REACH (8 Nov 2019) :- PMD delivery jobs affected by footpath ban
The sudden ban on the footpath for PMD - has affected about 7,000 PMD delivery jobs overnight - and has now become a hot button issue - with many congregating to see their MPs. To mitigate the effect of the PMD delivery job - due to the footpath ban, can consider the following proposed solutions to this group of PMD users :-
(1) Food and eCommerce delivery by foot - Notice that all Army soldiers have to undertake a 20 km to 32 km route march - carrying 20 kg full pack. Guardsmen, Commandos and Frogmen - go longer route. - Thus suggest that some fitter PMD delivery men and women can fullpack their foods or eCommerce goods on their full pack to operate within 5 km to 10 km radius - these group can still keep their delivery jobs without the PMDs. - I have tried walking about 10 km with a "full pack" - and notice this can be done without too much of a problem --- and at the same time can keep fit and healthy - a good exercise. - If this option is chosen --- many PMD delivery job can be kept.
(2) Convert PMD food and eCommerce delivery - into bicycles and motorbikes. - Bicycles can still go on the footpath and will not endanger the pedestrians. It can also go on the road. Thus food or eCommerce delivery will not be affected. - Thus the Government together with Service Providers like GrabDelivery, Foodpanda, Deliveroo etc - can work with bike sharing companies to lease bicycles to this group of people to use bicycles for food and eCommerce deliveries. - But those who have embark on paying instalment for PMDs - the job with bicycles can still bring income to help them pay off the instalment - with some compensation by the Gov and Service Providers? - For those with motorbikes licence and motorbikes - can consider using motorbikes to do delivery.
(3) Interim measures of "dividing the footpath" into pedestrian path and PMD path - Can consider drawing a middle line on existing footpath - left side for pedestrian and right side for PMD. - This interim measure is used until the PMD path for the whole Country is ready.
(4) Someone suggest allowing PMD to be allow on the road instead of the footpath. - I personally is not in favor of this - as PMD on the roads pose serious danger to the PMD users - as we can see from previous accidents when many PMD users die or sustain serious injuries from the road accidents.
Conclude : - If the above 3 measures are used --- most if not all PMD delivery jobs can still keep their jobs.
20 hours ago
It is not so much as whether the mobility was done thru traditional bicycles or pmd. The mistake as if the PAP would still not fully admit, was the pmd should not have been exploited to be used as a food delivery vehicle, with organisation behind this exploitation where even private organisation like GRAB had even partnered with gov linked entity. The entire failure of this project,if you choose to called it as such, was the need for these food delivery riders to ride fast, recklessly and to do as many rounds as possible so as to make as much $$they could at each end of the day. The riders are themselves subjected to be 'clocked out' if they cannot complete each delivery within a short time frame. This put the entire infrastructure to the ultimate test as to whether pedestrains can co-exist safely with such riders, riding with such a motive. Even if it was a PCN , the safety issues still remains , if such use of pmd (food delivery) is ever allowed. The sad thing to all the backlash was, ppl who use the pmd for short connecting trips to MRT or to run small errands are affected by this ban. The oversight or rather if you could say the short sightness of these policy makers was, they waited to see even with the huge explosion in numbers of pmd in sight, whether their project could work out. And lives were lost as they waited. Whether these policy makers are made to answer for this remains to be seen. But knowing how the present gov runs things, this would be unlikely.
18 hours ago
Some companies are cutting manpower and more will turn to be food delivers if they can’t find jobs. I really don’t know what has become of Singapore as more foreigners are still employed. Recently my company employed foreigner rather than locals even the locals had gone through many rounds of interview. Are Singaporeans unfairly treated and this is not fake news.
17 hours ago
"...The announcement by Senior Minister of State for Transport Lam Pin Min on banning personal mobility device (PMD) use on footpaths is an understandable response to public safety concerns...."
But why Lam NEVER explained how the decision was made in the first place to ALLOWED PMDs to co-shared paths with pedestrians? All he said was "...had hope the different users could share pathways...". Can he show us the Risk Assessment to show that there is very slight chance of accidents happening? Or he knew there would be accidents but the public "must be understanding"? Just to meet his own KPI?
