I was booking out from camp yesterday and the bus trip from camp to Boon Lay MRT station got me thinking. I was impatiently waiting at the bus stop outside Jurong Camp for either bus 193 or 182 to arrive and to my delight, it was neither which came to pick me up. It was a private bus which was empty and fully air-conditioned. The trip was reasonably priced at 70cents. No doubt slightly more than what SBS charges but the far greater comfort (SBS buses are always packed) and speed (it travels straight to the destination without stopping to pick up more passengers; there aren't any bus stops for it in the first place) more than compensate for the extra $0.07. I was wondering, how economically viable is such a business? The consumers are mainly NSFs since the pick-up points are outside military installations and they do not usually have full seating every trip. The one I was on only had 5 passengers including myself out of a max capacity of about 40. It seems that the measly revenue generated this way is still able to sustain the seemingly thriving business. Anyone equipped with common sense should know that if they are making a total loss, they would not have continued the service for so long and lost more money. So presumably they are profiting. Let's now briefly examine the case of the national bus company. With a much wider consumer base, economies of scale and a substantial amount of monopoly power to boot, how much profit would that translate into? Little wonder I have been hearing reports on their mutilmillion annual profit. But why am I also hearing about fare hikes every now and again?