Marine Parade shuttle service to end after one-year pilot, says Minister Edwin Tong

The WeCare shuttle bus service in the Marine Parade Town Cluster will not continue beyond its current contract period, which ends on 20 November 2025. This was confirmed by Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong in a written reply dated 15 October 2025.

According to Tong, who responded in his capacity as the Minister responsible for the People’s Association, the decision was made by the grassroots organisations (GROs) of the Marine Parade Town Cluster.

He stated that following the latest review, the GROs “have assessed and decided not to continue with the bus service… and instead re-direct their resources in a more targeted manner.”

Tong was responding to a parliamentary question filed by Workers’ Party Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC, Fadli Fawzi.

Fadli had asked about four aspects of the Marine Parade shuttle pilot:
(a) the utilisation rates and actual costs during the one-year trial;
(b) the future plans for the service;
(c) whether additional government funding had been provided beyond the initial S$200,000 seed grant; and
(d) whether any other grassroots groups are planning similar community-based transport services.

In his reply, Tong said the Marine Parade shuttle service was a “ground-up initiative by the Grassroots Organisations of the Marine Parade Town Cluster.”

It began in early July 2024 as a pilot project funded by a one-off S$200,000 seed grant from the South East Community Development Council (CDC), with the remainder of the funding raised through donations and local fundraising efforts. The total cost of operating the service was approximately S$1 million.

“There is a total of six bus routes, each plying different routes,” Tong noted. The service underwent reviews throughout the pilot, with “some adjustments being made at the end of last year after user feedback was obtained.”

He added that “utilisation of the service varies from route to route and also depending on the time of the day.”

On the question of future community shuttle services by other grassroots groups, Tong stated that such plans would “depend on factors such as the specific local needs of the residents, the cost of any such services and the availability of alternatives.”

The Marine Parade GROs had earlier confirmed the cessation of the service in a Facebook post dated 13 October 2025.

In it, they stated: “We are mindful of how this may affect residents who are currently using the service. We will soon be engaging affected residents and share more about our next steps going forward.”

The background to the Marine Parade shuttle service reveals that it was launched in July 2024 as a free transport initiative aimed at improving “last-mile” connectivity for residents in Marine Parade, MacPherson, and Mountbatten.

It featured six community routes linking neighbourhoods with key community facilities, operating primarily during off-peak hours.

At the time of launch, the GROs said there was “steady usage across most routes.”

However, anecdotal reports later indicated that some buses were under-utilised during certain time slots. Adjustments to improve efficiency were made in January 2025, and the pilot was extended until November 2025.

The initiative also attracted political scrutiny. On 7 August 2024, Workers’ Party MP Gerald Giam questioned in Parliament why caricatures of People’s Action Party Members of Parliament appeared on the buses. He suggested that such imagery blurred the line between public service and political messaging.

Among those featured in the caricatures was Edwin Tong himself, who had served as a Grassroots Adviser in the area.

Then-Minister of State Alvin Tan responded that the designs featured “local landmarks familiar to residents,” such as Wisma Geylang Serai and Old Airport Road Hawker Centre, alongside caricatures of MPs to “help residents identify the buses.”

Tong later defended the approach in his written response, stating that it was consistent with other grassroots programmes that display banners featuring their advisers.

Former WP Non-Constituency MP Yee Jenn Jong also weighed in on the issue, commenting on social media: “I can understand how buildings can be landmarks—are faces landmarks too?”

He also noted that the service appeared to be underutilized based on available data, with very few passengers per bus trip.

“The times that I have checked, all buses have always shown as near vacant. Indeed, one can do simple math from the Minister’s answer – 1,000 residents using the service each week divided by 5 days, divided by 7 buses (over 7 separate routes), divided by 6 hours of operations per day = 4.76. ”

“Actually, the buses complete a route in perhaps 30-45 minutes, which means around 3-4 persons per bus trip.”

CNA, in a report, noted that the free shuttle bus service saw starkly different levels of ridership, with some routes having close to zero passengers at certain times but others having over 20 passengers.