My Pet Peeve #2: Getting Stopped for Snapping/Filming in Public Transport Facilities

Bus spotting is a hobby that not everyone will come to like.

Photo: myself

Also available on Medium.

Hi guys, it’s Howard here. And I’m back in another episode discussing about what I dislike. This one’s for you public transport fans in Singapore, and I’ll be focusing on one particular topic which most, if not all, of you in this said group may find very annoyed with.

You know what I dislike? Getting stopped by interchange personnel for snapping or filming in public transport facilities such as bus interchanges or Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations. To start off, I’ll mainly focus on bus spotters since they’re most prone to getting stopped by the security.

Bus spotting is an internationally recognised hobby. Though this hobby is not really the most popular here in Singapore, there are bigger communities of bus spotters overseas. I am a bus spotter myself (or a bus fan/enthusiast, whatever you like to call it). I like to document buses regularly and I’m definitely no stranger to being stopped countless times for snapping or filming buses in public transport facilities since I joined the public transport community in mid-2015.

There’s just this infamous group of interchange personnel that will swiftly resist you from snapping or filming buses in their premises. That’s right, it’s the security officers in bus interchanges. Usually clad in dark uniforms, they’re usually seen patrolling around the premises of bus interchanges. When any security officers caught you snapping or filming buses inside the interchange using their own means, they’ll usually come over to you and ask you to delete the photos or videos taken inside the interchange, claiming that it’s for security reasons or whatsoever imaginary reasons they could possibly think of.

Cisco’s security officers are the most notorious for stopping bus spotters every time they see them taking photographs or videos of buses inside the interchange premises. Some may even go as far as asking you to produce your identity card or even a permit to them. Excuse me, bus interchanges are public places where anyone can enter in. If security officers are enforcing tight security measures on anyone taking photographs or videos inside the interchange, it may as well be a protected private area, right? Geez… they made us seem like terrorists that would compromise the security inside the interchange when we’re mostly just young people documenting buses without any ill intentions.

Bus spotting is never an act of terrorism.

Screenshot: SMRT's website

Instead of abusing their authority by simply stopping bus spotters from snapping or filming inside interchanges, security officers should rather enforce security in aspects that break the law such as assaults, robbery or actual terrorism. Quoting from YouTuber glitchFan2428’s video on bus preservation in Singapore, instead of thanking us for doing our part in documenting the buses for memory purposes, they’ll blatantly accuse us for committing acts of terrorism. In overseas, you don’t even receive such atrocity from documenting buses at all. Seriously, how is bus spotting inside interchange premises considered terrorism? We don’t plant explosives inside the premises or send discreet information to radicalised terrorist groups using our image capturing devices. We’re just here with our phones or cameras documenting buses, okay? Even SMRT’s website also mentioned that we can take photographs and videos inside their interchanges, as long as it’s for personal use or non-commercial purposes. Yet their interchanges’ security officers do otherwise. How ironic.

A conversation about photography in interchanges (Screenshot: A fellow bus spotter) 

Singapore should follow other countries to make bus spotting less restricted. It’s just pathetic that the security officers in our bus interchanges are either too paranoid or too bored that they criticise us bus spotters.

I do like to share some encounters I had with security officers that I could possibly recall of. On late January 2017, I was at Yishun Temporary Bus Interchange eagerly camping for the MAN A95 double decker demonstrator running on Bus Service 860, then managed by SMRT Buses. Just as the said bus made its way to the boarding berth, a security officer caught me snapping the said bus making a turn and brought me to the passenger service counter for questioning. Just as after the questioning was done, the said bus has already left, the photo was deleted upon command and I didn’t even ride the bus at all to film a route visual (or rather, a hyperlapse). Tough luck. There’s even once when I was waiting to snap a Tower Transit MAN A22 single deck bus turning out from the bus park inside Jurong East Temporary Bus Interchange when I was told to leave the premises by a security officer because I was standing at a certain spot ‘too long’. Who on earth are you to tell someone to leave a public premise for standing at a spot for an extended duration? Maybe someone wants to meet his or her friend at a certain corner of the interchange but got chased away by the security officer. There’s also a recent encounter in the new Choa Chu Kang Bus Interchange when I was just casually walking around the premises with a camera strapped on my neck, without taking a single photograph, but got stopped by a security officer by pulling my backpack. How inhumane could he get. I pretended not to understand the Mandarin that he bombarded by replying in English. Lmao… was he just plain ignorant or stupid? So, I just flipped a middle finger towards him after the encounter was over.

Cisco security officer that snatched away SBS2827U's phone when filming (Video: SBS2827U) 

I guess you must’ve heard enough about my encounters, so I’ll be moving on to encounters faced by other bus spotters. On mid-November 2016. YouTuber SBS2827U was filming a now-retired SMRT DAF SB220LT single deck bus inside the premises of the old Choa Chu Kang Bus Interchange when he was stopped by a security officer. The security officer then decided to snatch the recording device away from the YouTuber’s hands. The YouTuber then brought us to SMRT’s website, citing that photography and videography in public areas are allowed if it’s for personal use, which in fact the video that he supposedly filmed was for his personal use. Even so, that security officer should’ve used other non-provocative methods to deal with the YouTuber rather than just blatantly snatching away his phone. The YouTuber is just doing his part in documenting the history of old buses though.

If they don’t allow us to take photographs or videos of buses inside the interchange, why are we still able to search for bus photos and videos on Google? To be fair, there are so many possibilities. Firstly, one could’ve applied for a permit to document buses at any interchanges, too troublesome. Secondly, some security officers may be lenient enough to let bus spotters document buses inside their premises, that’s okay. Thirdly, literally anywhere outside the interchange is not the security officer’s business, good enough. Many experienced bus spotters, including me, would rather do the latter so that they won’t get into unnecessary trouble with the security officers.

That now-retired bendy bus which I got stopped by that interchange manager for (Photo: myself) 

One special shoutout I’d like to mention though. Most bus interchange managers would not care if anyone’s documenting buses inside their premises, but some can intervene at the same level as the security officers, or worse. The worst one I’ve encountered was when a certain interchange manager in Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal stopped me from photographing an old bendy bus on 190 and asked me to delete the photo. Of course, thinking that snapping buses in the terminal doesn’t breach any security measures, I refused to comply. To make matters worse, he even threatened me to the police using the footage from his body camera and called my bus spotting a terrorist’s act. However, he did let me off ‘this time’ after a few negotiations and won’t pursue the matter even more. If I could blow up the matter any further, I could’ve lodged a complaint against him to SBS Transit (the company he’s working for) for his barbaric attitude and possibly cause him to lose his rice bowl.

Here's the barbaric interchange manager involved

Should I become a security officer or an interchange staff one day, I’ll definitely close one eye when it comes to bus spotters snapping and filming buses inside my bus interchange. Besides, I can say that I was once a bus spotter too. Come on, just let them take any photos and videos of buses however they like. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it now and more so when they become adults when the buses they documented as a kid has retired, so that they can reminisce about those old buses to the next generation.

It’s just sad that little has been done to cater to this unique bus hobby of ours. I guess this is how we live life as a Singapore bus spotter, receiving lots of adversity from the likes of security officers and some interchange managers when documenting buses inside their bus interchanges. As much as Singapore is always perceived as a first-world country in the eyes of many people, it will always remain as a third-world country for Singapore bus spotters due to many restrictions imposed on them. Nonetheless, bus spotting is still my passion and I won’t give up easily to all the ups and downs faced by bus spotters. I just hope that more people in Singapore will come to appreciate bus spotting as a hobby, and eventually lift their prejudice against our hobby.

If you like this writeup, do share it to more people and it’ll be greatly appreciated! Perhaps this could raise awareness of how security officers treat bus spotters in the present and possibly change the way they handle bus spotters in the future. Thank you for reading.