EXPRESSWAY MONITORING AND ADVISORY SYSTEM

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EXPRESSWAY MONITORING AND ADVISORY SYSTEM

20.

Mr Steve Chia Kiah Hong asked the Minister for Transport (a) why is the Expressway Monitoring and Advisory System (EMAS) switched off; and (b) what is going to happen to the EMAS.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: The Expressway Monitoring and Advisory System (EMAS) has not been switched off.

What is EMAS? It is an incident management system that monitors and manages traffic along the expressways. Its job is to detect traffic problems early, provide quick recovery service for motorists in distress, and alert motorists to abnormal or dangerous

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traffic conditions ahead. Traffic Police, the media and recovery teams are also alerted to any incidents. Early detection and quick reaction to accidents and breakdowns minimise congestion and danger to road users.

The operators at the control centre rely on a whole network of cameras located along the expressways to detect incidents as soon as they occur. They then despatch recovery crews to the site to assist the motorists and clear the incidents.

Another function of EMAS is to provide notification to motorists about incidents on the expressways. Such information is displayed on the electronic signs along the expressways and at roads leading to the expressways. There are also electronic signs at the entrances to expressways, displaying information on how long it would take to travel to various destinations.

It costs LTA about $5 million each year in communications costs to display information on the EMAS signboards. Over the years, LTA has received feedback that many motorists did not find the routine display of travel time very useful, especially when there was no incident on the expressways. Hence, to reduce costs, LTA decided to discontinue the routine display of travel time. This is estimated to save LTA about $2.4 million in communications costs. However, the signboards will continue to display traffic incident messages whenever there are traffic obstructions, accidents or other incidents along the expressways.