Rush & Queue

This was the scene at the Raffles Place MRT station during the last week of September 2009. In fact, shortly after this was taken, the queue in subsequent days was even longer: it went right up on to the staircase.

What were these people queuing for? Perhaps there was freebie given at the ticket office? Or maybe the ticket office was lacking manpower (but for an entire week??)?

Well, a bit of background: as early as January this year, it was announced that the stored-value card ("EZ-link card") that was used for the buses and MRT trains would be replaced with a new kind.

Grace period was given until end of September to change it (and subsequently it was extended by another week, which is not a surprise to me given this last-minute rush). That is a 9-month period. Evidently this was still not sufficent time for these people to get their cards changed.

How long would they need? A year perhaps? 2 years? From my observation of other similar phenomenon, it wouldn't matter because most likely they would still do it last minute, even if it for something important (such as filing tax return).

Why is this so? Why would they want to rush to do it last minute and wasting time queuing? Is it fun? Is it exciting having the adrenaline pumping, knowing that they may just miss the deadline? Perhaps they have nothing better to do and so just looking for the opportunities to queue?

Stranger than fiction.