Singapore To Increase Road Capacity By Tracking All Vehicles With GPS 49
Singapore plans to boost road capacity by 20,000 vehicles through a new satellite-based road pricing system, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced last week. The city-state will replace its current gantry-based Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system with GPS tracking technology, enabling more precise congestion management without physical toll stations. The Register adds: "ERP 2.0 will provide more comprehensive aggregated traffic information and will be able to operate without physical gantries. We will be able to introduce new 'virtual gantries,' which allow for more flexible and responsive congestion management," explained the LTA.
But the island's government doesn't just control inflow into urban areas through toll-like charging -- it also aggressively controls the total number of cars operating within its borders. Singapore requires vehicle owners to bid for a set number of Certificates of Entitlement -- costly operating permits valid for only ten years. The result is an increase of around SG$100,000 ($75,500) every ten years, depending on that year's COE price, on top of a car's usual price. The high total price disincentivizes mass car ownership, which helps the government manage traffic and emissions.
But the island's government doesn't just control inflow into urban areas through toll-like charging -- it also aggressively controls the total number of cars operating within its borders. Singapore requires vehicle owners to bid for a set number of Certificates of Entitlement -- costly operating permits valid for only ten years. The result is an increase of around SG$100,000 ($75,500) every ten years, depending on that year's COE price, on top of a car's usual price. The high total price disincentivizes mass car ownership, which helps the government manage traffic and emissions.
will get side road vs main highway wrong and stick (Score:2)
will get side road vs main highway wrong and stick the bill on you for the highway when you are really on the side road?
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Don't try to dispute it....
It isn't worth fighting the ticket over getting "cained" .....
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It isn't worth fighting the ticket over getting "cained"....
Kwai Chang or Abel?
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will get side road vs main highway wrong
GPS is usually accurate enough to determine which lane you're in, but accuracy can be improved a thousandfold by using Differential GPS [wikipedia.org] waypoints at major intersections.
You don't solve traffic by knowing where it is (Score:2)
You solve traffic by getting fewer vehicles on the road.
Re:You don't solve traffic by knowing where it is (Score:5, Interesting)
Singapore is complicated. Authoritarian? Yeah, kinda. Their criminal justice system is notoriously harsh(though nowhere near the imprisonment rate as the US, naturally) Anti-poor? Not exactly. I think I've read that by percentage of population, they have more people in public housing than any nation in the world. 77% is a lot of people.
It's kinda necessary in so small and densely populated a country, but in spite of their ruthlessly capitalist reputation there are ways in which they're incredibly economically egalitarian.
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incredibly economically egalitarian.
According to Wikpiedia, Singapore ranks #21 /194 most unegalitarian (by Gini coefficient). Top of the list: South Africa #1, ... Brazil #10, USA #60, UK #114. Last on the list (Most egalitarian): Slovenia #190, Slovakia, Togo, Uruguay, Malaysia, DR Congo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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You're right, my mistake. I had sorted by UNU-WIDER because it had data for more countries than the other classifications. I thought it had data for all, did not notice the inconsistency. Here is the corrected bottom of the list: iceland, Czeck Republic, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Moldova, Ukraine, Qatar, Belarus, Slovenia, Slovakia.
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A Toyota Camry, alongside the required license to own a car, costs $183,000 in Singapore. That's no exaggeration, and that's US dollars. I guess a 250% tax and $106k for the right to own a vehicle helps reduce traffic too. Reference: https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
Increasing worker efficiency. (Score:1)
Nice move of the city-state-sized Chinese sweatshop named Singapore; they're trying to increase work productivity even more! The fami-Lee will be content!
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Singapore a sweatshop? Seriously? Their unemployment rate this year is under 2% .. why would anyone work at a sweatshop when there are businesses desperate to hire people there.
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why would anyone work at a sweatshop when there are businesses desperate to hire people there.
Because they are not citizens. It came out during Covid that Singapore has huge numbers of foreign workers living in squalid, crowded dormitories.
https://www.channelnewsasia.co... [channelnewsasia.com]
Better solution (Score:2)
Just buy the routing service from Google and give them direct access to your construction and accident reporting DBs. Mandate its use by all vehicles on your roads.
You'll have traffic distributed across all available routes in more or less the most efficient manner possible without having automated control of all vehicles. With the API you get with that purchase, you can track everyone and tax 'em to cover road wear and discourage unnecessary trips.
Then you can get more exotic and mandate smaller vehicles
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This.
Also their traffic management solution is to go all-in on the "just keep the poors from driving so the roads are less congested for the wealthy" approach.
Re:Singapore... (Score:4, Insightful)
Singapore has some of the best public transit in the world [timeout.com]. The MRT subway system is extensive, clean, efficient, inexpensive, and easy to understand [usnews.com]. It is only by restricting the number of people on the road that public transit can be good. Most countries - especially the United States - have literally defaulted to using the worst sort of default to restrict the number of people on the road: congestion.
