Wasteful competition

SMRT offers a free bus ride from Dhoby Ghaut station to Chinatown on Sundays and Public Holidays.

Why? I seems to be SMRT's way of diverting passengers from their competitor (ComfortDelgro) which operates the North East Line serving Chinatown.

Why is SMRT so wasteful, in creating unnecessary capacity? It will be better for SMRT to save this expenditure and reduce the train fares for their customers.

I hope that the Public Transport Council will disallow SMRT from raising their train fares, if they can afford to be wasteful.