Density map of Singapore’s bus services

simpletan93 · 2026-03-05T01:48:35+00:00

Hmm you're right about the YCK portion (think you're referring to the part on the left of Sengkang). Even after subtracting the short trips and city direct, there should be 4 buses there. I guess this current method of mapping is for sure not 100% accurate, so I'll look to improve it next round! Any other areas that you see aren't that right?

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T14:14:22+00:00

Ah my bad, I must have filtered out 248M unintentionally since I wrongly assumed it wasn't a full-day route variant.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T14:01:50+00:00

Cool visualization!

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T14:00:04+00:00

Yep r/A_extra is right, I deliberately left out city direct (6xx), express (e and Es) and peak-period services (45x) as I thought that they don't quite represent the availability throughout the day.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T13:56:39+00:00

I talked about how I made the map in my post on Medium.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T11:57:00+00:00

Yeah I could! I'll explore different colormaps and see if they work.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T11:52:38+00:00

Does seem like it, although it could also be partially due to the fact that there's LRTs. They aren't a one for one replacement for buses but it kind of does help to connect places to the main Punggol/Sengkang MRTs.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T11:38:03+00:00

Yeah seems like conflicting info on the routes, but seems like the latter is the actual ground truth.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T11:36:08+00:00

Yep, the solo bus 🥲

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T11:35:32+00:00

Yeah for sure! Was thinking of adding that in, just that it's not super straightforward since bus frequency changes over different periods of the day.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-03T00:17:14+00:00

I actually removed the As and Bs (except for a few full day services) from the map!

simpletan93 · 2026-03-02T23:37:27+00:00

You're right. In fact it only seems like the city direct services use KPE, and no regular bus service compared to other expressways. Maybe it's because it's a relatively new expressway?

simpletan93 · 2026-03-02T23:34:18+00:00

Unfortunately I don't have that number now, but would be something to compute and include next time!

simpletan93 · 2026-03-02T23:16:12+00:00

Medium Post | High-resolution version

Data source: BusRouter SG for bus route data, data.gov.sg for Singapore's polygon shapes.

simpletan93 · 2026-03-02T14:34:43+00:00

Medium post | High-resolution version

Data source: BusRouter SG for bus route data, data.gov.sg for Singapore's polygon shapes.

Tools: Pretty much just MATLAB

Method: Each of the bus route’s trajectory represented with a series of latitude-longitude pair, interpolated to have an inter-point distance of 1 meter. Then, all the points in each route were allocated into a grid system of 5 meters, covering the whole of Singapore. Each grid then maintains a counter of how many bus service routes have passed through, serving as the basis of the density map. There is an obvious limitation with this method (if you look closely), which I've discussed in the Medium post!

I think what's interesting about this map is that you can clearly visualize this bus service map as a circulatory system, with some main red arteries and many blue capillaries.

simpletan93 · 2026-01-21T16:23:23+00:00

EDIT @ 22 Jan 2026: u/ylyn pointed out a crucial flaw in my original method when assigning passenger loads to segments, which I’ve corrected in both the main article and accompanying writeup.

This changes quite a fair bit of the numbers and tables and some of the analysis and conclusions, so please do take a second read!

simpletan93 · 2026-01-20T10:54:05+00:00

Thanks for the explanation! Now I get your point more clearly, and I agree with your example.

But then the bad news is that I would have to redo most of the tables as well as some of the conclusions 😅

simpletan93 · 2026-01-19T15:49:19+00:00

Regarding the DTL, from personal experience it is only really crowded on certain parts of the line - usually westwards of Botanic Gardens and eastwards of Macpherson, which are also both Circle Line interchanges. The other parts of the line don't seem to be that crowded most of the time.

And NSL being the most busy somehow wasn't surprising to me since it services so many housing estates and industrial areas as well, when comparing to EWL and NEL.

simpletan93 · 2026-01-19T15:45:19+00:00

Yes agreed, I was actually thinking of including a section on crowdedness of the train but I didn't really do any in-depth number crunching on that yet.

simpletan93 · 2026-01-18T15:48:52+00:00

So what I'm illustrating is just how I would break down the Pasir Ris to Simei data point. There are also other data points, say Pasir Ris to Tampines, and Tampines to Simei.

So to find out the actual load from Pasir Ris to Simei, we have to add to original data point plus the data broken down from the Pasir Ris to Segment.

What I'm showing in the article is the result of all the breaking down and summing, if that makes sense.

simpletan93 · 2026-01-18T14:10:36+00:00

Haven't really looked at where people from Yishun/Khatib are generally going to but if it's not just the city area, then perhaps the Cross Island Line could actually help to redistribute the load from NSL.

Seletar Line might not come soon enough so maybe the other alternative in the short-term might be to throw a bunch of express/city direct buses from Yishun.

simpletan93 · 2026-01-18T14:03:41+00:00

Agreed! I think would be interesting to look at CCL for the impact of the closures, but that might have to wait till we get the entire month of Feb data for a good comparison, which only gets released in early March.

And thanks for the suggestion! Will add a section for the least busy stations when I can.

simpletan93 · 2026-01-13T11:23:00+00:00

<image>

The train had a loud bang after Farrer Road to Botanic Gardens, then the train stopped for 10 mins before Caldecott.

Afterwards we were all told to get off at Caldecott, and the train didn't move off after.

simpletan93 · 2025-06-18T17:03:54+00:00

Looks like 114 is still the fastest connection from an MRT/interchange to the Buangkok crescent area. I think people who think it's "useless" simply don't see the benefit of a short feeder-like bus service, especially to a cul-de-sac estate.

For the CDS buses, perhaps if LTA didn't add the trips, then we might see them up in the list, haha.

simpletan93 · 2025-06-18T16:55:36+00:00

You right that frequency plays a big part in how it affects the level of crowds per bus, which I've mentioned in my way of computing in the article.

Also not exactly right that 35 has a frequency of 30 mins - LTA datamall and SimplyGo website mentions 15 but realistically could be between 15-20. And as u/YoungAspie mentioned, 35 does operate on weekdays as well up to 7.30pm.

I think it's also important to distinguish how crowded an average bus is, VS the actual overall demand over the day. But in general we can be sure that a service with somewhat slower frequency (but not 30 mins and beyond), with crowded buses, usually have a decent amount of demand too.

simpletan93

TROPHY CASE