ERP rates to continue to be reviewed every 3 months: Josephine Teo

SINGAPORE: Minister of State for Transport Josephine Teo said Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) rates will continue to be reviewed every three months.

She was replying to MP Penny Low in Parliament, who asked if ERP rates could be more responsive to traffic conditions.

Mrs Teo said ERP manages congestion by influencing driving behaviour.

Rates need to be fixed for a certain period, for motorists to plan their routes.

But they do get real-time updates so they can adjust accordingly.

Mrs Teo added that during each quarterly review, transport authorities will bring down ERP rates in places where traffic is persistently smooth.

In the last two years alone, there were two gantries along the Pan-Island Expressway where rates were brought down to zero.

In January 2009, the gantry at Kallang Bahru along the Westbound PIE was decreased 50 cents to zero, between 7.30 am and 8.00 am on weekdays. It was later raised to S$1 during the November 2010 review.

In April 2010, the ERP rate for the gantry before Eunos Link along the Westbound PIE went down from S$1, and has remained switched off since.

On public transport, Mrs Teo said the government is reviewing the financing framework of trains and buses, to ensure they remain affordable.

"Our strategies must serve us well even beyond the next five years, and therefore, we will also review the Land Transport Masterplan which was put out four years ago. Over the next year or so, we will engage key stakeholders and invite ideas from the public to develop an updated Masterplan to serve as our roadmap for the next 10 to 15 years," she said.

She also said it's too early to speculate on what will happen, if and when the next generation ERP system, or ERP 2, is introduced.

"We have to make sure that it can be reliably used for the purposes of road pricing. The tests are still ongoing, and if the ERP 2 system is technically feasible, it's still some years before it is ready to be launched and implemented."