Taxi meters in private car

was reading an article on ERP on Yahoo news which was reprinted from Today's papers.

Any intelligent or logical person will be able to tell the amount of bullshit that came from the LTA.

Quoted from the article:
"From July 7, family life in Singapore should improve, at least for those who pass through traffic gantries. Businesses, too, will become more competitive as the cost of crossing these gantries goes up, leading to faster travel times, which should then lead to lower transport costs overall.

So said Land Transport Authority chief executive Yam Ah Mee in a recent media interview: "Faster travel times lead to overall lower transport costs and ultimately, help businesses to remain competitive. Congestion also adversely impacts family life, as people spend more time on the roads."

What i didn't know is that having more ERP and higher charges actually increases family life and businesses becomes more competitive

what i know is that my colleagues who drove actually waited till the erp timing's over to avoid the hefty charges and the jams too and businesses who are worth their salt will avoid the erp timing to do delivery etc and furthermore, the erp gantries are mostly active during peak hours except CBD areas; the timing when people knock off...

the second part by the writer actually makes sense:
"And if the authorities want you to switch to public transport, why do buses and taxis also have to pay ERP charges?

Last year, SBS Transit had to pay $2.9 million (same as the previous year) in ERP charges, $5.8 million in road taxes ($5.4 million previously) and absorbed almost $37 million in output GST (up from $28.5 million). Figures for ERP charges paid by taxis were unavailable. After all, the LTA claims that the ERP system is not a revenue—raising exercise."

why charge buses erp when the government knows that the cost will eventually pass on to the passengers? First theoretically, they reduces the amount of cars on the road and entices people to switch to public transport and second, thou it uses the roads but it's function is different from a private car.

i've always ask taxis drivers on why do gahment charges ERP on taxis, they mostly said the same thing "cause gahment only talk about money". Taxis forms part of the transportation network together with buses and trains. by having different charges levied on them, firstly, it raises the overheads of driving taxis and secondly, why would taxis rather roam about in the suburbs then driving into town? cause with the increase in the taxi charges, they got to pay everything upfront when they enter into town without the guarantee of getting passengers so mostly revert to waiting for calls. talk about LTA slapping themselves and everyone else.

by increasing the erp charges, they inadvertently raises the inflation and the cost of living when everything is going thru the roof now couple with GST, it's putting a strain of people's life.

The purpose of COE have lost it's objective. COE is meant to control the amount of cars entering the roads every year. On paper, it's stated at 3% but reality, ever since the election, it's off the scale when gahment said it will switch to usage based and that's why we've seen the huge increase in gantries and more are coming up.

The whole thing is a sham, car population increase by 7-8% since the election instead of the stated 3% and even thou transport minister said the optimal increase is 1.5%, this yr's not much changes too. it's all paying lips service to public. by not staying to the optimum 1.5%-3%, cars ownership will only increase which will lead to more erp gantries regardless whether it's peak hours or not. soon, erp will cover every nook and cranny of singapore and then to save cost of installing one, we will be installing taxi meters in our cars to charge us for usage of our own cars to save the trouble.

the state of singapore's public transport will only drive people who can afford car to drive instead of taking a bus. as i had lamented, mrt is the lifeline of any city and any city worth it's salt would have a highly integrated network of train station but not singapore, the investment in mrt have always peg on whether the station can generate profits but as an important infrastructure, it should be based on the whole line instead. thou the gahment have change it's stance now, we have lost a minimum of 5yrs of lead time to solve the problem. at the recent white paper by the transport minister, it's only in 2020 will we see an fully integrated network and the question is why only now then we see the potential problems? despite the praise lavish on MoT in wikipedia, if you have travel to major cities like HK, Taipei and even london, it really pales in comparision in the wait time, no of station per kilometer and efficiency.

up to now, the actions taken by LTA is not consistent with it's mission and objectives and it's policies are giving public confusing signals and intentions. Somebody got to take a stand within the ministry or the government will be paying a high price when the next election comes.

MM Lee says all it takes is 5yrs to unravel the whole jigsaw puzzle but the ruling government have to give people the reason for our continuing support instead of blind loyalty. They are paid millions to do it's job and if their performance is not up to the "millions" standard, who can they put the blame on?