Make not owning a car the smart choice

I submitted this article to the Straits Times and it appeared on 17 November 2006.


Make not owning a car the smart choice
by Paul Barter

Urban transport policy in Singapore is becoming more difficult to handle.

In the early 1970s Singapore faced traffic chaos, a failing bus system, little money for infrastructure and acute awareness of space limitations.

The answer was a hard-headed “bargain” that offered steady improvements in space-efficient public transport at the price of making ownership of space-wasting cars unattainable for most. This has been widely seen as a success

However, both sides of this bargain are under growing strain. Demands for broader access to cars have been difficult to resist. At the same time, pressure has intensified to dramatically improve public transport. These trends may be heading us towards a policy dead end and may be a concern for LTA policy makers as they conduct the recently announced ten-year review of land transport policies.

Restricting car ownership has been a key plank of Singapore transport policy since the 1970s. It works but it is a blunt instrument. Ownership restriction is an indirect way to tackle congestion and there is political fallout from the frustration of those denied car ownership. But with space at a premium, the need to keep traffic under control remains strong. Congestion remains a constant threat, even with only one third of households owning a car. At the same time, the scope for cost-effective expansion of road capacity is modest.

These issues prompted policy-makers to seek ways to allow broader access to cars while containing their usage, especially at congested times and places. 'Off-peak' cars are an example - although much cheaper to buy, they cannot be used during the busy times of the week. Car-sharing, which offers short-term car use with fees based on time and distance, is another promising option, as we will see.

For a decade now, the policy for mainstream privately-owned vehicles has been shifting from high purchase and ownership taxes, to one with a greater reliance on usage charges, especially Electronic Road Pricing, to deal with traffic problems. This policy shift also foreshadowed a slight relaxation of the vehicle quota limit, although recent low COE prices have been as much a result of soft demand as of increased supply.

Implementation of this policy to have lower fixed costs and higher usage costs has in fact been cautious. This is apparently from concern that easing ownership restrictions too quickly could cause a surge in car numbers and soaring ERP and parking prices.

Nevertheless, if the policy remains in place we can expect gradually lower price barriers to ownership - in addition to the decreases of recent years - together with rising usage costs. A logical extension of this policy, which is not yet on the agenda, would be to put all vehicle taxes, and even insurance, on a 'pay-as-you-drive' basis. This would require reliable measurement of distance driven, perhaps via an improved ERP system.

Meanwhile, more affordable access to cars has paradoxically fuelled mounting political pressures to improve public transport. Traditionally, policy makers face constant calls to keep fares affordable for the poorest sections of society. Not surprisingly, this is the case in Singapore as well. But here, it will be increasingly those in the middle of the income scale - with a wider range of transport options to compare with mass public transport - who will demand improvements.

It is likely that more households with rising incomes will tend to keep using public transport, such as the expanded MRT and LRT network and buses, for some trips but become intolerant of less-than-excellent service. A growing group can afford liberal use of taxis. Also, as usage costs go up, even car-owning households can be expected to keep the car at home and use public transport.

As a result, the number of “part-time” public transport customers will continue to grow, straddling a broader band of incomes. This is because cars are increasingly an option at lower incomes than previously, while usage costs are rising. Declining satisfaction with bus waiting times and complaints about taxis are a foretaste of things to come. More calls for better public transport service can be expected from this group of “part-time” customers.

However, current regulatory and financing arrangements for public transport make it difficult for the regulators to drastically raise standards and require the operators to meet this challenge for better service, especially if fares cannot be significantly increased.

Are these three constraints - from lower-income households to keep fares down and from the middle-income to both expand access to cars and raise public transport service standards - taking us to a dead end then? Must we retreat to a policy of just suppressing aspirations for cars? Fortunately, there are other possibilities.

What if we instead embrace these trends and even take them much further? There might be a cost-effective way to push most car costs onto usage fees, to address aspirations for greater access to cars, and to simultaneously embrace the need for excellent alternatives to privately owned cars. But how?

Strangely, offering greatly expanded access to cars could actually be an important part of the solution. Not by increasing car ownership, but on a fee-for-service basis, especially through the growing car-sharing industry. At least five car-share companies now operate in Singapore, offering their members short-term access to cars, without the high fixed costs of actually owning one. They have a highly usage-based price structure which encourages them to be used in moderation, as a complement to other modes of transport. This means there should be no need to limit the number of car-share cars via COEs or ARF. In fact, they should be much more explicitly encouraged.

We should view car-sharing, together with car-rental and taxis, as important elements of the alternative to privately owned cars. They are a natural fit to join with public transport and the humble modes of walking and bicycles in a comprehensive 'alternative mobility package'. The best examples of this concept have been pioneered since the late 1990s by Switzerland's highly successful car-sharing company, 'Mobility', through its customer-friendly cooperative arrangements with other transport businesses, especially public transport.

On their own, none of these modes can compete with the convenience of owning your own car. But the Swiss experience is showing that together they can offer a competitive package of transport services that in many ways is comparable with privately owned cars, but at much lower up-front cost. Public transport must continue to improve as well, but a mobility-package approach should share the burden and take some pressure from its shoulders.

So we could make car-ownership increasingly unnecessary by working harder to make a non-car-owning lifestyle an attractive option. This policy emphasis offers a way to address the aspirations for convenient mobility which many of us currently focus on having our own car.

