A netizen wrote in to express his disappointment with Starmart Express bus service after it took him 7 hours 15 mins to travel to Melaka from Singapore.
Normally, it would only take 3 to 4 hours from Singapore to Melaka depending on traffic condition.
At first, the bus service seemed promising but everything went downhill after the netizen realised that the bus was carrying passengers of different trips and timings.
The experience worsened after he was made to change three buses during the journey to Melaka.
The netizen believes that business has been so poor that it has forced bus companies to adopt drastic measures to maximise profits.
Here is his full account:
Here is a dirty secret of at least one cross boundary bus services in Singapore. Rumors go that some Singapore-Malaysia Bus companies are notorious for delay timing, irresponsible bus arrangement and missing drivers. Search for reviews online and many will show various companies blacklisted. I have decided to pick one simple trip on 23 Oct 17 and find out how if there’s any truth in it. I book the bus through an app named Redbus, multiple buses are available, with at least 1 bus every 15mins in the morning. STARMART EXPRESS offers 50 buses from Beach Rd to Melaka Central Area from 7am to 11am. Impressive I must say. The rate is $25/pax for a SVIP express direct service, or so say it says.
I pick a 10am ride from Golden Mile Tower to Mahkota Medical Centre in Melaka. The scheduled time of arrival is 1422hrs.
Here is how it went.
9.30am: Arrival at GMT and checked in at Starmart counter, procedure was fuss free. We were told there will be a change of bus once we clear checkpoint at JB. No problem at all. Staff was easy and nice.
10.00am: Scheduled departure time, no bus seen at bus bay. Staff informed that the bus was late. Many passengers were seen sitting on the stairs feeling uneasy.
10.15am: Bus arrived, and we boarded as usual. Driver checked our tickets and told us that seats were free seating. We noticed that the bus layout was a 2-2 configuration instead of a 1-2, its not a SVIP bus we were on, I guessed it might be because its not the actual bus yet.
10.20am: Despite bus being late, I noticed more late passengers streaming on-board. The bus crew started calling passengers, I overheard her saying “Hello Mr Ong, your bus to KL at 10.30am here already, come and board pls”. That rang a bell, neither the bus nor the passengers were late. What’s going on? We soon figured that this “shuttle bus” was carrying passengers of different trip and timing! The multiple bus trips and timing offered online were actually…. the same bus! We have passengers going to Muar, Melaka and KL on the same shuttle bus, some were on 10am, some 10.15am, some 10.30am or later.
10.45am: Bus closes door and move off 45 mins late, faulty air con failed to cool the bus.
11.20am: Arrival at Tuas, bus driver was driving slow and steady, a pretty safe driver for sure.
11.30am: Singapore checkpoint cleared.
11.40am: Arrival at Johor checkpoint. Slight held up at the checkpoint.
12.00pm: This is the point where we need to change bus, the stated bus number on the ticket is non existent. A quick check with a Starmart staff pointed us to another bus. We proceeded up, checked out tickets and quickly doze off at the relatively clean and comfy seats. This time its the correct 1-2 seat configuration seat.
12.30pm: The bus is still waiting for more passengers.
1.00pm: After an hour of waiting in the bus, the bus finally move off with about 10 passengers. I estimated the time of arrival should be 4.00pm.
3.00pm: The bus pulled over for a toilet break just before Muar, we went for a quick 10mins break and returned. This is where we noticed the bus had been taking a weird route. It did not turn onto the highway, it navigated through the minor road towards Melaka. Based on GPS navigation, we were about 40km and 50mins away.
3.20pm: The bus headed south towards Muar! People on the bus were whispering and some were on the phone ranting.
3.50pm: We were caught in the middle of Muar traffic congestion.
4.00pm: Arrival at the Muar bus terminal, one passenger dropped off. And we finally know we were not alone in the bus. The bus then headed to Melaka.
4.45pm: Bus reached Melaka town and surprised! The bus headed towards Sentral Bus Terminal instead of Mahkota.
5.00pm: We arrived at Sentral, the driver asked everyone to alight and arranged for us to change to another bus bound for Mahkota. We did as told. That will be the 3rd bus change and 7hrs since the scheduled departure time in Singapore.
5.05pm: I asked if the bus is going to Mahkota directly, the bus driver answered in the positive.
5.15pm: Nope it didnt, it stopped at various other stops and hotels before finally stopping at my final destination. 7hrs 15mins later.
So we had completed the epic 7hrs 15mins ride to Melaka, tired, sore and now better understood the negative reviews online. We reckoned that it must be the poor business recently that forced companies to take such drastic measures to maximise profits. Offering pretentious bus schedules to entice and attract unsuspecting passengers thinking that the buses are in high demand. The days of express service are probably close to gone.
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