down and make public transport more competitive with private transport,' he said. He said that currently, the travel time from Tengah to the city is two to three times longer by public transport than it is for private transport, and he aims to cut it down to one to two times longer. 'And we will be doing that all across Singapore at the estates that are further away from the city, that is my priority,' he said. FIRST THOUGHTS ON NEW JOB Asked about how he is settling into his new role as acting transport minister, Mr Siow said that he is no stranger to the transport portfolio. 'I'm very excited, I've hit the ground running and we are working on how to get LTA's (the Land Transport Authority's) plans on track (and) continue to do the things we have been doing,' he said. Mr Siow held key appointments at the MOT, among others. 'Going back to the ministry has been very positive for me,' he said. 'I've been very happy to be able to reconnect with old colleagues, but also with the issues that I used to work on.' He said he had worked on the Jurong Region Line with the ministry, which is planned to operate through Tengah by 2028. 'When I was an officer at MOT 10 years back, it was a piece of paper, and now it's coming close to reality,' he said. 'These are the things that a lot of us at MOT and LTA are very inspired by, because we do things that matter to Singaporeans, and these are the tangible products of our work.'
NHK
25-05-2025
- Business
- NHK
Narita Airport begins full-scale work on expansion, including third runway
A ceremony has been held at Narita Airport, near Tokyo, to mark the start of full-scale construction work to extend one of the current runways and build a third one. Seventy people, including transport ministry officials and the governor of Chiba Prefecture, attended Sunday's event held by Narita International Airport Corporation. The company plans to extend the 2,500-meter-long B Runway to 3,500 meters, and to build a new 3,500-meter C Runway to raise the number of takeoffs and landings to 500,000 per year -- about 1.7 times the current level. It aims to complete the project by the end of March 2029. The preparatory work that has already been carried out includes the construction of an underground tunnel for the roads on the site. Full-scale construction, including ground improvement work and landscaping, has begun at the site where the third runway will be built. The head of Narita International Airport Corporation, Tamura Akihiko, said he believes the expansion will create a new future for the area and that his firm will carry out the work safely and smoothly with the local community's understanding. The company says it has already secured 900 of the approximately 1,100 hectares of land needed for the project, and is working with local municipalities to acquire more.
Japan Times
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Japan Times
Japan to scrap monochrome special license plates
The transport ministry is considering abolishing monochromatic versions of "gotochi" special vehicle registration plates designed by local governments, it was learned. The ministry will allow only multicolor versions of gotochi license plates from as early as the next round of solicitations for plate designs, in an effort to ease the burden on license plate makers amid an expected increase in demand. License plates with special designs were introduced in 2017. There are 73 types of gotochi plates, issued to residents of the local governments that created the designs, and two types available to drivers nationwide, including a design related to the World Exposition in the western city of Osaka. Currently, applicants for specially designed license plates can choose between multicolor and monochromatic versions. The ministry is mulling a review of the criteria for introducing gotochi license plates. After the review, such plates are expected to be more widely available across the country. But the need to create both multicolor and monochromatic versions of the same plate design is a major burden on license plate makers and is feared to weigh on license plate supply, especially amid a spike in prices of aluminum used to make the plates. The ministry decided to consider offering only multicolor versions of both gotochi and nationally available designs after an expert panel pointed out the issue. However, monochromatic versions of designs are popular among drivers of minivehicles who want to avoid using the yellow license plates designated for the vehicle type. The ministry will discuss offering nationally available license plates with subdued colors, in light of complaints that all existing multicolor designs are too colorful. Fees paid by license plate purchasers stand at around ¥2,000 for ordinary plates and around ¥10,000 for specially designed plates, with a donation of at least ¥1,000 necessary for multicolor versions. Such donations are expected to increase by over ¥370 million per year after monochromatic versions of specially designed plates are scrapped. Donated funds are used to improve transportation services.
Japan Times
12-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Transport ministry issues warning to Haneda Airport operator
The transport ministry on Monday issued a strict warning to Japan Airport Terminal over its subsidiary's inappropriate transactions that benefited a consultant firm headed by the eldest son of Makoto Koga, former secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The ministry summoned Kazuhito Tanaka, president of the operator of Tokyo's Haneda Airport, and gave the warning over misconduct related to a massage chair business in a terminal building at the airport. The ministry said it is "regrettable" that a company responsible for public infrastructure has been involved in long-term misconduct at the airport terminal. It urged the company to revise its compliance audit system and continue to report to the ministry on the status of measures to prevent a recurrence. On Friday, a special investigation committee set up by the company announced that the inappropriate transactions had continued for many years, led by former company president Nobuaki Yokota and tolerated by former chairman Isao Takashiro. Yokota and Takashiro resigned the same day. Following the ministry's warning, Japan Airport Terminal said that it will make sincere efforts to prevent a recurrence and regain trust.