The low levels of car ownership in places like Tokyo, Manhattan, Hong Kong island or central Paris demonstrate that affluent people will happily remain “car-free” if the alternatives are comprehensive enough. Singapore too can aspire to be a place where not owning a car becomes the smart choice for people in every income bracket.

Kyoto funding opportunity for BRT

The prospects of funding Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the 'Global South' just improved!

According to Business News Americas (found via http://www.transportnews.org)

The TransMilenio public transport system in Colombian capital Bogotá has become the first mass transit system in the world to be considered a clean development mechanism (CDM) in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) stated in a press release.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has approved CAF's methodology to consider the TransMilenio scheme as having a CDM component.

This means that it is officially accepted that the TransMilenio system reduces the emission of greenhouse gases because of its greater efficiency in transporting passengers and due to the partial substitution of private means of transport by high quality public services.

This means that it will be "be eligible for carbon emission reduction certificates (CERs), which can be traded with developed countries to help the latter reach the carbon emission reduction goals set out under the Kyoto Protocol".

This answers a call made by Wright and Fulton in a paper that I reviewed last year. They argued that projects like Bogotá's BRT system, which involve mode shifts to inherently more efficient modes of transport, such as well-used public transport systems, are far more cost effective than efforts that focus on fuel technology. Their arguments focused especially on BRT as offering widespread opportunities.

It will be interesting to see if this sets a precedent that can be followed up on by many other similar projects.

The photos with this post are of Mexico City's BRT line, known as Metrobus.

'Naked streets' and safe chaos

I recommend taking a look at YouTube's GlobalSouth group which has more than 60 short videos now on transport in developing countries.

A striking number of the videos are simply footage of streets or intersections in countries like India, China or Vietnam. Most of them show traffic that at first glance looks completely and utterly CRAZY, often with a mind-boggling diversity of road users doing anything and everything you could imagine.

And the amazing thing is that it seems to work. For some good examples look here or here.

One traffic clip (this one of an Indian intersection) provoked hot discussion at sustran-discuss in April. Some saw it as horrifying, while others suggested it was actually working very well. No consensus emerged I am afraid (see here and several responses). By the way, the Indian video looks to me like it may have been deliberately sped up a little to improve the slapstick effect!

Here is one of the approving sustran-discuss comments:

As it happens, I shot a similar video last summer in Urumqi, except there's also a pedestrian crossing going through it which is freely used by the cars doing u-turns. I started to video it to show people how bad the traffic and driving was. After 10 minutes of filming I realised that it all worked rather well, and felt suitably humbled about my prejudices.

Let me assume for today that the chaotic looking situations in these videos are actually rather safe, with few serious accidents (although probably quite a few minor ones). This is a big assumption (and I don't have the evidence to make it) but it does not seem unreasonable.

The roads in these videos all seem somewhat 'naked' - along the lines of the 'shared space' approach to road and intersection design. Maybe they are inadvertently naked and not by careful design as shared space advocates might want. But these streets or intersections are working (maybe even working well!?) without all the traffic engineering paraphernalia or signs and traffic lights, etc. Or maybe the signs and lights are just being ignored.

Does this threaten to turn our quest for order and traffic discipline on its head? Maybe streets with vulnerable road users actually NEED a certain amount of chaos to work safely!? Maybe they need to have all those crazy turning movements, mixed vehicles, pedestrians meandering and bicycles sailing through in order to keep everyone awake and alert to the unpredictable? Maybe, as David Engwicht puts it, safe streets need more intrigue and uncertainty not more predictability.

Someone else wasn't so sure, however:

It is a trade-off of efficiency and safety! Similar driving behaviors
and situation in most of Chinese cities, resulting an "official record"
of 100,000 more fatalities and 520,000 more injuries annually!!

Indeed, some of the videos DO show examples of chaotic Chinese urban traffic going HORRIBLY wrong (WARNING: not for the squeamish - some of these crashes are a tad upsetting).

This made me wonder. A casual look suggests that the key difference might be speed. The accident scenes in the video from China almost all show situations in which the traffic is light and the speeds high, even though in most cases nothing much else is different about these crash intersections compared with other 'chaotic' intersections. This is more a question than a conclusion, of course, based on this little video-based 'investigation'!

But running with this idea for a minute anyway, maybe the horrendous traffic accident statistics that we read about low-income countries (high rates of accident per vehicle, not per capita) are not happening at the really 'crazy' times at all and are not a result of the obvious disregard for rules - at least not when it is at its most obvious?

Maybe these same chaotic places only become dangerous when the traffic is lighter, when there is not enough chaos, and the motor vehicles tend to pick up speed? A hypothesis that would be worth testing more carefully I think.

A bunch of other questions arise. I wonder if there are any simple design features for such places that could prevent speeds, and hence danger, from increasing at times when traffic is light?

The naked streets toolbox apparently can work such magic ... with designs that make it feel like a pedestrian or playing child or bicycle might leap out in front of you at any moment, even if there are none around. Could we find low cost ways to do this that would suit Indian or Vietnamese cities? Or maybe I don't know enough about shared spaces as done in Europe. Could it be that Dutch naked streets also get dangerous when there are too few people using them?I must find out.

On the traffic efficiency side there are other questions, which I will save for another day.

Part 3 of "Moving Forward: towards better urban transport"

This is the third and final part of the video.

Part 2 of "Moving forward: towards better urban transport"

SUSTRAN Video "Moving forward" now online

Six years ago I helped produce an educational video on urban transport policy for the SUSTRAN Network (and some funds from the Southeast Asia Regional Canada Fund.

