Campaign to promote graciousness on public transport kicks off with roadshow, sculptures
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Mr Baey Yam Keng, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, and Sustainability and the Environment, with sculptures of the Thoughtful Bunch mascots.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
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SINGAPORE – A year-long campaign to promote graciousness on public transport kicked off on Oct 11, with the aim of inspiring thoughtfulness among passengers to make commutes more pleasant.
Themed “Rides are better when we are thoughtful together”, the 2024 campaign by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Thoughtful Bunch.
Launched in 2014, the Thoughtful Bunch are mascots that encourage passengers to spread graciousness to make public transport journeys more pleasant amid the daily rush.
The five characters are Stand-Up Stacey, Move-In Martin, Give-Way Glenda, Bag-Down Benny and Hush-Hush Hannah.
As part of the campaign, a roadshow was launched on Oct 11 at Northpoint City in Yishun, where visitors can learn about the history of the Thoughtful Bunch and take part in games. The roadshow runs till Oct 13.
Mr Baey Yam Keng, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, and Sustainability and the Environment, on Oct 11 also unveiled life-size sculptures of the characters at the roadshow.
The sculptures of Hush-Hush Hannah, Move-In Martin and Give-Way Glenda will be moved to Punggol MRT station, where they will remain from the end of October to September 2025.
The sculptures of Stand-Up Stacey and Bag-Down Benny will be placed at Yishun MRT station over the same period.
The 2024 campaign also features new posters, walkway banners and wall stickers displayed islandwide on buses and trains, and at MRT stations and sheltered walkways. For the first time, they feature the Thoughtful Bunch “interacting” with one another to encourage gracious behaviour.
In addition, LTA has collaborated with home-grown bakery BreadTalk to create a line of sweet and savoury bread inspired by the characters.
These bakes are available at BreadTalk stores till Oct 31.
LTA has also teamed up with Republic Polytechnic and Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) students to produce social media content to inspire gracious behaviour.
For example, the NYP students reimagined the Thoughtful Bunch as “chibi” characters through animation. “Chibi” is a Japanese style of caricature.
Motion graphics design student Lim Yong Qi, 19, was part of the four-member NYP team that produced the animation for the campaign as part of his final-year project.
“We were put together by our lecturers for this project and we all worked really well together,” he said, adding that they are proud of what they produced.
Mr Baey said such content can help spread the word on gracious behaviour to a younger crowd as more people use public transport.
“We should remind ourselves to put on our good behaviour, so that we can care for others, and we can all enjoy the public commuting journey together.”
