COE is used to tax the vehicle-buyer on ownership. ERP is used to tax the vehicle-owner for road usage.
More COEs have been released in recent years to meet the aspiration of Singaporeans to own cars. At the same time, more ERP gantries are being put up to discourage usage so as to lessen road congestion.
Singapore is a tiny island where more than 12% of the land is taken up by roads. Hence, vehicle growth has to be stopped.
The solution is to have cheap, efficient and comfortable public travels. Unfortunately, our public transport system is none of the aforesaid due to lack of competition. What we have is a duopoly.
Our regulators have a poor understanding of the meaning of competition. They have the mistaken notion that there is competition as long as there are more than one player. So they created 2 multi-modal transportation companies, namely - SMRT and Delgro-Comfort. Each provide train, bus and taxi services.
Firstly, there is no competition as train lines do not run in parallel, bus routes are carved and parcelled out by the PTC and bus--train services do not compete with each other as they are owned by the same companies. For example, we have seen bus services withdrawn the moment the train lines are up.
Secondly, both operators are owned by the government through Temasek. Both companies are making huge profits under the excuse of being profit-seeking public listed companies.
The solution is, I believe, to break up the 2 monopolies and make them into single modal companies. At the same time, let in more players. In other words, there should be a few train operators, a few bus operators and a few taxi operators. No operators should be allowed to operate more than one service.
Temasek must divest its shares.
Free competition will lead to improvements. And when there is free competition, transportation fares can be left to the market (and not to PTC) to decide.
Please discuss.
More COEs have been released in recent years to meet the aspiration of Singaporeans to own cars. At the same time, more ERP gantries are being put up to discourage usage so as to lessen road congestion.
Singapore is a tiny island where more than 12% of the land is taken up by roads. Hence, vehicle growth has to be stopped.
The solution is to have cheap, efficient and comfortable public travels. Unfortunately, our public transport system is none of the aforesaid due to lack of competition. What we have is a duopoly.
Our regulators have a poor understanding of the meaning of competition. They have the mistaken notion that there is competition as long as there are more than one player. So they created 2 multi-modal transportation companies, namely - SMRT and Delgro-Comfort. Each provide train, bus and taxi services.
Firstly, there is no competition as train lines do not run in parallel, bus routes are carved and parcelled out by the PTC and bus--train services do not compete with each other as they are owned by the same companies. For example, we have seen bus services withdrawn the moment the train lines are up.
Secondly, both operators are owned by the government through Temasek. Both companies are making huge profits under the excuse of being profit-seeking public listed companies.
The solution is, I believe, to break up the 2 monopolies and make them into single modal companies. At the same time, let in more players. In other words, there should be a few train operators, a few bus operators and a few taxi operators. No operators should be allowed to operate more than one service.
Temasek must divest its shares.
Free competition will lead to improvements. And when there is free competition, transportation fares can be left to the market (and not to PTC) to decide.
Please discuss.