I have finally got around to putting it on YouTube. So here is Part 1, and Parts 2 and 3 will follow shortly.

Sorry they are a little grainy. The VCD version was never of super high quality.

"Moving forward : towards better urban transport" gives a brief introduction to some of the isssues related to modern urban transport in the 'global South', with a focus on Southeast Asia. It has footage from Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore, this documentary outlines problems associated with transport in cities. It also introduces some of the key tools to tackle these challenges, and make urban transport safer, cleaner, healthier and more people-friendly.

Credits: Produced in 2000 by the SUSTRAN Resource Centre (Malaysia) for the SUSTRAN Network, with the assistance of the Southeast Asia Regional Canada Fund. Produced and directed by Zaitun M. Kasim and Paul Barter. Video concept by Paul Barter, Tamim Raad, Zaitun M. Kasim; editing by Neil Felix, Pusat Komunikasi Masyarakat, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Singapore taxis

[updated for brevity]

I was asked by the media to comment on the taxi industry in Singapore, which has been in the news here recently. These were some of my comments.

[BTW, since I first blogged this, some of the comments below have been mentioned in 'Today', 22 July 2006 in a long article which offers a pretty good overview of issues for the Singapore taxi industry.]


Background: Singapore's taxi deregulation
Singapore has 'deregulated' the taxi industry. But what does that mean?

First, there is now no cap on the number of taxis. And the numbers did indeed go up.

Second, there is no limit on the number of taxi companies (although complying with service standards means that tiny operators would have difficulty staying in the market).

Third, each taxi company can set fares to whatever the market will bear - provided they inform the government and the public in advance. Thus, deregulated fares does not mean unpredictable fares. The drivers must still use the tamper-proof meters. In practice, the differences among the companies are small and restricted mainly to the extras.

See here for the official line on the basics of Singapore's taxi deregulation policy (as of 2003) and here for a basic guide (for tourists) on Singapore's taxis.

Below is my take on a few specific issues.

A. Competition among the cab-owning companies not yet sufficient?
Most taxi drivers here rent their cab from one of the companies (at S$90 per day). The taxi companies are thus basically rental companies - with medium term rental agreements with the drivers of their fleet.

In this model, the drivers face an extremely competitive environment out on the streets. The companies are competing to keep drivers so that their taxi fleets are fully utilised.

However, this competition does not yet appear very fierce. For example, drivers complain that the cab companies have never reduced their daily rental, even though COE prices have gone down. This complaint sounds like a fair comment.

Why have the companies not been offering lower rentals? There is certainly one dominant player in the industry (Comfort-Delgro) and it is hard not to wonder if this market dominance is the problem. On the other hand, there are reports that some of the companies now do have significant numbers of idle taxis. So maybe stiffer competition to retain drivers is coming soon? Or maybe there are grounds for requiring the market dominant player to divest part of its fleet?

BTW, see here for a brief official explanation of the thinking behind deregulation.

B. Exempt taxis (and car-share cars and car-rental cars) from purchase taxes like COE and ARF?

In Singapore private motor vehicle purchases are heavily taxed, via the Vehicle Quota Scheme (which results in an extra cost, the COE) and the Additional Registration Fee (ARF). Together with Excise Duty, these more than double the price of a new car. So a small car costs around S$60,000 (about US$38,000).

Taxis (and car-share and rental cars) are currently treated almost exactly like private cars for the purpose of these taxes (except for some small differences) (see for example, the 2002 Budget for the rationale - because they are like cars basically). So the cost structures of the taxi industry and car-sharing (eg NTUC car-coop) and car rental are heavily weighed down by COE and ARF.

BUT I beg to differ. The rationale for ARF and COE is to contain the rate of growth of privately owned motor vehicles? Carsharing, taxis and car rentals (together with public transport, walking and cycling) are among the ALTERNATIVES to owning your own private vehicle.

So exempting these industries from COE and ARF would be in line with the objectives of these taxes.

Would this cause some of these low-tax vehicles to leak into the private car fleet? I don't think so. It is easy to enforce such things with relatively few actors in the industry.

Of course, lower capital costs for taxis will not help drivers or customers, unless there is real competition among the cab companies so that they pass on the savings (see point A above).

C. Peak period issue - allow 'ERP on entry' to be passed to next customer?

Singapore's taxi users have long complained about how difficult it can be to get a cab in peak periods. Peak hour surcharges are aimed at fixing that problem and probably do help.

BUT, one part of the afternoon peak problem for taxis has not been solved yet. It is an unintended side-effect of the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) cordon around the city centre. Taxi passengers have to pay for ERP. However, for an empty cab ERP costs the driver. This creates an artificial shortage of taxis in the central zone in the late afternoons when few occupied cabs are entering the area and empty ones avoid the extra cost of ERP.

Here is a suggestion. How about we change the rules to allow cabs enteringt empty to automatically add the ERP charge to the next fare. I suspect that taxi meters could handle this, since they are already equipped to add on various surcharges and ERP costs. This "ERP needs paying" status could also be displayed somehow - say on the cab's rooftop display or simply with a low-tech sign (like the change of shift signs).

In evening peak, some customers will be willing to pay this extra in order to get a cab. Some will not. Which is not a problem. They will just continue to wait for a cab without ERP to pay.

The driver would need to be able to cancel the extra ERP charge in case he/she cannot quickly find a willing customer. If no luck, then just cancel it and swallow the loss.

We would need to think through how this would work at cab ranks. I don't think these issues would be impossible though. So maybe this idea is worthy considering?

