Singapore’s recent public transport fare increase provides a useful lesson about financial sustainability, not only for transport operators, but for every one of us.
From 27 December 2026, public transport fares will increase by 7% overall. The Public Transport Council explained that the adjustment reflects factors including wage, energy and other operating costs. At the same time, the Government is providing additional subsidies to moderate the increase for commuters.
Why?
One reason is financial sustainability.
But that raises another question:
If public transport needs higher fares because its costs are rising, what happens to commuters whose own costs are rising faster than their wages?
What is Financial Sustainability?
Financial sustainability is not simply having enough money today.
It means:
Having sufficient recurring income and resources to meet your recurring costs over the long term, without continually depleting what you have.
For a transport system, if wages, energy, maintenance and other costs keep increasing while revenues remain unchanged, eventually the financial model comes under pressure.
But exactly the same principle applies to individuals.
Suppose your salary rises by 3%, but your overall cost of living rises by 5%.
You may be earning more dollars, yet becoming financially less sustainable.
You can cut expenses, but only up to a point.
You cannot keep eating less, travelling less and sacrificing more every year.
Eventually, cost-cutting itself becomes unsustainable.
So How Do We Become Financially Sustainable?
There are three fundamental levers:
Spend better. Eliminate waste and distinguish between what creates value and what merely consumes money.
Earn better. If costs continually rise faster than income, increasing earning capacity becomes essential—through skills, productivity, career progression, business or additional sources of income.
Build resilience. Savings and prudent investing can create buffers so that every unexpected expense does not become a crisis.
But there is a bigger lesson here.
Whose Sustainability Are We Sustaining?
If a transport operator becomes financially sustainable simply by continuously charging commuters more, while commuters' incomes cannot keep pace, the sustainability problem has not disappeared.
Part of it has merely been transferred from one party to another.
This is why genuine sustainability must look at the whole ecosystem.
For public transport, that includes operators, workers, commuters, taxpayers and government.
For companies, it includes shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers and society.
And for individuals, it means balancing today's needs with tomorrow's financial security.
True financial sustainability cannot simply mean passing our rising costs to someone else.
It means continually finding better ways to create more value than the resources we consume.
Perhaps that is the most important question we should ask whenever someone talks about sustainability:
“Whose sustainability are we sustaining?”
Because if my sustainability continuously makes you less sustainable, sooner or later, neither of us will be sustainable.
Written by Andy Ng, Financial Governance & Strategy Advisor
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