The solution to road congestion in Singapore (indeed, anywhere in the world) is simple. Decide on a maximum number of vehicles allowed which will result in smooth flowing traffic and NEVER raise it once that number of vehicles is reached. Any new vehicles thereafter will only be on the basis of a one-for-one replacement ie: one old vehicle taken off the road for one new vehicle on the road.
All it takes to make this work is to DISALLOW private individual ownership of cars. If we are to model road traffic with our blood circulatory system, the rationale for this becomes abundantly clear and sensible. We don't have blood that is specific for the heart, specific for the liver or specific for the brain etc... All our organs share the SAME pool of blood. Any other model would make our circulatory system so complex and inefficient that we would not be able to exist.
The common pool of cars will be available to anyone to use provided they have a valid drivers licence. In essence, this will be a shared car scheme extended to all vehicles nationwide. It has to be so, for the scheme to be workable (a bit like GST being implemented across the board). Current shared car schemes are too small in scope eg: you have to book or reserve your use beforehand and this is a big negative since the main attraction of car ownership is the freedom to use it as and when you like.
The cost of using cars in such a scheme should be less than what you would be charged if you took a taxi for the trip. The drivers licence could also function as an ez-link type card (to be inserted into the in-vehicle unit or the car won't start). The freedom that comes from being able to hop into any available car anywhere and driving it to your destination and then leaving it (when it will then become available for anyone else to use) will far outweigh the hassle of ownership of your own vehicle. As a side effect, it will also remove cars from functioning as a social status symbol, removing yet another irritant and levelling out the social playing field.
On the revenue side, the government need not fret. Instead of individuals bidding for the COE, it will be companies operating these fleets of sharable cars that will be bidding for them. If they want to increase their market share of the business, they will bid for more COEs. ERP charges will still be in play to reduce traffic congestion from specific areas and these will be paid for by the drivers. There will however, no longer be any parking charges. Implementation of this scheme can be phased in over a period of 10 years, time to allow for current privately owned COEs to expire.
Would this scheme be popular? Obviously not. Would Dr Goh Keng Swee have implemented it? I think he would. As the man who made the 'wildly popular' NS scheme a conerstone of our nation building, this should be a cinch :)
Would Transport Miniser Lui Tuck Yew (or for that matter, any of the current cabinet ministers) even consider putting such a scheme on the table? I'm not so sure. And that is a problem. We just don't have any visionary leaders now or at least, we're are waiting with bated breath for one to appear...
To decisively solve this transportation conundrum, we need to divorce ourselves from the 'romance' of owning our cars and boil it down to its essential purpose: a car is just an utility that merely provides a convenient means of transport. One that we can STILL enjoy without ownership. We just need a leader courageous enough to step up to the plate and make it so.