Mexico City impressions

Recently I was lucky enough to visit Mexico. Here are a few observations and impressions.

I am grateful to Bernardo Baranda (formerly with the Center for Sustainable Transport Mexico (Centro de Transporte Sustenable, and now Mexico country director with ITDP) for helping me learn more about the transport scene in Mexico City.

As I flew in I was struck by the grid layout and that the city was low-rise (rarely more than 2 or 3 storeys) mostly. Also impressive was the sheer scale of the place (around 20 million in the metropolitan area I was told) and the bright colours of many houses. This was my first time anywhere in Latin America so I couldn't help but make comparisons and contrasts with Asian middle-income and low-income cities that I am more familiar with.


Here are a few transport-related impressions that I jotted down along the way.

The large number of street stalls and hawkers surprised me, especially near Metro stations, possibly more even than in Bangkok or Jakarta... And more tolerance of them apparently.

The Metro has rubber tyred wheels, is very frequent, very extensive, mostly crowded, and much cleaner than books had made me expect.


Most housing and buildings tend to front onto the street even in outer areas. I didn't see any really suburban looking places. However, I did find a few US-style strip mall areas, complete with Wal-Mart (although I was pleased to notice that its car parking was not free).

The historic centre has a rather European look and feel to me, certainly much more so that I am familiar with in Southeast Asia, where local and Chinese styles are just as prominent

I was impressed by the quality of public spaces, especially the many squares (plazas), which are very well used and lively. It is hard to find such wonderful public spaces in Southeast Asia. And despite various dire warnings about crime and personal security, I never felt threatened.

Public transport is incredibly cheap. For example tickets to the Metro are per entry 2 pesos per entry (unlimited distance). Two pesos is just under 20 US cents.

Minibuses ('peseros') are ubiquitous and appear to fill a real need as feeder services to metro as well as for longer rides to some extent. They have been steadily increasing in numbers, causing some concern to some.

The metrobus busway seems successful. Actually another city, Leon, was first to build BRT in Mexico. Leon is apparently lucky to have an institute for urban policy (or something like that) that does very good planning; their busways have been done very well at relatively low cost. Bernardo reports that it is estimated that Mexico City's Insugentes busway is carrying about 250,000 per day with just 80 buses, a little more than the 220,000 or so who were carried before by hundreds of Peseros, and ordinary buses. (BTW the newly elected Mayor of Mexico City has recently announced plans for several more busway corridors). Read more about Metrobus's early success here. It is also estimated that 5% of busway users were not public transport users before, so some success in making public transport attractive to richer groups. This particular corridor is a rather upmarket one in general. By contrast, the Metro apparently has a poor image with many of the middle and higher income groups, for being crowded and difficult to access with vendors crowd all approaches.

I didn't witness much serious congestion. Maybe I was never at the right places at the right times. Nevertheless, this surprised me having heard so many stories about legendary Mexico City traffic jams.

The pedestrian environment was generally good I thought. Certainly not as bad as I had thought it would be and much better than in many Southeast Asian cities.

Efforts to help bicycle users are in their early stages, but there are already a few bicycle ways. The efforts so far are being strongly encouraged by a vocal and enthusiastic group of bicycle activists as well as the CTS ('Centro de Transporte Sustenable'). By chance I witnessed one of the bicycle activist events - a NUDE bike ride, which had more than 100 riders. The Sunday crowds in the historical centre gaped at the extraordinary sight. A very successful event in that it got huge press coverage (including TV news and front page of several papers) despite competing with the fierce election season and the football World Cup! And no, I did NOT participate myself.

I also saw quite a number of pedicabs, using mountain bikes fitted with trailers. Quite nifty really. Most of the ones I saw were in and around the historic centre, near the Zocalo. But also saw one or two working in the outer suburbs in poor neighbourhoods. As the nude bike rally (mentioned above) was passing by I happened to be standing beside a pedicab driver. With my rather poor Spanish I managed to ask him why HE had his clothes on. Luckily for me he did not take offence. Just laughed and said they are all loco! Loco!

If you want to read more about Mexico City try here and for more on its urban transport issues in Mexico City you could start here (pdf).

Q&A on tackling urban congestion

I was asked to do a long radio interview in Malaysia on Friday and to prepare some talking points. I took the opportunity to try to think through how best to explain in simple terms some of the key arguments as I see them.

It was a rushed job, I have overdone it (the DJs may be horrified!) and I am probably oversimplifying outrageously.

But for what it is worth, I would like to share it here.
--------------

We have asked Paul to come in to the studio to chat about how can Malaysian cities solve their transport woes.

1. Paul, thanks for coming in. First, how familiar are you with the urban transport problems in the Klang Valley and other Malaysian cities?

I lived in KL for five years before moving to Singapore and my research over the last 12 years or so has included comparing Malaysian cities’ urban transport with other cities around the region.

2. As you know, many Malaysian cities seem to be facing nasty traffic problems and it just seems to get worse. Is there any hope?

Well the good news is that there IS hope for better urban transport. There are cities around the world that have made good progress. The bad news is that the obvious, popular solutions are not enough. Even worse, some of the obvious solutions actually make thing worse!

3. What obvious, popular solutions are you talking about, Paul?

The key example is just expanding the roads and building more expressways. It can seem like a good idea but it only ever gives temporary relief (and sometimes not even that). In the long run traffic actually gets worse.

