On 29 August 2016, several new buses have entered service with a new feature many have been longing for – USB Charging Ports!
Your phone battery will be one less thing to worry about when you ride one of the 10 new SMRT MAN A95 buses, easily identified in their Lush Green livery (However, only 10 units registered as SG5790H – SG5799J have the USB ports installed). Just sit back, relax, (play Pokemon Go) and charge your phone on the go with the charging ports available at the side of each pair of seats, so long as you remember to bring along a USB cable.
The buses, bearing the lush green  SG❤Bus livery, were first seen on Bus Services 169, 854, 857,  963, 963E & 964 on 29 Aug 2016.
The buses with USB Ports will be deployed on SMRT Bus Services 61, 67, 963, 969 & 985,  from 01 Sep 2016. In a joint press release by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT Buses on 31 August 2016, LTA mentioned that there will be 137 more buses with USB Ports to be rolled out from Oct 2016 onwards.
Part of the 137 additional buses includes 122 MAN (Lion’s City Facelift) A95 Buses as well as 15 Alexander Dennis Enviro500 purchased by LTA.
All seats, except the following 5, have an individual USB Charging Port available for convenient recharging of portable devices:
- Upper Deck – Last row, centre seat
- Lower Deck – Last row, centre seat
- Lower Deck – 3 Priority seats between the entrance and exit of the bus.
There are a total of 41 USB Charging Ports in each MAN A95 bus equipped with them.
USB Charging Ports were first introduced on the two concept buses seen at LTA’s Our Bus Journey carnival earlier this year. The charging ports are identical to those on the MAN Lion’s City DD L and the Alexander Dennis Enviro500 Mock-up Bus. The concept buses were also equipped with other features, including headrests on seats, two staircases, three exit doors on a double-decker bus, and information displays. We will see more of these features on Singapore’s public buses in the near future!
Gallery (MAN A95 Batch 2)
With the New MAN Lion’s City Facelift DD Buses running on revenue service since 14 Feb 2017, some improvements to the USB ports were made, such as a cap to protect the USB Ports when not in use.
Gallery (MAN A95 Batch 3)
70% of the fleets with USB charging port are being deployed on Eastern rotues. SBS East District have the most A95. Why West district are less? LTA should have a balance of 50% to 50% on both district.
It’d be great if you could tell me more about the electrical specifications of such charging ports
In the future, LTA should consider deploying buses with USB Charging Ports on routes covering long distances and experiencing high demand. If the route is too short e.g. 284, or if there is low demand, don’t consider deploying on them.
That’s good… can be useful when my phone battery dies abruptly.
@admin But, I’m worried, what happens if so many USB ports are used at the same time?