Singapore discourages car use

Press, 21 July 1989, Page 29

Singapore discourages car use

By

GEOFFREY MURRAY

Alarmed by predictions of total traffic paralysis within the next four years, Singapore is making car ownership and use as expensive as possible. New measures it has taken include extension of the 15-year-old licence scheme for

driving into the central business district, substantial increases in parking fees and more expensive petrol. If these don’t work, the Government has warned that it will _ consider further measures to restrict car ownership. It has made clear that present measures are only a precursor to an eventual system where motorists will have to pay to use any of the island’s main roads. The Government has tried several times to curb car ownership by making it prohibitively expensive, including a 145 per cent import duty and high road tax. But increasingly affluent Singaporeans have not been deterred. Car-ownership is growing at an average rate of 9.8 per cent. There are now about half a million vehicles using Singapore’s 2700 kilometres of roads, this includes about 250,000 private cars. At the present rate of. growth, there could be' 350,000 private cars by the end of 1992. Paralysing congestion would occur in practically the entire commercial and residential area of Singapore. The Government’s main goal is to keep traffic moving in the central business district, the nerve centre of the economy - the bulk of the workforce is employed there. It is also the site of the main tourist hotels and shopping centres. In a pioneering move that.; attracted. considerable fnter-

national attention, the area was declared a Restricted Zone, where entry during the morning rush hour for private cars and taxis required the purchase of a daily or monthly licence. Car pooling was encouraged by allowing cars with four occupants into the zone without a licence. Under new Area Licensing Scheme measures, all vehicles except public buses will have to carry a licence, and car pools will no longer be exempt. The dally fee has been reduced from $5 to $3, but the scheme has been extended for the first time to the evening rush hour, from 4.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Charges for street coupon parking and at multi-storey car-parks have been raised by a third. This has led to a sharp decline in the number of vehicles inside the zone but huge traffic jams on the nearby ring road as motorists seek alternative routes round it. Increased use of buses and underground trains indicate the Government is achieving some initial success. Within three to five years, all present measures will be replaced by some form of .electronic road prjcing. The .Government is a European-developed detector loop system comprising electronic number plates on. cars. They are read by sensors in the road and transmitted to a central computer which will issue a regular bill to the motorist. An alternative is a windscreen “stored value” smart card which drivers can buy in advance. The value of each journey is deducted electronically until the card is exhausted. ■ London Observer