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Is that worse though? Congestion as a result of affordable and accessible use of cars is highly egalitarian. It leaves a Porsche Cayenne just as stuck in traffic as a Dodge Intrepid. It makes congestion everyone's problem rather than making it a minor background cost for the rich through making the user of personal cars completely unaffordable to the poor. Congestion charges and exorbitant registration fees restrict the number of people on the road using that exact same method I parodied, no matter how nice
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No, it means that not only do the poorest people get forced to own vehicles they can't afford but they also can't get anywhere efficiently, nor can goods & services that actually require open roads be delivered at a reasonable cost. The "affordability" you talk of is just cost shifting elsewhere due to negative externalities. The poorest and much of the middle class shoulder this cost by living in the worst locations -
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You're right about all the problems of having middling public transportation and lots of cars on the road, but I don't think that schemes which effectively turn driving a car into an expensive luxury for the rich are a good way to do it, especially if commercial shipping by road benefits.
I think it was China that once had a scheme to reduce congestion (or perhaps it was more air pollution) by allowing certain plates to drive on even-numbered days and others to drive on odd-numbered days. The rich bought mul
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"I don't think that creating an excellent public transit system is worth creating a society that effectively gives the lower and middle classes no other option for transportation but to use it."
I don't think focusing exclusively on an "excellent" road system (where is that, anyway?) that gives the middle class no option but to purchase a vehicle is worth it, either.
Especially when the only cars you can buy are way overkill. They've figured out the best way to upsell is simply not offer anything affordable,
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Gibson's article has plenty of merit, but their authoritarian state is not appropriately connected to what you wrote about traffic management. Singapore has some of the best public transit in the world [timeout.com]. The MRT subway system is extensive, clean, efficient, inexpensive, and easy to understand [usnews.com]. It is only by restricting the number of people on the road that public transit can be good. Most countries - especially the United States - have literally defaulted to using the worst sort of default to restrict the number of people on the road: congestion.
Awesome, You take Singapore, with it's wonderful Mass Transportation. A place where you might be arrested for taking a photo of a discarded paper wrapper. I'll take the US experience rather than a culture where it is against the law to not date. But some people do want every aspect of their lived under tight control.
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Fuck Singapore.
William Gibson put it best [wikipedia.org].
I knew Singapore had some issues, but I would find suicide preferable to living in that weirdness.
For the mandatory dating - I wonder if you are allowed to pick out who you are forced to date, or does their legal system do that?
stupid (Score:2)
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" expects everyone to bring farm equipment into the equation."
I don't think there are farms in Singapore.
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I don't think there are farms in Singapore.
There are several hundred farms in Singapore, nearly all in the northwest corner. They grow mostly fresh, perishable produce.
There are many marine fish farms in Singaporean territorial waters.
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It's a myth that you can build enough transit or cycleways to alleviate car congestion. It's junk economics. If X of people leave the congested roads and ride their bike or the subway, that's great. But now that the road is less congested, X more people will decide to drive now. I'm not saying subways and
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Building transit that doesn't get stuck in traffic [youtu.be] alleviates car congestion, or at least sets an upper limit on how much gridlock people will tolerate before they switch to transit. Run it on 10 minute headways or better during peak travel periods so people don't have to carefully time when they leave the house, and run it 24/7 so people don't get stranded if they miss the last bus or train.
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Regardless of how many cycleways or transit they have, they will still have roads. And when there are roads, they will become congested unless something is done to manage the congestion, like road pricing.
There is truth to the idea that congestion is a self-limiting marketplace. Roads are only congested to the degree the people creating the congestion are willing to suffer the consequences.
It's a myth that you can build enough transit or cycleways to alleviate car congestion. It's junk economics. If X of people leave the congested roads and ride their bike or the subway, that's great. But now that the road is less congested, X more people will decide to drive now.
That presumes that driving is preferable to using transit/cycling/walking and the ONLY reason people don't drive is congestion. But that isn't true.
There are other advantages to all those other modes but those advantages depend in part on how robust the infrastructure is supporting them. If a bus runs by your house ever 1
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Keep population densities across different scale low enough (city/metropolitan/province) and roads with private transport works fine most of the time without rationing car ownership (more of the time than public transport).
It's a substantial social investment, but private long range transport being available to almost the entire population a huge boon to standard of living.
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Already a non-starter for Singapore.
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Tragedy of the toilet.
Why drive when can walk? (Score:5, Informative)
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The word "yet" at the start of the sentence implies that what you are saying will disagree with a point the parent made. Instead your post is completely off topic. Start your own thread.
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your post is completely off topic.
He/she is talking about a surveillance state.
The stats are 100% on-topic.
Start your own thread.
Indeed, if you feelings are hurt, start your own.
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He / She is talking about mobility and questioning the general point of car ownership. Nothing about that comment has anything to do with the surveillance state. Just because the article mentioned GPS tracking doesn't change whether or not someone wonders why people use cars in a country that can be walked across in 8 hours.
Try and pay attention.
Indeed, if you feelings are hurt, start your own.
Why would my feelings be hurt? You're a random person on the internet. There is literally nothing you can do to affect me in the slightest. I'm just point out your
Surge pricing but for 10 years? (Score:2)
Limiting who uses the road might make sense, but selling access in 10 year chunks makes it much less logical.
Feels like an excuse to extract more money by claiming to solve problems you should have fixed other ways (like by zoning and urban planning).
Different "countries" are different. (Score:2)
The popular meme of comparing nations which have little in common is used to sell ideas which suit tiny nation-states but are not applicable to countries of size.
Kudos to Singapore for imposing civilization with sufficient force to make it stick but geography and culture are why they're able to.
Isn't Singapore ... (Score:2)