Senior bus captains in Singapore get new career pathways to keep working beyond 60

Alex Poon has spent nearly 30 years driving on Singapore’s streets.

At 75, the Tower Transit Singapore bus captain knows every turn, every stop, every bump in the routes he has navigated for decades.

For many workers approaching retirement, that would be the end of the road. But Alex isn’t going anywhere.

Retiring in mid-May, he will soon hand back his Omnibus Driver’s Vocational Licence but has no intention of stepping away entirely. He speaks about passing on experience the way it was once passed to him, by older hands who took the time to teach.

“Very, very important is patience. You must be patient. Otherwise, you can’t do this job, because you are facing thousands of passengers each day,” Alex said.

His transition into a Buddy role, accompanying new bus captains on live routes, gives that instinct somewhere to go.

“I may not be driving anymore but I still want to support the team and share what I’ve learnt over the years,” he said.

Alex is one of 15 senior bus captains taking part in a pilot at Tower Transit Singapore that redesigns what work looks like for older employees — not by asking them to do less, but by finding new ways for them to contribute.

Alex Poon, 75, passes on nearly 30 years of road experience to the next generation of Bus Captains under Tower Transit Singapore's AfA-EMW pilot.

Redesigning the job, not the worker

Over 40 per cent of Tower Transit Singapore’s bus captains are aged 50 and above.

Driving is physically demanding work, and as workers age, the full-time schedule becomes harder to sustain. Without options, many would leave the workforce earlier than they want to, taking years of operational knowledge with them.

The pilot addresses this through three structured pathways:

• Senior bus captains aged 60 to 69 can alternate between driving duties and a secondary role as Interchange Officers, assisting interchange supervisors while reducing continuous time behind the wheel.
• Those aged 60 and above who are ready to step back from driving can move into Buddy roles like Alex’s, accompanying new recruits on revenue service to support route familiarisation and build safety culture.
• Bus captains aged 70 and above can shift from 44 to 35 hours a week through flexible rostering, as a bridge to phased retirement.

For Kamsahni Abdul Majid, 60, the chance to take on an Interchange Officer role alongside his driving duties was one he had been hoping for.

When he was told he had been selected, he was so excited he could not sleep that night.

“I’ve always enjoyed being on the road and interacting with passengers. Being able to continue working means a lot to me, and I hope to keep contributing for as long as I can,” he said.

From conversation to action

On 23 April 2026, the co-chairs of the Tripartite Workgroup on Senior Employment (TWG-SE) visited Tower Transit Singapore’s Bulim Bus Depot to observe the pilot in action.

The group, led by Manpower and Health Senior Minister of State Koh Poh Koon, NTUC Deputy Secretary-General Desmond Tan, and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) Vice-President Tan Hwee Bin, toured the depot and spoke with bus captains taking part in the scheme.

Dr Koh noted that Singapore crossed a significant threshold this year, with more than 21 per cent of the population aged 65 and above — making it a super-aged society by international definition.

But he was quick to reframe what that means for the workforce.

“Many of our senior workers are still able to contribute significantly to our economy. They have years of experience, something that will be of benefit to the companies they work for to tap on,” he said.

He also pointed to a less obvious reason to keep older workers employed: “From the medical perspective, we know that once a person stops working, both physical and cognitive decline sets in rather quickly.

“So we do want to provide more opportunities for our workforce to continue working for as long as they can.”

The TWG-SE’s work, he said, was shaped by feedback from more than 200 participants across focus group discussions.

Two issues came up repeatedly: a lack of flexible options for senior workers at later life stages, and a lack of structured training to help companies manage the transition.

“As the Government, we can create policies and incentives. But because there are many diverse work roles and different industry sectors, companies need to play a very active role to see how they can make things work within their own individual business model,” Dr Koh added.

Tower Transit Singapore is one of around 30 organisations participating in the Alliance for Action on Empowering Multi-Stage Careers for Mature Workers (AfA-EMW), and one of only two public transport operators selected for the pilot.

The workgroup aims to draw lessons from these first movers and help scale what works across sectors.

NTUC’s Mr Tan said the pilot reflects what workers have been telling NTUC directly.

“We have been engaging a wide range of workers, including our senior workers, and we want to bring their sentiments and concerns to the policy discussions as well as initiatives.

“The intention is to extend more options to our workers, and also to give them more flexibility and dignity at work,” he said.

Mr Tan added that the Tower Transit experience had shown what was possible.

“Through job redesign as well as providing more flexible options, we not just increase productivity and extend the experience of our workforce but also give our senior workers more options to continue to contribute,” Mr Tan said.

Tripartite co-chairs of the Workgroup on Senior Employment visit Tower Transit Singapore's Bulim Bus Depot to observe the company's age-friendly workplace pilot in action.

The next chapter

For Alex, it comes down to something more personal than policy.

He taught others the way he was once taught. He stayed patient through thousands of passengers and thousands of kilometres. And when a new programme was presented — one that would let him stay a little longer, in a different way — he said yes.

His licence will expire next month. But his work is not done.