Sin eng-13 - priority seats in mrt

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Raffles Institution Year 2 Research Education Design for Change School Challenge 2011 Title By Team name Team Leader: _____Ian Poy___________ (2F) Team Members: _____Robert Liang___________ (2F) ____Jia Dia____________ (2F) _____Yao Hua___________ (2F) Teacher-Mentor: _____Mr Daniel Chua____________________

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Transcript of Sin eng-13 - priority seats in mrt

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Raffles Institution Year 2 Research Education

Design for Change School Challenge 2011

Title

By Team name

Team Leader: _____Ian Poy___________ (2F) Team Members: _____Robert Liang___________ (2F)

____Jia Dia____________ (2F) _____Yao Hua___________ (2F)

Teacher-Mentor: _____Mr Daniel Chua____________________

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Acknowledgement

We will like to express our deepest gratitude to Mr Daniel Chua, our teacher mentor who gave us invaluable guidance throughout the project. We would be facing much more difficulties if not for his advice and encouragement.

We will also like to make special mention to Mrs Lim Yoke Tong who helped us brainstorm our ideas more effectively and providing us with additional information.

Lastly, we thank all the students who helped us in our surveys, and all the others who have helped us in one way or another.

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Table of contents Why this DFC journey………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 Background Research……………………………………………………………………………………… 5 Preparation for Action Week…………………………………………………………………………….. 11 Action Week………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17 Reflections………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 18 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………… 20

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Why this DFC Journey? Our group has decided to embark on this DFC journey as we wish to do service learning. We wish to show our gratitude to the government for enabling us to receive education by deciding to give back to the community. As DFC was available to us and also fulfills our idea of doing service learning, therefore we decided to take DFC as our RE.

Our objectives for the project were firstly to be able to identify a very common issue within our community. Secondly, we wish to come up with ideas to address this issue with an idea that we came up with in order to improve the lives of those affected by this problem.

After looking into our community and doing some research, we decided that the problem we were going to address was on the priority seats in the local MRTs. Even thought the priority seats were meant for the needy like the pregnant women, disabled and elderly. However, we noticed that the priority seats were not effective in their roles and this directly affected those that needed the seats more.

In order to further comprehend this issue, we decided to do some background research by going online to source for articles regarding people not giving up their seats to the needy. After we had done our background research, we conducted a survey to get opinion on the effectiveness on priority seats and what can be done to improve on the situation. After the survey was done, we requested a meet-up with Mr Koh, chairman of SMRT to request for his help in our project.

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Background Research

The kind of research that needed to be done for our project was to find cases where people did not give up the priority seats to the needy. In order to source for these resources, we went online to STOMP to get articles regarding this issue. We found 7 articles on STOMP and also got a newspaper article from the Straits Time regarding this issue. Below are the articles we found:

According to STOMPer Siew Ling, this woman was having her beauty sleep on not one but two reserved seats during a peak hour train ride. Says Siew Ling: "This photo of a 'Sleeping Beauty on the MRT' was taken during a peak hour train ride towards Jurong East. "This woman didn't seem to care, and continued sleeping on the journey while occupying two reserved seats. "She's so inconsiderate!"

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STOMPer hurley_aid said: "These are two very inconsiderate girls. Laughing and giggling while an old lady and another pregnant lady stood in front of them. They just ignored the women and later pretend to sleep. Very, very inconsiderate!"

STOMPer spadeytape spotted these students hogging the reserved seats on the MRT with their belongings at about 5.30pm today (Apr 07). Said the STOMPer: "I was going to Clementi via the East-West line when I came across these inconsiderate students from Jurongville Secondary School. "They were seating in the reserved seats and they put their bag in the seat beside them! "It was about 5.30pm and we know that this is the peak hour period. "Where is their social grace?"

STOMPer Ivan was completely baffled when he boarded the MRT on crutches and received only stares, but no offers for a seat. The commuters also knocked into him when alighting the train. The STOMPer related: "I boarded the train at Raffles Place going towards Jurong East. "I managed to move into the centre of the cabin hoping that a kind soul would let me have a seat. "Yet no one gave

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me their seat, but gave me that kind of look instead. "It was only when my friend got angry and said "Can someone please let my friend have a seat, he is injured!" that a lady gave up her seat to me. "She said "Sorry, I thought it was a joke or a prank." "If I wanted to pull such a prank, I would have wrapped my entire leg instead of just my knee which is mostly covered by my shorts. "The best thing was -- most of the commuters who were sitting were in their 20s and 30s and not 'sleeping'. "They also rushed out of the train, banging into me when I was alighting at Jurong East. "What are Singaporeans becoming?