4. Building bigger roads seems like it should work, a least a bit. What is going wrong?

Expanding roads does not address any of the underlying changes that are making traffic increase. These include the choices we all make about buying vehicles, about where to live, about where to build shops and offices.

In fact, bigger roads actually influence our choices in ways that create even MORE traffic. Some people stop riding public transport, they move to houses further away, developers build things further out, etc. All these changes make it even harder for alternatives to driving to compete, so we end up with even worse traffic problems than before.

5. If it is so obvious that bigger and bigger roads do not solve the problem why do we seem to keep doing it?

I don't blame people for crying out for more road space. It SEEMS like a good idea.

We are getting into trouble by looking at the problem too narrowly.

I teach at a Public Policy School and our students are people who will be solving public policy problems when they leave. They are mostly civil servants, NGO workers, and policy consultants. One of the most important lessons that we try to get them to understand is to be careful how you frame a problem.

For example, someone who starts gaining weight COULD say, 'Oh the problem is my pants are too tight'. Of course it is true but it is not a useful way to look at the problem. You would probably not ever think of eating healthily or exercising if your focus is 'tight pants'.

That was a silly example, but people really do look at traffic jams and simply say, 'well obviously the roads are too small'. Just like the tight pants, it may be true, but it is not a very helpful way to look at the issue. If we look at the problem that way, then we will miss a lot of other possible solutions. We need to be careful how we 'frame the problem'.

6. So saying the roads are too narrow is not a useful way to look at traffic congestion you say. But what is a better way?

A very good start is to stop focusing so much on the traffic jams themselves. Stop focusing so much on vehicles.

7. That sounds pretty “zen”! Like, 'Grasshopper, let us solve congestion by not thinking about congestion' What do you mean?

Focus on people and goods instead of vehicles and traffic jams. Concentrate on how can we move people and goods in the most efficient ways.

When you think like that, you tend to think a lot more about public transport, which is much more space efficient.

You might be more willing to do things like (gasp!) take away lanes of traffic and devote the space to a Bus Rapid Transit busway that can carry more people in the same space than if they were in cars. By the way, Bus Rapid Transit busways are a growing trend around the world, with some wonderful success stories. For example, Bogota in South America has achieved an amazing transformation with BRT as a key part of it. Even Jakarta is starting to get really excited about busways.

8. Here in KL we have been building lots of KTM komuter rail lines and LRT lines and monorail. And we have been shaking up the bus system. But the traffic seems to be as bad as ever. Improving public transport does not seem to be enough!

Let's go back to the gaining weight analogy. Imagine we bought some bigger pants but a few months later THEY are too tight as well! So we decide we really need to start eating healthier food. But you go to the hawker centre at lunch break and the healthy options are not so convenient. You really have to hunt for them, while the nasi lemak and fried kuay teow and deep fried treats seem to be everywhere. And when you are used to a salty, high fat diet, those healthy options just don't seem to taste so good. We have a real problem - will power is not enough and all the incentives seem to be in the wrong direction!

It is the same with cars and public transport. When you are used to driving everywhere, even good public transport seems inconvenient. It seems like a second best option. Just putting the healthy option on the table along with the tempting unhealthy ones, does not guarantee that people use the healthy one.

At the LKY School of Public Policy we also train our students to always think about the INCENTIVES in any policy situation. We drum it into them to ask themselves what incentives the actors in the situation are facing.

By the way, we also have a cooperation problem here (another public policy concept). Everyone would be better off if some of us switched from cars to other ways of moving. But none of us wants to be the one to change. And none of us has any strong incentives to change.

AND we still haven’t really tackled the underlying incentives that are encouraging more and more people to drive more and more. Even when the trains are full, traffic keeps getting worse.

9. I can smell where you are going with this! That word, incentives, is code for pricing right? Are you going to say we are just going to have to pay more for driving to stop us being tempted? That would make a lot of people very angry! Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t just kick you out of the studio right now?!

Not so fast! First, we can consider come other kinds of incentives.

And by the way, we only need to tempt at least SOME people not to use cars at least SOME of the time OR to use them in less congested places or at less congested times. We don't need everyone to change their ways. Even a few less cars on the road at the crucial times can make a big difference.

Some of the incentives are about convenience and not money.

Just improving public transport is not enough but we should certainly make sure that we get the best out of those big investments by making sure they link up seamlessly together and can use one ticket and easily get information about how to plan a trip. This is starting to happen in KL i believe.

Car parking is another big opportunity for incentives, both money and non-money. Deliberately making parking a little less convenient and more expensive helps people think twice before jumping in their car.

10. But if you ask Malaysian drivers about prices and convenience they will tell you that they are already slugged with high and rising fuel prices, road tolls, and lots of inconvenience! Are you suggesting more price slugs? Are you SURE we shouldn't kick you out now?

Wait!! What I am suggesting is cleverer and better targeted prices and careful changes in incentives

Just increasing motoring prices willy-nilly is not the answer either. It is not just about the total price.

My bet is that we could reduce congestion without increasing the typical total costs for Malaysian drivers. We need to reduce some but increase other.

By the way, Singapore has been actually reducing car-related costs over recent years, without congestion getting out of control. The price signals have been getting cleverer and better targeted.

11. NOW you're talking, Paul. But how can we do that?

We need to make sure that whatever we do pay makes sense in terms of the incentives that the payments send us.

We need prices that encourage us to do the right thing in the most efficient way, so that we don't need to be slugged unnecessarily.

