SPEECH - 8 FEBRUARY 2010

SPEECH BY MR TEO SER LUCK, SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT, SINGAPORE

AT TRANSPORT MINISTERS MEETING ON ROAD TRANSPORT LOGISTICS SAFETY AND PRODUCTIVITY IN THE REGION

ON 8 FEBRUARY 2010

AT PARK HYATT HOTEL, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development

Ministers

Senior representatives of Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and Malaysia

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

I am very pleased to join you today.

2 As a small country highly dependent on international trade, Singapore has always regarded transport and logistics as a critical pillar supporting our economic development. As an international transport and logistics hub, we also need to have in place a comprehensive land transport network providing the vital links that facilitate the flow of goods and people between key transport nodes such as our port and airport, and businesses and industry.

3 Given Singapore’s small physical size, the key to ensuring that our transport network is optimal and efficient lie, first and foremost, in proper long-term land-use planning that is integrated with transportation infrastructure planning.

Long Term Land-Use and Transportation Planning

4 By integrating the planning of land-use developments with major transport infrastructure, such as road and rail networks, the use of our land is optimised and transport networks can be more efficiently designed. With integrated planning, we can safeguard future corridors where transport infrastructure needs to be built, as well as systematically expand transport infrastructure in tandem with land development and traffic growth. This, in turn, ensures that there will not be an under-provision of transport infrastructure as the economy grows, nor an over-provision leading to a waste of valuable land and sub-optimisation of scarce resources.

5 The process of bringing together land use agencies and transport agencies for integrated planning started as far back as 1972. The result was the Concept Plan, an integrated land-use plan which serves as a blueprint that maps out the land use vision and strategic directions for Singapore in the next 40 to 50 years. The Concept Plan, which is reviewed every 10 years, set out the urbanisation pattern for residential areas, industries and urban centres, in conjunction with the transportation routes, such as expressway networks and mass rapid transit lines, which are required to serve these developments. The broad development strategies of the Concept Plan are then translated into specific planning guidelines for local areas, which aid the regulation of development to ensure that the overall concept is realised in time and place

6 These plans lay the foundation for an efficient and expansive road network in Singapore. Over the years, we have enjoyed the results of such long-term planning. Today, our airport and seaport are well-linked to our industries, as well as to the rest of the island, by a comprehensive network of expressways. The East-Coast Parkway, one of the major expressways in Singapore, links the airport at the eastern end of Singapore, to the Pasir Panjang Port Terminal, at the south-western part of Singapore. The Port is linked to the Tuas Industrial Estate, our biggest industrial area, at the western end of Singapore by two high speed road links, the Ayer-Rajah Expressway and the West Coast Highway. The expressway network was built up incrementally over time, but planned well in advance to cater to the growth of our industries.

7 In the last 10 years, we spent some S$3.4 billion on roads. But the constraints we face in land-scarce Singapore are becoming more acute. About 12% of our land is already taken up by roads. We will continue building roads in the future, but the pace at which we do so must slow down as we become more built up. Hence, there is a need to manage road usage to ensure that roads stay safe and efficient, and not deteriorate into gridlock. Managing road usage is becoming a more pressing challenge as our economy grows, the mobility needs of our population increase and more people aspire to own cars.

8 We are addressing these challenges head-on, through a holistic strategy which includes road expansion, managing road usage through demand management measures, and also optimising our existing road network by leveraging technology and through road safety initiatives.

Increasing Road Efficiencies Through Demand Management Measures

9 We employ a mix of two strategies to manage the demand for our roads and to optimise the capacity of our road network. We have put in place a number of ownership-based measures, to limit the growth of the vehicle population in Singapore. We have a Vehicle Quota System (VQS), which controls the vehicle population in Singapore. We have also imposed various vehicle ownership taxes to discourage people from owning cars. But we are gradually shifting from relying on vehicle ownership taxes towards usage based measures.

10 Usage based measures are a more targeted means of solving the problem of congestion. In Singapore, we have Electronic Road Pricing (ERP). The ERP system allows us to pin point specific congestion spots and to vary the congestion charge at different times of the day. By pricing congested roads, ERP helps to moderate and spread out vehicle usage, as motorists become more aware of the true cost of using their vehicles and actively consider alternatives. These alternatives include using other roads instead of only the popular routes, travelling during the off-peak periods, using public transport or even car-pooling. By moderating demand and keeping traffic on the roads smooth-flowing, the ERP maximises the carrying capacity of the road.