STOMPer Bin was unhappy with this student he saw on the MRT. She apparently took up the reserved seat, and did not give it up to an old man beside her. The STOMPer said in an email to us today (May 12): "This university student was taking up a reserved seat. "The train was not very crowded as it was off peak hours at 1.30pm. "The student appeared to know that there was an old man beside her, but she continued to read her book. Very hypocritical. "I feel that students should know not to take up the reserved seats for the needy, especially since they have gone through the education system. ”I felt shocked and angry."

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According to STOMPer jess, this man could stare at her on the MRT but he did not bother to give up his priority seat to the old man standing right in front of him. The STOMPer recounted: "While standing in the MRT, I noticed a fat guy kept staring at me. "The main reason why I shot this picture of him is because, instead of staring at me, he should have noticed the elderly man right in front of him and give up his seat to him. "I could see how tired the old man was when he was standing in front of this guy."

STOMPer Mabel was appalled that these two boys occupied the priority seats and ignored her even though she was pregnant. The STOMPer was further infuriated when they ignored two other elderly men who were also standing. She wonders what has happened to the younger generation.

Said the STOMPer:

"I took a train from Clementi MRT station today around 3.30pm and boarded together with an elderly man.

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"We were standing in front of the two young boys with blue tee-shirt marked with “BT”, sitting on the priority seats.

"The two boys were sitting here and chatting all the way, while an elderly man and I, a pregnant woman, were standing right in front of them. They pretended not to see us.

"Later, another elderly man boarded the train at Tanjong Pagar and stood near the two school boys but they ignored him. I couldn‟t believe my eyes.

"The poor man had to wait till some people alighted at City Hall before he could sit down.

"The boys should taken the initiative to give up their seats. What's worse, they were sitting on the priority seats! "Nowadays students are so inconsiderate. Does MoE not teach Moral and Civic Education anymore?

"Isn‟t our government encouraging people to take public transport?

"What are they going to do to help the needy people who take public transportation?"

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Those that are affected by this situation are those needy people that include pregnant women, elderly and the disabled. The priority seats were intended for those needy people to have a seat and rest as they need them more than the other commuters. When the other commuters refuse to give up the seats to them, those needy people would have no choice but to endure and stand. From the number of articles that we found, it can be concluded that this situation is very serious as there are many inconsiderate commuters that ignore the needy and keep the seats to themselves, thus leading to the needy having to suffer standing on the MRTs.

There are several reasons why they did not give up their seats for the elderly. Some reasons are fatigue, laziness etc. and one person even commented that he had „no place to stand‟ when a pregnant lady approached him for the seat.

Although there are many articles and many know that this is a problem in the society, SMRT still shows advertisements and reminding people to give up their seats using decoration in the MRT cabin. However, no harsh action or punishment is being carried out and people still constantly continue to not give up their seats.

In order to resolve this problem, our group brainstormed for several ideas. The initial idea we settled on was to seclude a cabin on every MRT for the needy. However, we decided not to proceed with this plan as we realized we would face a few problems with this action. Firstly, it is very unlikely that SMRT would agree to this proposal as it is time consuming. Secondly, the public might reject this idea as it would mean that there would be one less cabin for the other commuters. Therefore, in the end, we decided to go with our second plan, which was to award people that are considerate and give up their seats to the needy. By doing so, more people would be encouraged to give up their seats.

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Preparation for Action Week

In order to prepare for action week and initiate our idea, we split the tasks up among our group in order to make things more efficient. Two of us were in charge of crafting the survey while the other two were in charge of coming up with the interview letter to Mr Koh. The survey was estimated to be done before the June holidays while the letter to be completed when Term 3 starts.

One risk we faced was that we were afraid that our idea would not be able to be implemented as SMRT might disagree to our proposal.

