My family and I recently visited the outdoor bus carnival at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza.

Like many other visitors, we were greatly impressed by the many features offered by the new generation of buses.

New features include USB ports, allowing commuters to charge their cellphones, touch-sensitive stop buttons, double exits, and display screens informing commuters of the next destination.

All these concerted efforts by the Land Transport Authority and other stakeholders aim to make bus travel a most enjoyable experience.

Hopefully, this would, to a certain extent, encourage individuals to give up private car worship and take public transport.

Notwithstanding the colossal investments in the procurement of new and improved buses and amenities on them, ultimately, what matters most is the quality of bus service.

Singaporeans, by and large, are pragmatic.

While the new-generation buses are aesthetically pleasing and have many state-of-the-art technologies and features, we are more concerned about the punctuality and frequency of bus arrivals.

In a nutshell, commuters would generally much prefer punctual and efficient bus services to fancy, new buses with unreliable service.

Catherine Tai Siew Leng (Ms)