Of ERP, COE and Singapore Population

On 31 Jan 2008, Straits Times reported that Transport Minister Raymond Lim cited that Singapore's car population has grown from 370,000 in 1997 to 515,000 today (an approximately 40% growth). This has caused strain to Singapore's road system which resulted in crowded roads and traffic congestion during peak hours. To maintain smooth flowing traffic, ERP charges will be increased; to reduce growth rate of cars, lesser COE will be released.

According to Mr Lim, fewer roads will be built in future as already 12% of Singapore land space has been used for roads and to build more roads "is like telling a person who's suffering from obesity that the solution... is to buy bigger trousers".

(Full speech by Transport Minister, Raymond Lim)

After reading the speech, I can't help but wonder if the Singapore population has been taken into account for the above justifications. In 1997, Singapore population was estimated to be 3.44 million (July 1997 est.) and in 2007, the population was estimated to be 4.59 million (June 2007 est.). From here, Singapore car population was 489,000 in July 2007. From the above numbers, the percentage of Singapore population owning a car was 10.76% in 1997 and 10.65% in 2007. Based on the figures, the car ownership remained quite consistent at about 11% of Singapore population. As such, the absolute number of car growth may be more attributed to the growing population of Singapore instead of the growing affluence of Singaporeans. If we can't ensure smooth flow of traffic at the current population of 4.59 million, how are we going to support the targeted population of 6.5 million? In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if we even have the land and infrastructure to support the targeted population of 6.5 million at all!

Is raising ERP charges the only way to maintain smooth flowing traffic? How many times have we seen ERP charges being raised again and again and we still continue to see traffic congestion? After ERP charges raised, a while later, traffic congestion creeps back, then it become the same justification to raise ERP charges again. This has become a vicious cycle. If the ERP charges continue to increase, it may reach a point whereby the ERP charged road become roads for the wealthy where only the Lexus, Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches and Ferraris cruise during the ERP charged hours. This will only force other cars to use the smaller roads which similarly will result in congestion when the smaller roads were never designed to handle the increased capacity. This isn't solving the problem, it is only shifting the problem. What happens then? ERP gantries on the small roads too? Oh wait, the solution may already happen if LTA succeed in their trial in using GPS ERP system where cars can be charged ERP on any roads!

Instead of the pay-and-pay solution, can't we be more creative? Instead of always having solutions that take from the people, why not have solutions that give back to the people?

We know that traffic congestion occurs when too many vehicles uses the same stretch of road during peak hour. That is because everyone is trying to get to work in the same general direction at the same time in the morning and trying to get home in the evening. The government can instead give tax incentives to encourage more companies to stagger their employees' working hours. By staggering the office hours of employees, we are effectively spreading the traffic volume. For example, instead of having 15,000 cars traveling to work from 8 am to 9 am, we can have 15,000 cars traveling to work from 7 am to 10 am which means that there is an average of 5,000 cars per hour.

We can further reduce the traffic volume during peak hours by encouraging companies to have more employees working from home. When more employees work from home, there will effectively be less cars traveling on the roads. Again, this can be done by offering tax incentives to companies. Why stop there? Let's be more generous and also give tax incentives to the individual employee who choose to work from home.

See? Instead of always using the solution of always taking (bitter pill), there are solutions which involve giving (sweetener)! Since civil service is one of the biggest employer in Singapore, the government can take the lead by encouraging the employees to have staggered office hours or work from home. If 10% of its workforce choose to work from home, there will be less cars on the road and there will be less reasons for these workforce to drive or even want to own a car. Similarly, once the civil service takes the lead and with tax incentives for the private sector, it is very likely more will choose to work from home as it become an accepted social norm.

Another solution we can consider is to rethink the urban planning. Currently, we have all commercial activities concentrated in the CBD and future in Marina Bay (i.e the integrated resort aka casino and Marina Bay Financial Centre), which is in the same general area. This means all the traffic will be moving from all over Singapore towards the same area, this will no doubt cause traffic volume to be peaked during certain hours. Instead, the urban planning can be done to build various commercial support eco system disbursed all over Singapore and have the density of Singapore workforce more evenly spread across the island.

In conclusion, as Singapore population increases, the car population will definitely increase even if the percentage of Singaporeans owning cars remain the same at about 11%. Increasing ERP charges and COE price (what else did you expect the COE price to be when the supply is reduced) will not solve the traffic congestion problem.

If the government continues to utilise only pay-and-pay solutions, sooner and not later, more Singaporeans will be fed up with progress!

P.S. For the sake of full disclosure, I'm not a car owner. So the above post was not written by a disgruntled car owner. ;)