After we completed the survey in the first week of Term 3, we proceeded on to do a report on the survey. By conducting this survey, we hope to get a better understanding whether the public is aware of the existence of the priority seats and their views on the rising problem of people not giving up their seats. By collecting the data from them, we would be able to know for example: What they do when the see someone not giving up their seats, what is the main reason as to why people do not give up their seats and so on. We gave out our survey to 20 pupils from RI. They were all males from Year 2. We thought it would be better to give out just to a specific level as the response might be more standardized and we would be able to comprehend with their response much more easily. After we had collated all the data, we use Microsoft Excel to present all out data so we could arrange them and have a more organized view of the responses. Below are the results of the questions:

For the first question, it is observed that a lot more people (19) are aware of the existence of the priority seats (95% to 5%).

0

5

10

15

20

Yes No

Q1: Are you aware of the existence of the priority seats?

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Among the 19 people who took the survey, 4 of them believe that the priority seats are effective while the remaining 15 people think otherwise. Thus, it can be implied that generally, more people think that priority seats are not effective as they do not really benefit the needy.

For the 15 people that chose “Yes” in the previous question, 3 of them think that priority seats are effective as people do give those seats up for the needy while the other thinks that with the priority seats, those caught not giving their seats might be STOMPed, thus they are effective.

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Yes No

Q2: Do you believe that the priority seats are effective in their uses?

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People do give up priority seats to needy Afraid of getting STOPMed

Q3: What is/are your reasons for your choice in Q2? (Yes)

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Abled-bodied people take the seat and don't give them up

Irrelevant answer

Q3: What is/are your reasons for your choice in Q2? (No)

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14 out of the 15 gave similar answers that the abled-bodied people take the seats and don‟t give them up to the needy, thus resulting in their belief that the priority seats are not effective.

From Question 4, we can conclude that people not giving up the priority seats to the needy is a very common sight onboard the MRTs as about 80% of the surveyors (16) have encountered this sight while the remaining 20% (3) have not.

For question 5, it provides clearer view of the possible reasons why people do not give up their seats to the needy. It is revealed that 13 out of the 17 surveyors think it is due to their ignorance, 2 think that they are unaware that there are others around them that need the seats more and 2 selected the option “Others”. Those 2 had the answers “They are tired and want to have a seat” and “those people believe that they themselves are more important”. Thus, it can be concluded that most people do not give up their seats as they do not care.

0 2 4 6 8

10 12 14 16 18

Yes No

Q4: Have you encountered people not giving up the priority seats to the needy?

0 2 4 6 8

10 12 14

Unaware that there are others around that need the

seats more

Don't care Others

Q5: What is the main reason you believe for the people not giving up their seats?

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For question 6, it shows that most surveyors think that those that don‟t care is a result of their laziness, 4 think that it is due to them being tired while 3 chose both options.

This shows that majority of the surveyors would not do anything when faced with the situation. 8 would confront the people and advise them to do so while 2 would offer their own seats. This shows that the majority of them would not do anything to help the needy.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Too lazy Tired and refuse to give seats up

Both

Q6: Why do you think people don't care about giving up their seats to the needy?

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Confront them and advise them to do so

Don't do anything Offer your own seat to needy (assuming you're sitting)

Q7: What do you do if you see people not giving up their seats for the needy?

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15

20

Yes No

Q8: Do you think there's a need to resolve this problem?

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This shows that 95% of the surveyors (19) think that there is a need to solve this problem while the remaining 5% (1) do not. Tying in with Q8, even though they think that there is a need to resolve this problem, most people themselves do not do anything to help solve this problem.

10 out of the 12 people think that the needy people need the seats more, 2 think that this is a morality/social problem that must be resolved. 3 gave irrelevant answers and 5 left the question blank.

This shows that most common solution given by the surveyors that answered this question is to impose stricter rules/laws like fining anyone who doesn not give up their seats to the needy (50%). 2 suggested putting SMRT officers on trains to monitor this issue, 1 suggested coming up with various methods to encourage people to give up their seats while the remaining 2 suggested increasing the

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Needy people need the seats more

Morality/Social problem

Irrelevant Blank

Q9: Your reasons for your choice in Q8.

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7

8

9

Put SMRT officers on trains to ask

people to give up seats for needy

Impose stricter rules/laws

Try various methods to

encourage people to give up their

seats

Increase number of priority seats

Blank

Q10: What are some suggestions you have that may solve this problem?

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number of priority seats.

