CNA Explains: The challenges school bus operators face and why they need parents to pay more
Among their struggles are parents’ expectations of low fees and low demand.

Students boarding a school bus in Singapore. (File photo: TODAY/Wee Teck Hian)
SINGAPORE: School bus operators in Singapore may hire more foreigners to ease driver shortage, and designate common pick-up and drop-off points to make operations more efficient from next year.
However, such measures announced by the Ministry of Education last month may only go some way in easing problems in the industry.
There are also other issues such as high operating costs and parents who are unwilling to fork out more for their services.
CNA’s podcast Heart of The Matter spoke to industry experts and parents to find out more about their concerns.
LACK OF DEMAND, HIGH COSTS
The costs of running a bus service are high, and providing school bus services rarely covers them, said the industry players.
It is the supplementary income from transporting workers and tourists that keeps the school bus business “viable", said Mr Adrian Yeap, CEO of bus company Yeap Transport.
“No school bus operator can survive on just school bus fare in Singapore,” he told CNA’s podcast Heart of The Matter.
Previously, school bus operators had pupils in the morning session and the afternoon session to cater to, but things changed after the move to a single session in 2000.
“The price did not catch up,” said Mr Yeap.
For instance, if it costs S$100 a day to run the service today, what he may earn from three trips may be S$30, he said.
To earn the remaining money just to break even, he will have to drive more, he noted.
“How many more hours do you want the school bus driver who's responsible for the very life of your children at the back to drive?” he asked.
“The poor bus driver has to drive many hours in order to make ends meet,” he added.
EXPECTATIONS OF LOW FEES
The industry is also limited by parents’ perceptions on how much school bus services are worth, bus owners said.
“A lot of the parents have a mindset that they are willing to pay this much,” said Mr Darry Lim, spokesman from the Singapore School Transport Association.
Parents of children in local primary schools currently typically pay between S$110 and S$180 per month for nine months, he told Heart of The Matter.
He compared this to the S$350 to S$550 parents of international school children pay for their school bus services monthly.
Mr Lim said the association’s previous chairman had alerted stakeholders that the rate should be at least S$180 as far back as 2010, but that it did not go well with parents, and the companies were pressured to keep their fees low.
A fee of at least S$250 a month for nine months will help the operators, said Mr Lim. However, it may not solve their problems, he acknowledged.
“(The) problem is we can't keep our costs down. This (raising prices) has the effect that once it costs more, more parents will drop off,” he said.
Ms Alvina Chin from MUMs for Life said that that is an amount she would “really, really consider”.
“In the past few years, I was a single-income family. So, the thought of putting that expense into a school bus when there are other available options (was) something that I would have to consider,” she said during the podcast.
LACK OF MANPOWER
Another problem that is worsening is a dearth of school bus drivers, both because of older drivers retiring and a lack of new drivers, the industry experts said.
Mr Lim said that over the COVID-19 pandemic, many gave up their vehicles, because they could not sustain their businesses. He himself lost S$80,000 a month during the period, he said.
Today’s drivers are typically in their 60s and early 70s, he noted.

They will, however, have to retire at the age of 75, the age limit set for their vocational licence.
Mr Yeap noted that it is also hard to fill the manpower gaps left by older drivers.
“No Singapore parent will tell their children to grow up and be a professional school bus driver,” he said, adding that it is not an enticing career.
Listen to the full episode here to find out what the school bus operators experience and how they think things will improve.