20 hours ago
So nice to walk freely on the pathway without any obstructions and injuries . We miss that kind of environment. We used to have that a few years ago until all these food panda and grab food delivery started. They should provide them with motor bike haha ! If they ride recklessly they will pay for the price not the pedestrian
21 hours ago
This is but the latest in a long string of RECENT incidents that shows up the lack of foresight, lack of planning, and sheer incompetence and laziness of the current batch of govt ministers. Here are 3 examples: Trains overloaded cannot carry the influx of foreigners. Bicycle sharing that led to bicycle littering everywhere. And now the PMD fiasco. In every instance, the govt ministers have ignored the lack of infrastructure and ended up doing too little until it became obvious even to the blind. This PMD flip-flops has cost many people money. You tell them to buy approved PMD and now you ban the PMDs from almost everywhere they are used most often. This is their track record. This is what they are paying themselves multi-million dollar salaries.
19 hours ago
Please lor...CEO of PMD-company give 'recommendations'?? N0T biased meh? I alleady PREDICTED this massive 'skrew-up' going to happen long ago, when 'Pay And Pay' anyhow blindly introduce PMDs with0ut the proper infrastructure of SEPARATE Bike lanes.
My recommedation is to BAN all PMDs on B0TH pedestrian footpaths as well as motor-vehicle roads. PMDs neber pay road tax, no insurance and many PMD riders dun even know basic theory of road safety, so IF gahmen allow them on motor-vehicle roads, it will only shift the problem to create more car accidents lah.
Solution is for LTA to build proper bike lanes, then and only then can allow PMDs. LTA collect so much $$$ from C0E, ERP, road tax, carpark fees etc. etc, but unwilling to build separate bike lane throughout island? Simple. If gahmen unable to allocate space for SEPARATE Bike lanes, then continue to BAN all PMDs.
Imagine, tis short-sighted 'Pay And Pay' cannot even handle PMDs properly, yet want to introduce wat 'Air-Taxi' service here without proper infrastructure again?? Hrrr hrh hr.
SINGAPORE: Trials for air taxis will take off in Singapore in the second half of 2019, with German company Volocopter to conduct flight tests. ...
SINGAPORE: Trials for air taxis will take off in Singapore in the second half of 2019, with German company Volocopter to conduct flight tests. ...
www.channelnewsasia.com
19 hours ago
“ Alan Jiang is the CEO and co-founder of Beam Mobility, which is an operator providing PMD-sharing services.” I didn’t bother reading the article as soon as I saw the source.
18 hours ago
The problem is that this ban of e-scooters on footpaths is not being strictly enforced. I was jogging this evening, & encountered 4 PMD riders along the pavement. All were speeding & only 1 bothered to ring his bell while the other 3 just sped by within a whisker of my arm.
19 hours ago
The MND minister once said they plan infra structures well in advance, I think , come to think of it, these Ministers are over paid.. They can’t even solve PMD and foot path problem. What a joke !
4 hours ago
If so many people have to depend on PMDs for deliveries as livelihood for their families and not a spare-time work beside their actual employment. The employment status would not seem to be as good as it appeared. What happened to all the regular jobs?
The sudden ban on the footpath for PMD - has affected about 7,000 PMD delivery jobs overnight - and has now become a hot button issue - with many congregating to see their MPs.
To mitigate the effect of the PMD delivery job - due to the footpath ban, can consider the following proposed solutions to this group of PMD users :-
(1) Food and eCommerce delivery by foot
- Notice that all Army soldiers have to undertake a 20 km to 32 km route march - carrying 20 kg full pack. Guardsmen, Commandos and Frogmen - go longer route.
- Thus suggest that some fitter PMD delivery men and women can fullpack their foods or eCommerce goods on their full pack to operate within 5 km to 10 km radius - these group can still keep their delivery jobs without the PMDs.
- I have tried walking about 10 km with a "full pack" - and notice this can be done without too much of a problem --- and at the same time can keep fit and healthy - a good exercise.
- If this option is chosen --- many PMD delivery job can be kept.