Right now, the way we pay for urban transport mostly does NOT help us make the right choices. For example, road tax and registration fees do nothing to help us choose to drive any less. Paying for a season ticket for parking does not make you think twice about driving each morning. Even though the risk of a crash increases the more you drive, insurance is the same, whether you drive a lot or a little.

12. So you are saying that it is not HIGHER prices but DIFFERENT price schemes that could help? So what exactly do you suggest?

One example is peak pricing: road tolls should be higher during rush hour and lower during off-peak times. (the average price could stay the same) This would tempt a few people to change their trip time. Of course, if you really have to travel at peak hour you will pay a little more, but at least you will get less delay. And the buses, which have no choice, will move better at peak period with fewer cars getting in their way. Singapore’s Electronic Road Pricing works that way. You pay more at peak times, and often pay nothing at off-peak time.

13. It might be tricky to get the toll road companies to do that. Any other examples?

Here is a second example. Let’s focus on the costs that you CAN’T save even if you don’t use your car. They are fixed costs. You already paid for the import taxes, road tax, the registration fee, insurance, and you may have paid a monthly season parking fee. Not only do these fees not go down if you drive less, they actually make you think to yourself, “well I paid all that, so I should get my money’s worth”.

So it would be much better if we shifted all these costs so that you pay them as a small fee per kilometer. The name for this is PAY AS YOU DRIVE. So you can have ‘pay as you drive insurance’, ‘pay as you drive road tax’, etc.

Don’t forget that for most people the total cost does not go up, because we reduced or eliminated the old fixed taxes and fees.

In fact, if you can find ways to drive less then you can now SAVE money. You would now have a better incentive to try to drive less.

The catch is that we need better and affordable technology to keep track of distance driven and send bills accordingly. The technology is just about here.

14. I can see that Pay As You Drive can apply to fees like road tax and insurance. But what about the car itself? I paid a lot of money for my nice car. So now I want to use the thing right? Why would I want to leave it at home to rust?

You are quite right! In fact, you have hit the nail on the head. Actually, once people have a car, it is very hard to persuade them to use it less. Not impossible! The suggestions earlier do help. BUT the best way to stop traffic from getting worse is to catch people BEFORE they buy their car (or before they buy their second or third car for the household) and try very hard to persuade them that there are alternatives.

15. But you said earlier that the alternative, public transport, is never as attractive as cars. So how are you going to convince anyone not to buy cars?

Yes, public transport on its own is not enough. Bicycles are not the solution on their own. Pay as you Drive or Road pricing reforms are not enough on their own.

They need to gang together. Public transport needs ALLIES to help it.

To make not owning a car attractive, we would need to make it much easier for people to use a combination of various kinds of transport. We need better public transport, better taxi service, safer cycling, safer walking.

16. Sorry to sound skeptical Paul, but even that package doesn’t sound like it could be as convenient as my car

That’s right! There is a missing link there. Many people would want to able to use a car sometimes, when they really need it. Taxis can help but they are not enough either.

This is where the rise of car-sharing comes in. It is an exciting new industry that has been taking off just in the last few years. You could think of car-sharing as short term car rental (or maybe as ‘self-drive taxi’).

But it is more than that. It aims to let people sign up to a kind of ‘club’ which gives them access to a car whenever they want one, but without much up front cost and hassle of actually owning a car. For people who don’t drive much but who do occasionally need a car, this is very attractive.

Car-sharing is Pay As You Drive for the actual capital cost of the car too! With car-sharing, ALL of the cost of driving is paid for when you drive. You don’t drive you don’t pay. You drive a lot, you pay a lot.

Only a COMBINATION of really good options (better public transport, improved taxi service, affordable car rentals, car-sharing, and please don’t forget walking and bicycling) just MIGHT tempt at least some people not to buy a car in the first place or tempt them to use these options instead of getting that second or third car.

17. Have many places done what you are suggesting?

Several places have taken some steps in this direction but there is a long way to go.

Change is still a little slow. Part of the reason is that the technology to make vehicle-related pricing cleverer has not been good enough until very recently.

But Switzerland, Austria and Germany have started to charge lorries by distance. In return they reduced their fixed taxes.

Oregon in the USA is now doing a trial of charging every car a fee per kilometer driven.

Singapore has realized that making cars expensive to buy might have been a mistake, because then those who do have cars in Singapore drive them a lot! So they are shifting more costs to usage costs, like parking and Electronic Road Pricing.

Car-sharing is gradually getting more and more popular but it is still small. Switzerland is the place it has grown most. Singapore has a thriving car-sharing industry. And I believe it is coming to KL very soon!

Switzerland and several cities in Germany, like Bremen and Hannover, have been trying very hard to promote the kind of cooperation between car-sharing, public transport and the others to make not owning a car at all a really good option. There are some signs that they are onto something important.

Many European cities also have very attractive season tickets for public transport, so that you save a lot by committing yourself to being a regular public transport user. This makes it very tempting not to use (or buy) a car. I am glad that the LRT system here has started to offer interesting season passes.

18. The government has been reducing the subsidy for fuels and raised petrol and diesel prices twice in the last two years. What do you think about that?

The short answer is that it would have been much better to never have started to subsidise fuel in the first place.

Subsidies are not always bad but you need to be wise about what you subsidise. Fuel is certainly not something that is wise to subsidise. A key reason is that it gives everyone an incentive to waste fuel (to use it more than is efficient).

Another key reason relates to the concept in public policy (and economics) of OPPORTUNITY COST. The real cost of what you spend money on is what you therefore cannot spend that money on. If you buy something it means you have less money to buy something else. Money spent subsidizing fuel is money not spent on education or health or whatever.

