Criteria in Evaluation of Requests for Road Safety Features around Schools and Residential Areas and Follow-up Reviews

Ms Joan Pereira asked the Minister for Transport with regard to requests for road safety features such as speed bumps, zebra crossings, traffic lights and overhead bridges received from Members of Parliament, residents and members of the public (a) how does the Ministry evaluate such requests; (b) whether the Ministry will re-evaluate the requests upon further studies conducted or following accidents; and (c) whether the Ministry will consider revising its criteria for road safety features around schools and residential areas arising from these requests.

The Senior Minister of State for Transport (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for Transport): The Land Transport Authority (LTA) receives requests for road safety features from Members of Parliament (MP) through MP appeals, and from members of public through various channels such as the One Service mobile application, emails and letters.

LTA assesses every feedback received by conducting a technical assessment on the relevant stretch of road. The safety of pedestrians is a key consideration. For example, LTA reviews the pedestrian volumes, speed of vehicles, visibility for drivers and more broadly, connectivity to key amenities and transport nodes, and the demographic profile of residents and stakeholders in the vicinity. Measures that are assessed to be helpful and practical will be designed and implemented to cater to localised needs, taking into consideration the impact on traffic. These could include traffic calming measures and additional crossings for pedestrians.

Reviewing and implementing road safety features around schools and residential areas is one of LTA’s key priorities. We have implemented School Zones in the vicinity of every school. For residential areas, in particular areas with a higher proportion of seniors, LTA has implemented Silver Zones. Both zones come with additional road safety features such as lower speed limits, traffic calming measures and road signs.

LTA monitors and re-evaluates requests for road safety measures to be put in place when there are material changes to the traffic and pedestrian volumes in the area, as well as when there are accidents involved.

Mr Speaker: Ms Pereira.

Ms Joan Pereira (Tanjong Pagar): Thank you, Speaker. I have one supplementary question for the Senior Minister of State. I note that LTA would conduct studies and ground assessments when an accident occurs to ascertain that more engineering measures or enforcement actions are needed. However, would the Ministry of Transport (MOT) be able to share whether it would work with the Traffic Police and commit more resources to implement traffic calming infrastructure at all major accident hotspots to reduce the risk of another accident?

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: I want to thank the Member for the supplementary question. As I have said earlier, we will continue to prioritise improving road safety, and indeed, we will be committing more resources to improving road infrastructure that will help to enhance road safety.

Some of the road infrastructure improvements or road safety enhancement measures that we have been doing and will be doing some more, would be signalised pedestrian crossings, for instance, traffic calming measures which the Member has mentioned, like speed humps, 3-D road markings, road signages, narrow and meandering roads, as well as of course, as I have mentioned, School Zones and Silver Zones, that we will continue to implement where there is a high seniors profile, for instance, as well as the newly announced Friendly Street initiative, which we will bring to more residents as well as to all towns by 2030. In fact, presently, annually about 1,000 road safety enhancement measures are introduced island-wide. And as I have said, we will be doing more.