Saturday, January 10, 2009

Reason 0018 : Electronic Road Pricing ERP

Electronic Road Pricing or ERP is sore topic for many Singaporeans. You see a report in the papers that a certain stretch of road is getting too busy, traffic is too slow, and the next thing you know, an ERP gantry has been set up.

I think the criteria that determines whether a road in 'ERP worthy' or not is a mystery to most Singaporeans. More transparency as to these criteria as well as greater consultation with the public before gantries are set up would be most helpful.

If I recall correctly, I remember reading in the papers that traffic speed on a certain road had fallen below an acceptable level and hence, ERP had to be implemented.

I had some thoughts at that time and I would love it if anyone can post a comment and let me know if they have answers to the questions below.

Qn : the traffic speed is too slow (below a certain base speed)

- who came up with this base level speed?
- why was this figure deemed to be the base acceptable speed?
- was the public consulted on whether speeds lower than this base level were acceptable to them?
- how was the traffic speed measured? One point only, or several points along the entire stretch of road?
- who had taken these measurements?
- over how many days were the measurements taken?
- what time were the measurements taken? e.g. Rush hour
- when were the measurements taken? e.g. school holidays, Mondays, the day after a look weekend, rainy weather?

Qn : Traffic flow improved after ERP was implemented

- Again as above, how and when were the measurements taken?
- are follow up measurements taken on an on-going basis after implementation of ERP? If yes, when and how frequent are these done?
- if traffic flow had improved, shouldn't the ERP be switched off, especially during school holidays when traffic is smooth, and then switched on again when traffic speed falls below the acceptable level?

I do not know anymore. Is ERP a tool used to maintain smooth flowing traffic or is it meant to be a penalty for people who choose to travel within certain hours? Also, it will be good if all of the data collected, before and after ERP was implemented, be made available to the public so that everyone can understand and be convinced of the need for ERP.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is no SECRET that the ERP was not meant to regulate traffic, especially if it is outside the CBD area. If you put an ERP on one of the main roads, then the other parallel roads will see an increase in traffic, in other words, slower traffic, and hence another ERP and there too.

If the Gahmen really wants to regulate traffic, I reckon they should plan more of the industries and necessity factors out of the CBD or central areas, including "good" schools and such so that the necessary traffic to the CBD or central region can be reduce. I am not seeing that happening or happening fast enough.. Singapore have enough land to cater for other industries, what is needed is to have lucrative industries move out of the central region and so are the schools and entertainments. Develop the regional towns more rapidly. This way, life can actually be better.

Anonymous said...

anonymous is right. it is no secret that the reasons the ERP system is up because of:
1. gov wants to look high tech to tourists and foreign peoples
2. gov is poor, need some lame excuse for peoples money (note that the "erp" system is rejected elsewhere) to buy their yachts and helicopters and golden taps
3. gov wants to keep poor blokes out of their exclusive region of the city

like anonymous said, i may add on that the government is not interested in the congestion level (just some bloody excuse) of the roads, or the truth that erp is making small businesses going bankrupt (no one wants to drive in anymore!), prices are going beyond unreasonable til shops are unable to survive. until the travesty of the erp is demolished, i find that growth of singapore is being harshly buffered by the gov's decision to build the erp.

hot japanese woman said...

I think its jsut an excuse for the Gahment to earn more money. A report on straits times once said that an ERP gantry can generate a million aday on average! Damn the gahment

sap upgrade said...

I never came across this term namely Electronic Road Pricing.I came to this blog while searching for Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP).But I will say this is well written blog.Good work man!

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