Introducing Myself

Hi! If you’re reading this, you’ve found my blog about all things NUS bus-related, set up in late 2018. I’m Ryan Ch’ng, Computing + USP, matriculated in August 2018, and I happen to have been the NUSSU 40th EXCO’s Deputy Welfare Secretary for Internal Shuttle Bus (ISB) issues in AY18/19. But this blog is set up and run in my personal capacity.

My friends know I’ve been passionately interested about buses since I was young. It evolved from a casual fixation on the appearance of buses to a higher level of understanding about bus operations.

I’m no expert at all. There are others out there in the Singapore bus enthusiast community who know and understand a lot more. However, for reasons I won’t go into, the community is somewhat fractured so I haven’t corresponded with them much. I decided I’d rather live a peaceful life.

And then I ended up in NUSSU… okay lor. (Seriously speaking, NUSSU EXCO is now a very warm place and has united significantly since elections, in case you were wondering, so I’m safe here.)

So why did I want to set this blog up in the first place? First and foremost, this is a place where I will aim to provide clarifications to the student body (and to anyone interested) about ISB matters.

After I took up my current position, and people from all over shared with me their various opinions, I realised that there is a serious sh*tton of misconceptions going around.

A lot of feedback given about the bus system would look downright nonsensical to anyone with an understanding of ISBs. Yet I fully agree that it sounds perfectly logical, if one is unaware.

Part of it is because in the past, the school administration neglected to give justifications for their actions; part of it is simply due to a lack of understanding of the constraints of running a bus system, which only a few people can even find out (after all, if you wanted to understand them, where would you even look for them?). So my aim is to elucidate the details of the system and present them in an accessible way.

Building on a Cinnamon Roll article I wrote previously for USP, I intend to further expose different sides of the system that not all students see. What does a day in the life of a driver look like? How are routes planned? What gets certain proposals always rejected at the drawing board? Why are certain bus stops kept while others are scrapped? I will try my best to answer these questions, and many more you may not even know you had.

My end goal is not to shut down all ISB complaints, nor to defend every single decision NUS makes. I’m not that kind of person. Complaints are valid. Every organisation or system has its blind spots.

Your complaint, even if it is downright unrealistic now, is valuable as it represents a possible path to improvement if such improvement becomes realistic one day.

What I want to do is increase the pertinence and constructiveness of the feedback we receive. To change the quality of the complaints we get. I aim to share my understanding of the bus system with the students, so that we can skip the “fantasy” ideas and get down to business.

If we all worked with a common understanding of the bus system, it won’t be long before we naturally generate immediately valuable, creative ideas – since we’ve filtered out the impossible, and the unfeasible has been relegated to the unthinkable.

To end this off, just a reminder: This blog, being unofficial, is not the place for you to submit your ISB-related opinions or complaints for NUSSU official attention.

You can share your thoughts casually with me here, but if you need official involvement, please use the official emails at csenquiry@nus.edu.sg (official NUS feedback) or feedback@nussu.org.sg (NUSSU proposals and matters) to submit it, even if it’s something you’ve already shared with me. Just do us a favour and get it in black and white there. Thanks!