Just this Monday, I had to travel from school to Yio Chu Kang sports stadium for my badminton tournament. My doubles partner who drove, decided to take AYE and then CTE, the most direct route using the expressways. While we were driving up North along CTE, we were shocked to find that we had to drive past 2 ERP gantries, one before the Bradell road exit (ERP 31) and one between Bradell road exit and Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 (ERP 35). These gantries I believe are separated not more than 3 km apart and my friend had to pay a total of $2.50 to get through them. I did feel that the traffic was moving rather smoothly at an average speed of about 60 km/h, however i feel that 2 gantries situated so close to each other is unnecessary.
In 1998 when the ERP gantries were first introduced, the traffic conditions was improved with smoother traffic flow along the major expressways. However the population of cars on the roads grew over the years and the problem of congestion resurfaced. To solve this problem, the government has not only increased the number of gantries (a total of about 55 to this date and 6 more by November 2008), they have also raised the charges and extended the operating hours of these gantries.
Quoting the Home section of Saturday's (6/9/08) Straits Times page B6, "before ERP came to the ECP in 1998, vehicles there were crawling at 36 km/h between 8.30am and 9am. Today, the average speed is above 50 km/h during that half hour." From this report, I start to question whether this 15km/h increase in average speed over 10 years is justified.
Like many other things in life, having too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. Similarily, I feel that the ERP in singapore is only effective up to a certain point. Although traffic flow has gotten better, my question is whether having additional ERP gantries would help with the congestion at present and in the future. Being a driver myself, I would like to find out if increasing the number of ERP could still effectively solve this problem. Also, I would like to find out if there are other Singaporeans who share similar views of ERP and what their views are on alternative solutions to the problem of congestion in singapore.
In the future, I believe that most NUS graduates would own their own cars, hence being aware of this situation does benifit the students. In addition, from the planned survey and report, not only will myself, but fellow students, professors, parents etc would also have a better feel on this issue.In 1998 when the ERP gantries were first introduced, the traffic conditions was improved with smoother traffic flow along the major expressways. However the population of cars on the roads grew over the years and the problem of congestion resurfaced. To solve this problem, the government has not only increased the number of gantries (a total of about 55 to this date and 6 more by November 2008), they have also raised the charges and extended the operating hours of these gantries.
Quoting the Home section of Saturday's (6/9/08) Straits Times page B6, "before ERP came to the ECP in 1998, vehicles there were crawling at 36 km/h between 8.30am and 9am. Today, the average speed is above 50 km/h during that half hour." From this report, I start to question whether this 15km/h increase in average speed over 10 years is justified.
Like many other things in life, having too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. Similarily, I feel that the ERP in singapore is only effective up to a certain point. Although traffic flow has gotten better, my question is whether having additional ERP gantries would help with the congestion at present and in the future. Being a driver myself, I would like to find out if increasing the number of ERP could still effectively solve this problem. Also, I would like to find out if there are other Singaporeans who share similar views of ERP and what their views are on alternative solutions to the problem of congestion in singapore.
2 comments:
Hi Rui Sheng,
This issue is no doubt an issue not only of interest to NUS staff or student, but also on a large majority of Singaporeans. The ERP issue as have been explained and discussed umpteen times is actually, in my opinion, politically controversial. In the eyes of many Singaporean drivers, ERP is an additional indirect cost of owning a car and a source of tax revenue to the government. But to the government and traffic authorities, it is a successful rationing device to an economic problem of externality, which have been transplanted in many other cities such as London and Toronto and also seriously considered in Sweden, Dubai and Hong Kong.
The economic problem as mentioned above is simply imposing a tax on road users only during peak hours in heavily traveled roads, which is the cause of traffic congestion. Congestion is a seriously problem in land-constraint Singapore as it imposes nation-wide problems that affect national productivity and of course wastage of petroleum. This “tax” was meant to incorporate the cost of congestion into the true economic cost of owning a car, without which, road users will be generally nonchalant about their own contribution to the congestion problem. The ERP system is an effective way in limiting road traffics on heavily traveled roads; users who are not willing to pay the toll (their valuation of road usage) will have to look for alternative means, those users who have urgent use of the roads will be willing to pay and hence entitled to travel on these roads (I’m not going to discuss whether they will be able to pay, just the issue on their willingness to pay. And also, whether the ERP system is equitable or elitist in nature).
However, your proposed topic is reasonable as it tries to find out whether the recent increment of the number of gantries will prove to improve road conditions. One problem that I foresee for this topic is that sending the proposal for review to the correspondents (government and traffic authorities) will be problematic as I don’t think that the findings of this survey will alter the views of the government as the additional ERP gantries have already been erected and in-operation.
Hi RS
Being someone who drives, I understand the frustration of having to pay for the usage of roads, and more so when two ERP gantries are in such close proximation.
I believe the introduction of the ERP was to curb the problem of traffic congestion. However, like you mentioned, I wonder if a 15km/h increase in traffic speed had actually had its benefits, considering it took 10 years.
Perhaps you could target not only students in your survey, but professors, parents and working adults espeacially, people who are most likely to be travelling on the road when the ERP gantries are in operation.
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