B10BLE in the west, B10TL in the east?

[SG1201T Citaro]

If one were to study these two models of buses very closely, one might notice that both these buses have one thing in common: They are concentrated on one side of the island. B10BLEs make their appearances on routes with depots in the west while B10TLs are on routes with depots in the East, and it is a very rare sight to see these two buses together.

WHY?

Firstly, only 51 B10TLs and 12 B10BLEs were procured by SBS Transit, a pitiful number compared to the number of other buses procured by SBS Transit, not counting demonstrator units. As such, it wold make no sense to distribute these buses around the island, across multiple depots, when they require parts that are not common to other bus types. As such, to ease maintenance and repair of these buses, SBS Transit concentrates each type to just one depot, with B10BLEs being deployed on routes which use BBDEP as their depot and B10TLs deployed on routes that use BNDEP, BRBP or AMDEP as their depot. Its economies of scale. As such, it is extremely rare to catch these two buses together as they are almost always on opposite sides of the island.

At least, this is my theory. If anyone has a suggestion on the occurence of this scenario, do feel free to share here If anyone catches these two buses together as well, do post in here as well

[Tan_CJ]

Nice observation! There are chances of seeing them together at the stretch of Hougang Avenue 3 where service 151 (with B10BLE) and service 25 (with B10TL) meets. Other than this stretch, unless cameos appear (like last Saturday where a B10TL appeared on service 7), it's indeed rare to see these 2 buses near each other.

[Tan_CJ]

Apparently at Clementi Interchange, you can find both B10TL and B10BLE together. Service 14 and 196 seem to have perm for B10TL.

[SG1201T Citaro]

Apparently at Clementi Interchange, you can find both B10TL and B10BLE together. Service 14 and 196 seem to have perm for B10TL.

There is a chance, but as there are so few B10BLEs its a very low chance, also the structure of Clementi Interchange makes it hard to photograh these two buses together