A pay-as-you-drive distance-based system and heftier parking fees were some measures transport academics mooted yesterday as alternative methods to restrain car usage and curb traffic congestion.
Speaking at a seminar on sustainable urban transport held at the National University of Singapore (NUS), transport economist Anthony Chin noted that the current system of having to fork out large upfront costs — through Certificate of Entitlement (COE) premiums and Additional Registration Fees (ARF) — to buy a car has led to a “sunk-cost effect”, in which car owners choose to drive every day to get their money’s worth. This has led to high vehicle-usage even though Singapore has low car-ownership numbers, added Associate Professor Chin of the Economics Department at the NUS.
Currently, about four in 10 households in Singapore own at least a car, with each vehicle used around 20,000km annually — about twice the mileage when compared to cars in European or Japanese cities.
Dr Paul Barter, an urban transport policy scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, proposed a distance-based method in which car buyers pay the cost of COE and ARF for pre-determined distances which they can drive. For example, if a motorist purchases 50,000km worth of taxes under such a system, which will require him to pay additional taxes beyond that mileage, it could prove to be an incentive for motorists to ensure that they use the car only when needed.
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