Thirdly, it is crazy to subsidise something that the rich use much more than the poor. Fuel is exactly like that. Every step up the income ladder, people use more and more fuel, driving bigger vehicles further and further. And of course the really poor don’t have a vehicle at all. Some may have a motorcycle and use it sparingly.

19. But doesn’t raising the fuel prices hurt the poor?

Remember, the richer people are getting a lot more of that subsidy than the poor.

BUT once you start subsidizing something, then it is hard to stop! And if you stop SUDDENLY then YES you will hurt people (directly and indirectly because prices will go up slightly). And the poorest people always have less ability to cope with sudden changes.

This suggests that that there should be a very explicit effort to help the poorest groups to cope with the price increases. This is exactly what Indonesia did last year when they raised fuel prices.

The Malaysian government has said they will use the money to improve public transport. This sounds good and is probably well intentioned. But the benefits do not necessarily help the poor folks who are really suffering in real ways from the change. It is a poorly targeted effort to compensate for the change.

20. So your short answer on fuel prices, Paul?

Of coursed, fuel price reform is just a small part of the transport policy story as we have been talking about.

But I think fuel should be TAXED not subsidized

This is because would be fairer than handing wads of money to the rich and a few shillings to the poor, which is what subsidizing fuel does. Taxing fuel by contrast involves taking wads of money from the rich (who can afford it), but only shillings from the poor. Governments need to get revenue from somewhere. Fuel tax is among the better options. If not fuel, they will still have to tax something.

BUT when ending the subsidy a SIGNIFICANT ASSISTANCE PACKAGE (probably as CASH) should be provided for everyone below median income.

What about bicycles?

What about bicycles I hear you ask? True, I haven't talked about bicycle policy much so far on this blog. That is partly because I often write about bike stuff over at the Cycling in Singapore group blog.

It occurs to me that a few postings over there might have wider interest beyond Singapore. So here are a few examples in case you are interested (btw only some of them were posted by me). I hope all the links still work.

Urban cycling in Jakarta

September 25, 2004
Cyclists, get set, ...oh the tracks are yet to be built!
Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

...
"I hope I can ride my bike to work... or at least use it to travel a short distance around my office building, to go out for lunch for instance," the 35-year-old resident of Bintaro, South Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

His wish, however, is not yet on the agenda of the Jakarta administration.
...

UK debate - 'Don't force people to wear helmets'

Helmet compulsion article index. BikeBiz.com, 16 Apr 2004

The pro-helmet, anti-compulsion BikeBiz.com makes a commentary prior to listing an index of stories carried to date on UK's MP Eric Martlew's private members' bill 'protective headgear for young cyclists' as well as post-bill helmet compulsion articles.

Cycle helmet compulsion needs to be fought tooth and nail by anybody who cares about the health of children in this country.
...

Three cheers for speed limit enforcement!

Please, please do enforce the speed limits more strictly! This may be an unpopular view, but as a regular bicycle commuter on the roads here in Singapore I am looking forward to much stricter enforcement of the speed limits by the Traffic Police!

Park connectors are all very well but many of us need to cycle on the road and in my opinion one of the most dangerous and unpleasant things about Singapore's roads is the high-speed traffic. Traffic speeds are a key factor in the risk and severity of crashes, especially when they involve pedestrians or cyclists.
...

New Australian National Cycling Strategy

Australia has just released a new national cycling strategy - AP-C85/05 : The Australian National Cycling Strategy 2005-2010. See also the Australian Bicycle Council, which is the body which administers the strategy.

Although its draft version was criticised by Australian bicycle advocacy organisations for its lack of firm commitment from governments, it should provide an interesting resource for bicycle transport advocates in Singapore where we are just taking baby steps on policy for bicycles as transport.
...

"Cycling track or obstacle course?"

"Cycling track or obstacle course?"
Letter from Elke Eskes-Frey. Today, 09 Feb 2006.

Pedestrian bridges along park connector give cyclists a back-breaking experience.

I grew up in an environmentally-conscious nation where people cycle not only to exercise, but also to commute and save energy — even if they have two cars at home. So, perhaps I was spoilt to think that I have rights on the road as a cyclist.
...

Low stress route makes for a joyful bike ride

Joyful? By bicycle? In Singapore? On the roads?? Yes! Let me explain.

My daily ride to work has become a joy since I found a low stress route to take. It takes me mostly along quiet streets. These stretches are linked up by some short off-road short cuts (and a few short stretches of busy roads). Riding to work is now a real pleasure.
...

Cross border transport cooperation (not)

Cross border transport always poses cooperation difficulties and Singapore and Malaysia provide an interesting set of case studies.

I recently completed a draft paper that focuses on the often prickly negotiations over the fixed transport links between Johor in Malaysia and Singapore. [Update: the paper was published in Asia Pacific Viewpoint] . Here is a pdf of the paper.]

Crossing the narrow straits between Singapore and Malaysia one meets some puzzling features. Departing Singapore by rail from the Tanjung Pagar station of Malayan Railways (Keretapi Tanah Melayu or KTM) it is startling to find not a Singapore checkpoint but a counter where Malaysian immigration officials examine passports but stamp none and ignore filled out forms.

Heading to Johor Bahru (JB) from Singapore in a shared taxi via the busy causeway that connects the two, your driver might point out the new Malaysian customs and immigration complex that is under construction. It sits to the east of central JB, apparently marooned on a hill, where it was designed to connect to a bridge (maybe a ‘crooked’ one says the driver) that may replace the causeway (or just the Malaysian half of it).

