ELECTRONIC ROAD PRICING

ELECTRONIC ROAD PRICING:

(Revenue): 4.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Transport how the $168 million in ERP revenues are going to be accounted for following the ERP rate hikes, since the upgrading of road infrastructure is planned to slow down and the increase in revenue will not be expended on it as quickly.

Mr Raymond Lim Siang Keat: Mr Speaker, Sir, Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) revenue goes into the Government’s Consolidated Fund, which then goes to fund various Government programmes, including public transport and road projects, for the benefit of all Singaporeans.

Mdm Ho is of the view that the increase in ERP revenue will not be expended as quickly because of the slowdown in road growth. This is not so.

Despite the slower road growth in the years ahead, the Government will be spending more, not less, on road infrastructure going forward. From now till 2020, the Government will be investing some $14 billion on road developments, or an average of about $1 billion a year, twice the current expenditure of about $500 million a year and much more than what we are likely to collect through ERP. And this does not include the huge amounts we are investing in our public transport system.

I would also like to highlight that the Government is giving back to the motoring public more than the projected increase in ERP revenue, and this underlines the point that ERP is to address congestion and is not a revenue measure. While we expect the additional revenue from the upcoming ERP changes to be about $70 million annually, the reduction in road tax will cost the Government about $110 million every year. The Government will also collect $200 million less annually due to the reduction in Additional Registration Fee (ARF) for cars.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo (West Coast): Three supplementary questions:

(1) Could the Minister kindly highlight where are the current road infrastructure upgrades and when will they begin operation?

(2) Are there plans to widen busy roads that have become immune to ERP?; and

(3) Are there plans to improve the safety of known dangerous roads, eg, the well-known stretch of road along Thomson, often used for racing, where recently four undergraduates crashed?

Mr Raymond Lim Siang Keat: On the first question, where are the major road improvements, going forward? We have opened Phase 1 of the Kallang Paya Lebar Expressway or KPE. We intend to complete the rest of the KPE by September this year. The KPE costs us about $1.7 billion. It is 12 kilometres long and will be the longest underground road in Southeast Asia. The other major expressway that we are building is the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE), at a cost of $2.5 billion. We expect this to be completed by 2013. The third major expressway is the North-South Expressway, which will cost about $7 billion to $8 billion. It is 21 kilometres long, from the north, down to the south. We expect this to be completed by about 2020.

On the second question, I am not sure whether there is such a thing as an ERP-immune road. If there is, she should let me know. We will continue to widen roads. For example, we will make improvements to the CTE from June 2008 onwards. We are also looking at widening the Tampines Expressway, and some interchanges like Woodsville.

All these road improvements will continue. I think it is worthwhile for us to realise that when we are dealing with congestion, we cannot rely on any single measure. You need a whole suite of measures. Of course, every now and then, you read of some pundits who tell you that they have found the panacea. This is it - one single solution - why do you not use it? Why are you so daft? Why do you not use this particular one, and this will solve all your problems? There is no such thing. If anybody tells you that - that there is a single solution - he is selling you snake oil - ignore the medicine man, as it does not work that way. You need all the different measures.

So, this is what we have been doing. We are spending close to $40 billion in expanding our MRT system. We are putting a lot of emphasis on public transport as it is important. Road improvements, which I just mentioned, will be about $14 billion. We are using technology to help us optimise traffic flow, in terms of intelligent traffic management systems. Some of you are familiar with them - EMAS, J-Eyes - these are all using technology to allow the free flow of traffic at traffic junctions. And, of course, you need to manage vehicle usage. All will be used.

The final question is on road safety in Thomson. This is something that we can look at. I will get the LTA to look into this, to see how we can address it.