How is your MCE experience?

[Halfmoon]

The (distance covered) in taxi receipt may be wrong.

But the bill and timing tallies. He paid $44.55 for meter fare (excluding other nonsensical add-ons). Say, he traveled short distance before being caught in jam. e.g. $4.55 worth.
Say he paid $40 to sit in jam. Taxi meter is calibrated to skip 20 cents every 25 seconds when taxi is stationary in a traffic jam.

$40x100=4,000 cents
4000/20 = 200 taxi fare skip segments
200 x 25 seconds = 5000 seconds = 83.33 minutes

That is about 1 hour 23 minutes or 83 minutes waiting in jam. Which is within overall trip time of 101 minutes.

Thank you for the detail breakdown for all here who do not understand how meter charges....

 

[Halfmoon]

It's only the first few days. There will be many curious people trying out the expressway. Of course it will be more congested that usual. There are also motorists who do not really know the direction yet and will slow down. Once they slow down, the traffic behind will slow down too, hence causing a jam. Just give it a few days, I'm sure it will not be that jialat anymore.

It is not this simple. From Thursday. ... we will see the full impact.

 

[Yutaka Go]

The Marina Coastal Expressway is the widest highway in Singapore with five lanes in each direction

Inside is 5 lanes, outside is 2 or 3 lanes => bottleneck design :bsmilie:

It is design to gave you a traffic congestion :bsmilie:

That explains everything except how the Engineers manage to graduate and get his degree :bsmilie:

 

[Halfmoon]

Inside is 5 lanes, outside is 2 or 3 lanes => bottleneck design :bsmilie:

It is design to gave you a traffic congestion :bsmilie:

That explains everything except how the Engineers manage to graduate and get his degree :bsmilie:

You cannot condemn all engineer cos of 1.

Even pie to cte from west is bottle neck design n it is so common..... sadly.... sg lack designing talents.

 

[Yutaka Go]

You cannot condemn all engineer cos of 1.

Even pie to cte from west is bottle neck design n it is so common..... sadly.... sg lack designing talents.

May be they deliberately design it this way to raise the ERP

 

[Halfmoon]

May be they deliberately design it this way to raise the ERP

And they deliberately install more traffic light, and have speed camera for the same reason too....

Allowing big lorry to hog first lane.... :think::think:

 

[Halfmoon]

it will give them a strong statistics to install ERP gantry. unfortunately sg NO lack designing talents for that

Installing ERP no need talent.... anyone Ah Beng, or even PCK can do it too.... :bsmilie:

 

[ahboy168]

My experience is great. Very smooth and fast for the past 3 days. East to West to East. But I never exit to CBD.

 

[jfoo]

the taxi meter is calibrated to jump 22 cents every 45 seconds of waiting or traveling below 30.8km/h which is highly possible with the jam that day.
source: http://www.cdgtaxi.com.sg/commuters_services_rates.mvn

 

[BBTM]

The design of some places even worse. One way direction and no exit from income area. Fainted when I sees such design. Waste of petrol and time, don't know why got such people designing such roads.

 

[Halfmoon]

The design of some places even worse. One way direction and no exit from income area. Fainted when I sees such design. Waste of petrol and time, don't know why got such people designing such roads.

I find a lot of design in SG is pretty... illogical to me... cos I commoner... only have common sense.. not Elite Sense...

 

[Halfmoon]

My experience is great. Very smooth and fast for the past 3 days. East to West to East. But I never exit to CBD.

Cos you never exit... those who exit are the one who are stuck... lol...

 

[kei1309]

The (distance covered) in taxi receipt may be wrong.

But the bill and timing tallies. He paid $44.55 for meter fare (excluding other nonsensical add-ons). Say, he traveled short distance before being caught in jam. e.g. $4.55 worth.
Say he paid $40 to sit in jam. Taxi meter is calibrated to skip 20 cents every 25 seconds when taxi is stationary in a traffic jam.

$40x100=4,000 cents
4000/20 = 200 taxi fare skip segments
200 x 25 seconds = 5000 seconds = 83.33 minutes

That is about 1 hour 23 minutes or 83 minutes waiting in jam. Which is within overall trip time of 101 minutes.

You mean the taxi driver got lost and drove him around and around at "Marina Circular Expressway" for 2 hours :bsmilie:

Thank you for the detail breakdown for all here who do not understand how meter charges....

that's Ricohflex's assumption that he was stuck in a jam for a very long time:

here's the actual story as told by our own Mr Brown:

Day 2 of the MCE: The above image is the cab fare of one commuter from Bishan to Marina Bay Financial Centre after the taxi driver got lost three times.

http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2013/12/marina-coastal-expressway-many-cars-entrapped.html

and that's according to the guy who posted the image. so i don't think it's a "short trip" followed by a massive merry-go-round.

and YES. i do understand cab fares as i do take them a fair bit.

