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In Singapore, is it legal to

  1. Bring food or drink onto the bus?
  2. Eat or drink on the bus?

(I am referring to the public buses, so SBS, SMRT, Tower Transit, etc.)

There is a law prohibiting eating or drinking on the train (Rapid Transit Systems Act) with a maximum penalty of $500. And most people assume this law applies to buses as well.

However, I am unable to find any such law for buses. Googling, all I find are these:

  • One website calls it a myth and claims to have called SBS verifying that there is indeed no such law.
  • SBS "Tips for Riding" states "4.10 Do not smoke, eat, drink or litter in the bus." But this isn't necessarily a law since those same "Tips" also state things like "3.2 Queue up and board in an orderly manner."
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    Given Singapore's penchant for metting out serious punishments for various minor offenses that would not be criminalized elsewhere or would receive much less harsh punishments elsewhere, I would assume that any failure to observe "Tips for Riding" including 3.2 would be subject to serious fines and/or incarceration or corporal punishment until proven otherwise, possibly under an obscure legal rationale such as "failure to follow directions of bus driver" or something like that.
    – ohwilleke
    Dec 20, 2017 at 20:54

1 Answer 1

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disclaimer: As stated in your question it's very hard to find information about the law on this topic because there's a lot of contradictory sources, so this answer will rely on company policy.

I did do a couple of searches for Singapore Statutes and was unable to find any laws about eating or drinking on a bus.

The SBS states(section 4, subsection 4.10):

Do not smoke, eat, drink or litter in the bus.

An incident on an SBS bus which turned into a popular video was of a woman eating an ice cream cone and was confronted by another passager which caused the woman eating the ice cream to say "go complain". Due to the attention, this video had gotten SBS put out this response:

there is no penalty for those who eat or drink onboard buses. The no food and drinks rule is only enforced on commuters traveling on public trains. Those caught flouting this strict rule could face a $500 fine.

the SMRT states(safety on the bus):

Do not eat, drink, litter or smoke while on the bus.

Tower transit says(in the FAQ):

For the comfort of other passengers, we strongly discourage eating and drinking onboard our buses. We believe that it is the social responsibility of every passenger to keep our public transports clean.

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  • I'm unable to find the quote you attributed to SBS: "there is no penalty for those who eat or drink onboard buses ..."
    – user45238
    Feb 6 at 7:17
  • And other than that "quote", this answer mostly just repeats what was already stated in the original question.
    – user45238
    Feb 6 at 7:18

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