NEW APPROACHES TO CONTROLLING TRAFFIC CONGESTION

Abstract

With a higher standard of living, Singaporeans' expectations have now risen to owning cars and enjoying the good life. As a result, the private car population has been increasingly on the rise. However, this growth cannot be allowed to continue as severe urban traffic congestion will occur. The government has therefore introduced various measures to control this problem. The current approaches adopted by the government are mainly car usage and owner ship restraint measures. These took the form of the Area Licensing Scheme, Quota System and Weekend Car Scheme. This study evaluates the Area Licensing Scheme and the Quota System in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency and equity. In addition, special attention is placed on the recently implemented Weekend Car Scheme. The scheme was introduced to enable more Singaporeans to own cars as well as to partially satisfy their transportation needs. This study seeks to evaluate how successful the scheme is in meeting its objective. A hypothesis was formulated to form the basis for analysis and a survey on weekend car owners was carried out to test it. The findings indicated that the scheme has partially met its objective of allowing the lower income earners to own cars but at the same time, it has encouraged the rich to own more cars. In view of the contradiction, the author has made several recommendations to ensure that the scheme is more equitable.