Why I bought a $10k piece of paper

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So the Public Transport Council says 80% of passengers on public buses were satisfied with basic bus services.

I guess that makes me one of the minority.

Satisfied my ass rear-end.

If you follow the press release all the way to the bottom, you'd notice that there were 1661 respondents to the survey. That's out of about 2.1 million passengers in total for the month of February 2006 (when the survey was carried out). Ridership information available here. The survey is highly unrepresentative at 0.07%. And that's only counting SBS passengers. The percentage representation is even lower when you take into consideration TIBS passengers.

I wouldn't give myself a pat on the back just yet if I am a policy-maker.

Somehow, this survey seems to contradict sentiments expressed here where:

"...the authorities hope to reverse...the decline in the share of public transport trips. From 67 per cent in 1997, it has fallen to 63 per cent in 2004 for the morning peak period, despite the heavy investment put into providing a good public transport system..."

Back to my previous claim, satisfied my rear-end.

Here are some basic truths:

1. Money doesn't fix problems.

2. Survey results are highly subjective.

3. Having the traffic police block roads when you move around clouds your perception of things.