Jeffrey Siow treats Tower Transit bus captain to lunch — here's how it went

When Acting Minister of Transport Jeffrey Siow was at Tengah in 2025 for the launch of a new bus service, he befriended a bus captain who was working there.

A year later, he decided to treat Hasri, who works with Tower Transit, for lunch at the driver's favourite spot in Tengah, as part of Siow's Lift to Lunch series on social media.

Siow uploaded a video of their interaction on Monday (July 13), in which the acting minister chatted with the driver about his years on the job, the commuters he remember, as well as his own personal life.

For his favourite spot for lunch, Hasri brought Siow to Raden Lina Nasi Padang, a food court stall at Parc Point, a mall in Tengah.

The two took a bus to the location, where Hasri revealed that he has two brothers — one who works as a prime mover driver, and another who is a crane operator.

"All three of you are in the industry of moving things around," Siow joked in response, which led to a laugh from Hasri.

Siow also told Hasri that he was impressed with how he would recce new routes multiple times to familiarise himself when he was assigned a different bus service to captain.

"I really have the love and passion to serve the public," Hasri told Siow. "In any part of the job, safety is nothing to be compromised."

As the duo sat down to eat their lunch, Siow asked if Hasri was watching the World Cup, to which he said that he does whenever he has time.

The bus captain revealed that he supports the "Three Lions" – the historic nickname for England's football team – and continues to "have faith" in them for the rest of the tournament.

Hasri also talked about his love for motorcycling, and shared with Siow that his longest ride was a journey all the way to southern Thailand, which took him about eight hours.

"You don't speed la hor?" Siow joked, to which Hasri denied, laughing that he is a "safe driver".

Memories with commuters

Siow then asked Hasri to share some positive and memorable stories about commuters.

Hasri said that back when he was driving bus service 106 at Bukit Batok Bus Interchange, there was a woman who wanted to give him a red packet and some goodies during the Chinese New Year season.

However, she could not find him as he was not in charge of driving that service that particular month, and passed it over to his colleagues.

"I felt her appreciation towards me and my friends," Hasri told Siow.

"But I can understand this, you know, because transport is a big part of our normal lives – it's not just the drivers, of course, it's the commuters also, you see similar faces," Siow responded.

"That sort of informal unspoken relationship, actually it's very powerful."

Nonetheless, not all his interactions with commuters were always as positive.

When asked about bad experiences with commuters, the bus captain recalled an incident from eight years ago when a passenger had approached him about a molestation case while on the job.

He proceeded to drive to the nearest bus stop, and told her to calm down, before contacting the Operations Control Centre and the police.

"It's my job. They have to feel safe when they board my bus," Hasri said.

Siow – Member of Parliament for the Brickland-Tengah ward in Chua Chu Kang GRC – responded by calling Hasri and his colleagues "important to our constituency".

"You and I are part of the same team, and we will never walk alone," Siow said, concluding the lunch session with a reference to Liverpool Football Club's famous tagline.

[[nid:736627]]

[email protected]