also check this out: http://gothere.sg/maps#q:bishan%20junction%208%20to%20marina%20bay

according to the map, the route from bishan to the MBFC is only 11.9km via the CTE (which i would know because i've been there from Bishan many times). and that's where the owner of the image said he was going. pretty much any cabby knows that the easiest route's the CTE down, not from the CTE to the KPE to the ECP. and the MBFC is so prominent you would be blind not to see it. in fact, one would question the passenger WHY he didn't even know how to get there in the first place. and that's a whooping 30 plus km extra he travelled. i don't think i've ever sat in a cab going to the Marina Bay Financial Center that didn't know how to get to the CBD, or getting around within it.

and that brings the question to "got lost 3 times". that phrase is kind of funny because... you only get lost once and spend the rest of the time searching for the place. so that would actually have to mean that he found the place, didn't realize it WAS his destination, and set off again. and the fact that he finally got to his destination means that he knew that IT WAS his destination. so why didn't he direct the cab driver in the first place?

and i find it hard to believe that the cabby would try out the MCE when the CTE's the most viable option when going down from Bishan, especially with a customer in the cab unless he asked to go by that route

so there are 2 scenarios:

1) a dishonest cabby who tried to take the longer route to earn more
2) a guy who doesn't even know how to get to work

 

[ricohflex]

There is no way for the taxi driver to claim to be "lost" (as in he did not know whether he was on the MCE) with all the sign posting and the surrounding hundreds of cars stuck in the massive jam.
If the passenger was a Singaporean, then he could direct the driver on the correct way to go to his own office.
In the massive jam and prolonged congestion of the MCE, it is not possible for the taxi driver to to be "lost 3 times" & drive up and down, on the MCE to clock up 44.9 KM. You can hardly move at all in such a jam, so how to clock 44.9KM?

Why would a taxi driver want to return to an expressway jam 2 more times, after he got lost the first time; when there are so many alternative routes to destination?

 

[An drew]

So far my experience of the MCE has been peaceful and pleasant but I was there before the nightmare started.

 

[An drew]

City view.

 

[Halfmoon]

There is no way for the taxi driver to claim to be "lost" (as in he did not know whether he was on the MCE) with all the sign posting and the surrounding hundreds of cars stuck in the massive jam.
If the passenger was a Singaporean, then he could direct the driver on the correct way to go to his own office.
In the massive jam and prolonged congestion of the MCE, it is not possible for the taxi driver to to be "lost 3 times" & drive up and down, on the MCE to clock up 44.9 KM. You can hardly move at all in such a jam, so how to clock 44.9KM?

Why would a taxi driver want to return to an expressway jam 2 more times, after he got lost the first time; when there are so many alternative routes to destination?

I have friends who are taxi drivers... and they hated most is JAMS....

They can earn more money than struck in a jam, so no way anyone want to get lost and go back the jam and be caught thrice... temperature will boil in jams....

I know there's sotong taxi drivers... and I am not sure about this case, but 44.9km... is like... from Changi to Jurong/ tuas...

 

[donut88]

that's Ricohflex's assumption that he was stuck in a jam for a very long time:

here's the actual story as told by our own Mr Brown:

http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2013/12/marina-coastal-expressway-many-cars-entrapped.html

and that's according to the guy who posted the image. so i don't think it's a "short trip" followed by a massive merry-go-round.

and YES. i do understand cab fares as i do take them a fair bit.

also check this out: http://gothere.sg/maps#q:bishan%20junction%208%20to%20marina%20bay

according to the map, the route from bishan to the MBFC is only 11.9km via the CTE (which i would know because i've been there from Bishan many times). and that's where the owner of the image said he was going. pretty much any cabby knows that the easiest route's the CTE down, not from the CTE to the KPE to the ECP. and the MBFC is so prominent you would be blind not to see it. in fact, one would question the passenger WHY he didn't even know how to get there in the first place. and that's a whooping 30 plus km extra he travelled. i don't think i've ever sat in a cab going to the Marina Bay Financial Center that didn't know how to get to the CBD, or getting around within it.

and that brings the question to "got lost 3 times". that phrase is kind of funny because... you only get lost once and spend the rest of the time searching for the place. so that would actually have to mean that he found the place, didn't realize it WAS his destination, and set off again. and the fact that he finally got to his destination means that he knew that IT WAS his destination. so why didn't he direct the cab driver in the first place?

and i find it hard to believe that the cabby would try out the MCE when the CTE's the most viable option when going down from Bishan, especially with a customer in the cab unless he asked to go by that route

so there are 2 scenarios:

1) a dishonest cabby who tried to take the longer route to earn more
2) a guy who doesn't even know how to get to work

I think this passenger is BS lah.

44km in a cab? That's the entire length of our country. If the cab got lost 3 times, he can dispute not to pay.

And I saw $10 for ERP? I will definitely refuse to pay. From bishan to marina, how many erp on the way?

The best way to go is CTE, exit to PIE and exit to Sims Drive, then nicoll highway

 

[coolthought]

Not too bad actually. Maybe because I totally give it a miss during peak hours and study singapore one map to plan my entry and exit and totally give up going to Jurong using AYE from Ophir road.

 

[Sion]

Many cry mother, cry father. I haven't dare to venture there yet.

So how was your experience? Share leh.

I have pleasant experience in MCE so far.

An auntie driver got bored in the traffic jam and made friend with me. And we stopped in MCE to have a smoke and exchange email addresses. :bsmilie: