A mother of an 11-year-old boy called out a “ridiculous” 35-minute wait for a Service 97 bus, even though arrival timings indicated a much shorter time.
In a 13-second video posted on April 26, Seri Romzi, who goes by @serishomel on TikTok, showed her son, Matin, appearing visibly distressed at a bus stop.
According to the caption, Matin had “cried and begged” for her to book a private-hire vehicle home instead, as he could not tolerate waiting that long in the sweltering heat.
Speaking to Stomp, Ms Seri clarified that the incident took place at around 4pm on April 25. She said that when the family arrived at the bus stop at Block 307B Tengah Drive, they scanned a QR code displayed there to check the timings for bus Service 97, operated by Tower Transit Singapore.
“Bus timing… kept on repeating five minutes, three minutes, one minute and arriving – and yet, still no sight of bus 97,” said the housewife. She added that the only buses that the family saw were off-service buses, and they soon grew frustrated.
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While Matin was initially “okay” with the shorter wait times displayed on the app, the continuous absence of the bus led him to become “more furious and fuming mad”. He repeatedly asked if the family could take a Grab ride home, but Ms Seri declined as they lived only four bus stops away.
According to Ms Seri, two other families at the bus stop grew frustrated as well. One of them, which included a baby, chose to head home rather than continue waiting for the bus.