11 Over the years, we have found the ERP system to be effective in keeping our roads and expressways smooth-flowing. Had it not been for the ERP, we would be facing traffic gridlock on numerous roads. The timely delivery of goods and movement of people would be hampered.

Leveraging Technology

12 Looking ahead, we can expect traffic on our roads to get heavier. Fortunately, we can also rely on new and innovative traffic management technologies that do not inflict more pain on the drivers, to ensure that traffic flows smoothly.

13 We currently employ a host of intelligent transport systems, which run around the clock and are coordinated centrally at the state-of-the-art Intelligent Transport Systems Centre (ITSC). The ITSC maintains an overview of the traffic situation on our expressways and arterial roads, and can respond swiftly to incidents or accidents which obstruct traffic flow.

14 To monitor traffic and re-direct traffic flow if necessary, we employ the Expressway Monitoring and Advisory System, or EMAS for short. First launched in 1998, EMAS includes a network of Automatic Incident Detection Cameras and CCTVs which detect traffic incidents on our expressways network. The CCTVs allow the ITSC to remotely assess the nature of the incident and to deploy resources on-site quickly to address the incident and restore traffic flow. Advisory information is also disseminated to motorists via a network of electronic Variable Message Signboards strategically located along the expressways network as well as on dedicated websites so that they are able to avoid the congested road.

15 There is also scope to improve the efficiency of the road network by managing the amount of time motorists spend at traffic junctions. We have a Green Link Determining (GLIDE) System on arterial roads, which originated from Sydney, Australia, and was adapted to suit our local needs. This system which helps monitor, adjust and optimise green time automatically in response to changing traffic demand at more than 2,000 signalised junctions.

Road Safety Initiatives

16 Despite having ways to manage incidents on the roads, the best way to avoid disruption to traffic flow is still to avoid accidents in the first place. Our road safety records have been improving over the years. Over the past 10 years, our road fatality rate has progressively reduced to 4.6 in 2008 from 5.0 fatalities per 100,000 population in 1999.

17 Nevertheless, reducing road traffic accident rates through various road safety measures, public education and collaboration with key stakeholders remain important priorities. In October last year, Singapore hosted the Global Road Safety Partnership / Asia Road Safety Seminar, jointly organised with the National Safety Council of Singapore, to enhance international collaboration, share best practices, as well as explore more innovative ways to improve road safety.

18 Back in 1998, our Land Transport Authority, or LTA, set up a Road Safety Engineering Unit to implement best practices for road safety management adopted by other countries. In 2005, following many years of planning and work to analyse accident trends and understand the contributory factors leading to accidents, we rolled out the Black Spot Programme (BSP), which aims to make roads safer through road engineering solutions designed to treat accident-prone locations. The programme, which is also carried out in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, has seen positive results as the rate of traffic accidents and the severity of accidents in accident-prone areas in Singapore have dropped significantly.

19 Additionally, the LTA ensures that engineering safety standards are developed and improved in terms of road and vehicle design. Vehicles registered for use on public roads in Singapore must comply with vehicle safety, construction and roadworthiness standards as well as internationally-recognised vehicle safety standards such as those adopted by Japan and European Union (EU) countries, or their equivalent^{^[1]}. LTA has also, over the years, introduced various safety measures specific to goods vehicles to enhance their road safety in Singapore. This includes the installation of vehicle speed limiters, amber rotating lamps, rear and side reflective markings for long vehicles and rear under-run protective devices and side guards.

Conclusion

20 The challenge to improving road network efficiencies is a common one facing all of us. The benefits of efficient roads - reduced congestion, travel time, freight costs, fuel consumption and emissions, and delays caused by incidents - are key to our efforts to maintain our competitive edge. The processes to maximise road efficiency start from planning to design, all the way to implementation and operations. From there, incident management comes into play to ensure unimpeded traffic flow. And because many of these incidents can be prevented to start with, we also put in place enhanced road safety measures and proper road and vehicle design criteria.

21 I hope that over these two days, there will be ample opportunities for us to discuss these issues and to learn from each other’s experiences.

22 Thank you.

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[1] Although Singapore is not a contracting party to the UN ECE 1958 and 1998 Agreements , we have been accepting internationally recognised technical standards for motor vehicles : UN ECE Regulations, Japanese safety Regulations for road vehicles, USA’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), and the Australian Design Rules (Source Land Transport Authority)