PARLIAMENT QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

WORLD CLASS LAND TRANSPORT SYSTEM

AMr Chay Wai Chuen (Tanjong Pagar): Sir, the Government came out with a World Class Land Transport document some years back when it set forth its vision for a deliverable World Class Land Transport system for Singapore. In the process of implementing this plan over the years, it has achieved several important milestones, like ERP, inter-modal seamless transfer, North-east line, and LRT. Will the Minister update the House on the programmes and his Ministry's vision of a World Class Transport system? Can he also comment on the quality of service, for example, quality of ride, time to destination, accidents, schedules, apart from the infrastructures?

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang (Cheng San) (In Mandarin): Sir, as an open economy, we must have a highly efficient land transport system to ensure free traffic flow. With rapid development, we must strive to achieve further progress upon our current success. Right now, we have to review to see whether we have effectively implemented the White Paper on a World-Class Land Transport network, including the proposed Singapore Underground Road System (SURS).

I feel that, more importantly, we should be able to move at a faster pace to improve the public transport for our people. With the completion of the airport extension line and the North-East line, will the Government consider extension of the rail network to link up the major housing estates in Singapore, so that these housing estates can be better served by public transport. Will the Government consider bringing forward the plan to bring LRT to other housing estates, like Sengkang and Bukit Panjang. LTA should let our people know by announcing the schedule and implementation plan for such a scheme so that our people could plan for their future transport arrangements.

Sir, with greater efficiency and speed in the construction of public housing in new towns, I hope LTA will also have better coordination with the relevant agencies, like HDB, URA and Ministry of Education. I hope that the various Government agencies can improve their coordination. They must be more flexible to take into account the development pace and the needs of the residents to make timely adjustment to the plan through better coordination among the various agencies.

The Minister for Communications and Information Technology (Mr Yeo Cheow Tong): Sir, first, let me answer the two cuts from Mr Chay Wai Chuen and Mr Yeo Guat Kwang on world class transport. Sir, both Mr Chay and Mr Yeo have asked for an update on what has been achieved in the White Paper so far. Mr Yeo has also asked whether we can speed up the expansion of the rail system and in fact whether we can link up the different housing estates with the rail network and whether we are going to expand the LRT to the other housing estates, just as we have done for Bukit Panjang, Sengkang, and, later on, Punggol.

Sir, let me first give an update on what we have achieved in the White Paper so far, as requested by both MPs. Sir, the White Paper sets out four initiatives. These are, namely, improving public transport, developing a comprehensive road network, demand management measures on car and integrated transport and land use planning.

Let me go through them briefly. Sir, the land transport system, the cornerstone of that system, is really our public transport system. This is an area that we are focusing a lot of our resources on. Our aim is to have an expanded Rapid Transit System (RTS) such that it is comprehensive in network coverage and it is easily accessible. Members will recall that in the White Paper, we had envisaged a long-term rail network of 160 km, and when we say "long term", we are talking about 30 years. At the time when the White Paper was prepared in 1996, the rail network at that time was 67 km long. Today, I am happy to inform Members that the RTS network is now 92 km long, ie, we are more than halfway to the long-term target.

On recent achievements, LTA completed the Bukit Panjang LRT system in November 1999 and the Expo Station in January this year. In the next few years, we will be opening the North-East line, the Sengkang LRT, the Dover MRT Station, the Changi Airport Extension, the Marina line, and the Punggol LRT line. Sir, the completion of all these projects by year 2005 will bring the RTS network to a total of 146 km, ie, we are about 90% to the long-term target by year 2005. Sir, in answer to Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, in effect, we are actually very far ahead of what was envisaged in the White Paper.

As to the linkage to the other housing estates and whether we are going to expand the LRT to the other housing estates as well, I would like to inform Members that LTA is actively studying the other rail projects and we will announce the projects as and when they are finalised. In terms of the LRT for the other housing estates, now that we have one operational in Bukit Panjang and we are going to have the second operational very soon next year in Sengkang, what LRT would like to do is to step back and observe how well these two systems are performing and how do they compare versus the bus-based system for housing estates. The system is very expensive and it is prudent for us to make a review before deciding whether to further expand the system to the other housing estates in the future.

Another good news for Members is that, over the long term, instead of the rail network of 160 km, we envisage that the long-term network will now stretch 540 km. So, in effect, we are going to make the rail network the basic infrastructure for public transport.

In terms of developing a comprehensive road network, again, LTA has managed to proceed ahead of what was envisaged in the White Paper. By the end of last year, LTA had already added 415-lane-km of roads. This is much higher than the 225-lane-km targetted by the end of 2001, as set out in the White Paper.

Sir, in terms of demand management measures, as you know, we have implemented ERP, as proposed in the White Paper. It is working very well and it is able to control congestion on the major roads. And because ERP is working very well, we do not need to expand the ERP system beyond the current gantries. However, if the congestion does worsen as the vehicle population grows, then ERP may have to be expanded to cover other areas and other parts of Singapore as well.

Sir, the vehicle quota system (VQS) has indeed been helpful in keeping the car population down. Just now two MPs raised points about the VQS.

Sir, the last pillar of the White Paper was the integrated transport and land use planning. Here, LTA is working very closely with URA and HDB on integrating land use in terms of town and transport planning. This will enable us to optimise the use of our land and to maximise the benefits of the integrated land transport system to consumers and to residents. As an example of the collaboration with URA and HDB, the hon. Member for Sengkang would realise that we are seeing there the integration, in terms of the use of the MRT and LRT stations together with the commercial operations, which will make the town a lot more attractive as well. The other example of the building-cum-station integrated development is the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, which should be open very shortly.

Sir, in conclusion, we can say that LTA has, indeed, made good progress in the five years since the White Paper was released, and we are on track to developing a world-class land transport system.

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