ERP rates to be increased at 5 gantries from 1 Feb

Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced on Monday that the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) rates at three gantries on the Ayer Rajah Expressway and two gantries at the Pan-Island Expressway will be increased by S$1 each. The new rates will apply from 1 Febuary 2016 and the rates for the other gantries will remain unchanged.

The set of three gantries on the AYE - after Jurong Town Hall towards City - will have their rates increased by S$1 from 8.30am to 9.30am. With the increase, the ERP rate will be S$3 from 8.30am to 9am, and S$2 from 9am to 9.30am.

For the two gantries at Adam Road and Mount Pleasant on the PIE, the ERP rate will increase to S$1 for 9am to 9.30am.

The revised ERP rates come after the LTA's quarterly review of traffic conditions on ERP-priced roads and expressways, it said.

The next ERP review will take place in May 2016 for the second quarterly rate review of 2016.

Flashback Parliament on ERP

In November 2014, it was asked in parliament about whether would ERP catchment area be expanded and the pricing of the ERPs for different road users by Mr Cedric Foo Chee Keng  of Pioneer SMC.

Then-Transport Minister, Lui Tuck Yew replied,  "Mdm Speaker, I want to thank the Member for two very good questions. First, we want to try to make sure that it is an equitable system. Today, I think what happens is that for as long as you pass the gantry, you are charged the same amount regardless of the extent of travel along the priced road.

Going forward, we do have the option of pricing it in a different way. We will have to make sure that we take into account some of the implications on different groups of users and to try and arrive at as fair a solution as possible. So, that would really be the first question.

Second supplementary question was the enlargement of the area. I had said earlier when I spoke on this subject in May last year is that at the point of transition, only those congested roads that are then priced, would be priced when we move to the GNSS-based ERP system. Subsequent to that, we will continue to adopt the same principles as we have today which is that pricing is actually based on congestion along the affected roads." (emphasis mine)