5% of the surveyors think that their level of civic mindedness is 4, another 5% chose 6, 35 % chose 7, 25 % chose 8, 10% chose 9, 20% chose 10. In relation to question 7, most of the surveyors do not bother doing anything when encountered with commuters not giving up seats to the needy yet 90% of them chose level 7 and above.

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8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Q11: Rate yourself on how civic minded you are. (With 1 being not civic minded and

10 being very civic minded)

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Our Action Week

During the course of the action week, our group used three days to put up an exhibition and the remaining four days to carry out our plan. For the first three days, our group went on the Design for Change exhibition week held in our school, Raffles Institution, spanning from 19th August to 21st August. The participating groups were required to create a poster with information and details of the project and put it on display on the main atrium in the secondary site. The purpose of showcasing the projects is to attract attention from the public, informing them about the project that is going on, creating awareness and garnering support.

The materials needed for the poster are easily accessible, as we mostly printed out the

necessary items. Our group members are distributed with different tasks on creating the poster, for examples one member is to complete the drawing of the poster while another is to print and design the information about the project.

After putting up our poster beforehand in the main atrium, we carried on with the exhibition

on 19th August, the first day of the exhibition week. We reported to the venue after school, showing case our project for about an hour. Our team members were tasked to introduce to keen students on our project, explaining to them the different aspects of the project but mainly the problem of the present state of priority seats and our proposed course of action to deal with it. There were hardly any students interested in the exhibition overall.

For the next two days, we repeated what we did on the first day, made some changes to the

poster to make it look nicer and more attractive and also increase the duration of our exhibition. As some of our group members were unable to come down on all three days due to other commitments, we had to plan between ourselves who will go on which day. Overall, the reactions from the students are lower than expected but we still managed to showcase our project to some of them.

Unfortunately, we have not completed the last four days of the action week as we have not sent our letter to SMRT to request for their assistance in our project.

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Reflections

We managed to promote awareness of our project but we regret not being able to complete all the action week due to time constraint and other commitments. Through this project, we gained a lot. We hope to make an ultimate change to our society as this is what our project is about. It may seem as a small matter but to us it is important. We learnt throughout this project many valuable things, like teamwork. To do things efficiently, it is very important to have teamwork, so that we can split things up and do them faster. We also leant many things on service learning, making a change to the community.

Our team also displayed the “I can “spirit rather to a large extent. We continued the project even though we know that the project is very challenging, we wanted to make a change. Our team has strengths and weaknesses. We are very bonded together as a team and we have good cooperation we did not have many internal disputes whatsoever. However, we need to prioritize our time better so as to be more efficient in our work.

We also faced many challenges during the project. We did not really know how to carry out our project in the beginning but with the valuable guidance of our mentor, Mr Chua, we succeeded. We also did not know on how to promote awareness, but luckily our school gave us an opportunity by having a Design for Change week.

Overall, this journey was a fruitful one as we learned a lot about service learning and helping the society.

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Bibliography

MRT „Sleeping Beauty‟ occupies priority seats during peak hour. (2011, 19 July). In STOMP. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/ugly_commuters/667196/mrt_sleeping_beauty_occupies_priority_seats_during_peak_hour.html Students hog reserved seats in MRT dring peak hour. (2011, 7 April). In STOMP. Retrieved May 10, 2011 from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/ugly_commuters/600246/students_hog_reserved_seats_in_mrt_during_peak_hour.html Students occupy reserved seat on MRT while old auntie stands. (2011, 30 June). In STOMP. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/ugly_commuters/680910/students_occupy_reserved_seat_on_mrt_while_old_auntie_stands.html People stare at boy on crutches in MRT but nobody gives up seat. (2011, April 9). In STOMP. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/ugly_commuters/601074/people_stare_at_boy_on_crutches_in_mrt_but_nobody_gives_up_seat.html Selfish man can stare at woman on MRT but not give up seat to old man. (2011, 16 April). In STOMP. Retrieved May 10, 2011, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/3552/107754/353854 Students take up reserved seat in MRT. (2011, 12 May). In STOMP. Retrieved 4 June, 2011, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/3552/107754/372970 Schoolboys on MRT chit-chat and ignore old men and pregnant woman. (2011, 19 June). In STOMP. Retrieved 20 June, 2011, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/3552/107754/397968 Lee, M.H., & Kon, X.H. (n.d.) Masked commuters taking up reserved seats. Straits Times.