Taking a look at Caring Fleet Services (CFS), Singapore’s first ever dedicated fleet transportation service for the wheelchair-bound and the efficiency with which it’s run, it’s hard to believe that it’s only four months old.

Explained its Executive Director, Mr B K Ng, “the seeds of Caring Fleet Services were sown last year when the Tote Board recognised that there was a major shortage of wheelchair-friendly and specially modified Toyota Hiace High Roof commuters, a fleet that CFS hopes to grow to a dozen by the end of 2010.

Mr BK Ng, who was brought on board last year, originally as a consultant, briefly explained the modifications made to each vehicle. “We spent close to $20,000 specially modifying each vehicle.  The wheelchair lift itself costs around $10,000 each.”

While it may seem a very large amount, the work necessary to retrofit each vehicle is equally gargantuan and requires re-arrangement of seats, the lift and installing anchor points for the wheelchairs, among other things.

“We want to make sure we’re a world-class operation, therefore we didn’t spare any expense in making it so,” Mr Ng proudly states. Even the wheelchair restraints in each vehicle is imported from the UK and unlike most other systems, it is the only restraint system that’s ISO-certified.  Naturally, the systems are only as good as the vehicle it’s mounted in and for Mr Ng, the decision to use Toyota vehicles was a natural one.

“We selected Toyota vehicles because the layout was favourable along with having good interior space.  We also chose it for Toyota’s reliability because obviously we can’t afford lengthy downtimes in this business.”  He added with a laugh, “Of course, the vehicles were also sold to us at a very good price by Borneo Motors and I think our venture appealed very much to their strong sense of corporate social responsibility.”

It’s this social responsibility that led to Borneo Motors throwing their support behind CFS and sponsoring a vehicle. Despite Mr Ng taking a pay cut at CFS, he gladly accepted it as he described this job as “very meaningful”. It’s no wonder then CFS is flying foward and saw its maiden journey last month ferrying a pair of wheelchair bound delegates on an official mission from Hong Kong.

The feedback from the delegates was highly positive and the understandably proud Mr Ng beamed when he recounted this.  CFS may be a success so far and may have learnt its lessons mainly on their own but Mr Ng isn’t resting on his laurels nor is he intent on going it alone.

“We don’t just want to learn everything by ourselves, I think we have to learn from others so we probably will form alliance with regional and even international partners.”  He continued, “We can learn from each other’s best, and of course, bad practices that we should be avoiding.”

It’s easily seen that Mr Ng has big plans for CFS and in the coming years, hopes to build it up to a fleet of around 65 to 75 vehicles. 

Given his background, he speaks of regional CFS hubs serving every corner of Singapore and looking at which things are moving along for CFS, we think it’s a very likely possibility!