SINGAPORE (Oct 16): Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) will lower the country’s vehicle growth rate to make room for more public transport services.

The annual vehicle growth rate will be cut from 0.5% currently to 0.25% from February 2015 to January 2018, LTA said in a statement today.

With 12% of Singapore’s total land area already taken up by roads, there is limited scope for any further expansion of the road network, LTA said.

“Priority for road growth will be given to serve new development areas and to facilitate bus movements to bring about a better public transport experience.

“It is not tenable to keep to the same rates of vehicle population growth as before.”

There are close to a million vehicles in Singapore.

The reduction, which will be reviewed in 2017, is not expected to substantially impact the supply of certificates of entitlement (COEs) as these are determined mainly by the number of vehicles deregistered, LTA said.

“This is especially so in view of the generally rising trend of de-registrations in the coming years, as the COEs of many old vehicles expire.”

LTA also said the supply of COEs for Category E, or the so-called Open Category, will be cut from the current 15% to 10% from February.

This is to ensure a more stable supply of COEs in each vehicle category as the vehicle population goes down.

Currently, 15% of COEs from deregistered vehicles in each category form the COE quota for the Open Category (CAT E).

“This reduction will return more COEs from deregistered vehicles to their respective categories.

“The immediate effect on quotas available for each vehicle category is expected to outweigh the reduction in vehicle growth rate.”