Learnings from Singapore Part 1 - The zero car growth

Visits to Singapore always bring valuable lessons to me, especially when it involves a visit to their Land Transportation Authority (LTA). And it is doubly rewarding when one is with a group of like-minded professionals out to gain more knowledge on how this small city-state works. It is, without argument, one of the best cities in Asia in terms of urban and transport management. The LTA visit provides the technical learning, while going around the city gives one the experiential inkling on why Singapore is different from our cities.

The first question asked during the two-hour briefing of course centers on the "no-growth" policy of car ownership that the Singapore government imposed this year, 2018. Does it mean no more cars are sold this year? Not really. We must understand their 'Certificate of Entitlement' or COE system first so that we can grasp what "0" growth is. Car ownership in Singapore is "regulated" which means you can't just buy a car whenever you want -you need to "bid" and pay for a COE. And oftentimes, the COE is more expensive than the car.

The COEs bid are limited each year corresponding to the car population growth rate they allow for the year, and this have been growing smaller each year until finally reaching zero in 2018. But since COEs have a 10-year-old lifespan (and you must scrap your car afterwards), there will always be expiring COEs each year, the number of which will be the maximum allowed to be sold and bought for the year. Thus, starting 2018, the total number of cars will remain the same every year. And they this will probably continue in the future.

Why did they do this? "Because you can't continue adding cars to your limited road space," was the answer. Why not build more roads? "You can't -because every road space you build is less urban space for your citizens." There is a limit to what you can build. And it is very bad urban management to always destroy already built space to expand a road. Many people always want to widen roads, but that's because they are not the owners of homes and buildings which will be demolished in the process. Try to ask the latter if they like it.

Someone said pointed out that there is still some empty space in the outskirts. Their answer - "the congestion is in the urban center and not in the outskirts … building roads there will only aggravate the problem because it will generate more traffic." The solution is to stop adding cars, build more public transportation and encourage more people to use these systems. Then there's also the need to differentiate between car ownership and car use (and their regulations). Too many people make the mistake of mixing the two, which often results in wrong policies and wrong regulations. Not to mention, no policy or regulation to speak of. We will investigate these in the next article.