(2) Convert PMD food and eCommerce delivery - into bicycles and motorbikes.
- Bicycles can still go on the footpath and will not endanger the pedestrians. It can also go on the road. Thus food or eCommerce delivery will not be affected.
- Thus the Government together with Service Providers like GrabDelivery, Foodpanda, Deliveroo etc - can work with bike sharing companies to lease bicycles to this group of people to use bicycles for food and eCommerce deliveries.
- But those who have embark on paying instalment for PMDs - the job with bicycles can still bring income to help them pay off the instalment - with some compensation by the Gov and Service Providers?
- For those with motorbikes licence and motorbikes - can consider using motorbikes to do delivery.
(3) Interim measures of "dividing the footpath" into pedestrian path and PMD path
- Can consider drawing a middle line on existing footpath - left side for pedestrian and right side for PMD.
- This interim measure is used until the PMD path for the whole Country is ready.
(4) Someone suggest allowing PMD to be allow on the road instead of the footpath.
- I personally is not in favor of this - as PMD on the roads pose serious danger to the PMD users - as we can see from previous accidents when many PMD users die or sustain serious injuries from the road accidents.
Conclude : - If the above 3 measures are used --- most if not all PMD delivery jobs can still keep their jobs.
The entire failure of this project,if you choose to called it as such, was the need for these food delivery riders to ride fast, recklessly and to do as many rounds as possible so as to make as much $$they could at each end of the day. The riders are themselves subjected to be 'clocked out' if they cannot complete each delivery within a short time frame.
This put the entire infrastructure to the ultimate test as to whether pedestrains can co-exist safely with such riders, riding with such a motive. Even if it was a PCN , the safety issues still remains , if such use of pmd (food delivery) is ever allowed.
The sad thing to all the backlash was, ppl who use the pmd for short connecting trips to MRT or to run small errands are affected by this ban.
The oversight or rather if you could say the short sightness of these policy makers was, they waited to see even with the huge explosion in numbers of pmd in sight, whether their project could work out. And lives were lost as they waited.
Whether these policy makers are made to answer for this remains to be seen. But knowing how the present gov runs things, this would be unlikely.
Are Singaporeans unfairly treated and this is not fake news.
But why Lam NEVER explained how the decision was made in the first place to ALLOWED PMDs to co-shared paths with pedestrians? All he said was "...had hope the different users could share pathways...". Can he show us the Risk Assessment to show that there is very slight chance of accidents happening? Or he knew there would be accidents but the public "must be understanding"? Just to meet his own KPI?
Here are 3 examples:
Trains overloaded cannot carry the influx of foreigners. Bicycle sharing that led to bicycle littering everywhere. And now the PMD fiasco.
In every instance, the govt ministers have ignored the lack of infrastructure and ended up doing too little until it became obvious even to the blind.
This PMD flip-flops has cost many people money. You tell them to buy approved PMD and now you ban the PMDs from almost everywhere they are used most often.
This is their track record. This is what they are paying themselves multi-million dollar salaries.
I alleady PREDICTED this massive 'skrew-up' going to happen long ago, when 'Pay And Pay' anyhow blindly introduce PMDs with0ut the proper infrastructure of SEPARATE Bike lanes.
My recommedation is to BAN all PMDs on B0TH pedestrian footpaths as well as motor-vehicle roads. PMDs neber pay road tax, no insurance and many PMD riders dun even know basic theory of road safety, so IF gahmen allow them on motor-vehicle roads, it will only shift the problem to create more car accidents lah.
Solution is for LTA to build proper bike lanes, then and only then can allow PMDs.
LTA collect so much $$$ from C0E, ERP, road tax, carpark fees etc. etc, but unwilling to build separate bike lane throughout island?
Simple. If gahmen unable to allocate space for SEPARATE Bike lanes, then continue to BAN all PMDs.
Imagine, tis short-sighted 'Pay And Pay' cannot even handle PMDs properly, yet want to introduce wat 'Air-Taxi' service here without proper infrastructure again??
Hrrr hrh hr.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/air-taxi-trials-to-take-place-in-singapore-2019-volocopter-10845480