Travelling by car from Malaysia into Singapore via the Second Link bridge located at the western end of Singapore you might be impressed by expressways, the checkpoint complexes and the bridge itself, but would also be struck by the lack of traffic (much less than the causeway’s).

By the way, you can view realtime online traffic cam images of both the causeway and Second Link.

The paper was triggered by curiosity over these puzzling features and uses these cases to examine the role of transport links in cross border processes more generally. It is not primarily a policy paper but transport policy folks might find something of interest in it.


The paper includes an analysis of the ‘Crooked Half Bridge’ issue that has been hot in recent weeks. Since it is more topical than the other examples in the paper I will provide a few excerpts:

… in 1996 with the Second Link not yet open, [Malaysia's then PM] Dr Mahathir suggested informally that the causeway be replaced by a bridge. Singapore was reluctant but in 1998 suggested inclusion in the package approach … Talks on the bridge continued into 2002 but when the package approach fell through in October the Singapore Government dropped its support.

Dr Mahathir’s surprising response was to announce in early 2003 that Malaysia would replace its side of the causeway with a bridge, saying ‘It does not involve Singapore. It is ours. We are implementing it on the Malaysian side... no need to seek permission’ (Reme Ahmad, 2002). In order to meet the causeway halfway, the bridge would need to be curved (or ‘crooked’) in order to reach sufficient height for small ships...

The bridge project was deferred in a 2004 budget trimming exercise but in late January 2006 it burst back onto Malaysia’s official agenda. Malaysian leaders have announced the intention to proceed. If Singapore agrees it will be a full bridge and if they don’t, then it will be a half bridge (now to be called the ‘scenic’, not ‘crooked’, bridge).

We can try to understand this in terms of ‘bargaining chips’:

… the half bridge proposal might be seen as a clever move by Malaysia. It seems to transform the bridge proposal from a chip for Singapore to a Malaysian one. If it is true that the half bridge does not require Singapore’s agreement, the proposal changes the bridge from a Malaysian request into an issue that might pressure Singapore to seek compromise. …

We can also see the proposal as a ‘window to development opportunities’:

The proposal can also be seen as consistent with Malaysia’s developmental approach to major projects and, some critics have said, of Dr Mahathir’s fondness for mega-projects (Kim, 2005).

Singapore has usually been seen as more cautious in such investments, with cost-benefit analysis as a key tool (albeit rarely made public). However, Singapore’s developmental state has in fact also made ‘strategic’ investments in transport infrastructure in order to enhance national competitiveness and strategic interests even when evaluation has not clearly supported them (Phang, 2003).

This developmental interpretation makes more explicable the lack of evidence presented publicly regarding economic evaluation or cost-benefit analysis, including impacts on traffic and capacity. Most proponents tend to imply that it is self evident that the causeway has a capacity problem. Perhaps the benefits are thought to be obvious in light of demographic scenarios that raise the not-too-distant prospect of almost 10 million people in this region?

I have also been intrigued by something that has NOT been discussed much in the recent news coverage, namely TOLLS:

… the half-bridge proposal may be intended to avoid a repeat of the toll-related problems of the Second Link [more on this below]. In contrast with the Second Link, this is a government financed project under the Ministry of Public Works ... Although this financing model does not require tolls, it seems likely that a toll will be levied. There are several reasons for this: the causeway already has a modest toll (Malaysian, and a symmetrical toll by Singapore); the Second Link is still losing money and undercutting it with a new and better bridge would make this worse; and a toll-free bridge (especially a half-bridge built entirely by Malaysia) might be seen as benefiting mainly Singapore users at the expense of Malaysian taxpayers.

Singapore’s leaders have expressed concern publicly over possible toll rates. At the signing of the 2001 agreement that included a full bridge, Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew argued for toll charges to be the same as the Causeway (Pereira and Ng, 2001). Later in an echo of the Second Link problems, Prime Minister Goh argued that symmetrical tolls would have to be applied (Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2003).

Interestingly, a half-bridge option would make such symmetrical tolls absurd in the eyes of the public. This reveals another benefit for Malaysia of the half bridge idea, in that it undermines Singapore’s position on symmetrical tolls.

I should explain that tolls had been a source of conflict when the Second Link opened in early 1998. Singapore authorities insisted that any toll would need to be shared by both sides, or else both sides would need to impose a toll (Straits Times, 25 March 1990). The rationale for this appears to be concern to prevent the other side from ‘creaming’ all the toll revenue that the market would bear at the crossing. However, the Malaysian Minister for Public Works complained at the time that the Malaysian concessionaires had spent much more on the project than Singapore had, including building 1.7 km of the 2.0 km bridge (Straits Times, 24 December 1997). A result of all this is apparently excessive tolls, which seems to be a key factor in the Second Link being a missed opportunity for both sides.


Returning to the Crooked Bridge story, we should note that this short border is one of the busiest in the world, with roughly 80 to 90,000 people crossing each way per day (some say more). Trade is huge. Police on each side routinely hand over suspects to the other. Clearly there is a huge amount of pragmatic cooperation going on.

Yet, it is particularly striking that efforts to enhance a transport link are here being pursued in such a way as to avoid the need to cooperate, and in ways that actually worsen bilateral relations! A crooked half-bridge would provide a wonderfully ironic symbol of the prickly yet intimate relationship across the straits.