Traffic congestion improved in Singapore in 2015: Report

SINGAPORE — Traffic congestion levels in Singapore reportedly dropped last year compared to 2014, a traffic index released on Tuesday (March 22) showed.

In a report summary by Dutch-based GPS provider TomTom which studied congestion on roads in large cities around the world, Singapore showed an improvement — moving down the ranks of being the 38th most congested city in the world in 2014, to 45th in 2015.

The 2015 study involved 295 countries, with Mexico City having the most congested roads in the world, followed by Bangkok.

The findings also showed that in 2015, drivers in Singapore spent 31 per cent extra travel time being stuck in traffic across the day, 50 per cent more time during morning peak hours, and up to 59 per cent more time during evening peak hours — all of which amounted to 126 hours of extra travel time a year.
Mr Chris Kearney, vice-president of TomTom Asia Pacific, said: “We really want everybody to think about how they can lower the amount of time they waste in traffic every day — and to realise that we all need to play a part. If even just 5 per cent of us changed our travel plans, we would improve travel times on our major highways by up to 30 per cent.”

On congestion levels here having improved, some drivers in Singapore told TODAY anecdotally that they do not feel so, especially over the past few years, because of factors such as bus-lane restrictions and installation of speed cameras.

Mr Ashwin Sivakumar, a taxi driver for 17 years, said that he has not seen a drop in travelling time. “It’s been getting quite bad over the years… Even on normal days without any accidents or rain, we can still expect to drive at 60km/h to 70km/h (on the expressway) because of the number of vehicles on the road,” the 38-year-old said.

Full-time national serviceman Muhd Irfan Suhairi, 23, said the timings of bus lanes cuts off space on roads, restricting drivers from making full use of all lanes. “Congestion during rush hour for certain roads will get worse with the new plan for longer bus-lane restriction hours,” he added, referring to the authorities making full-day bus lanes out of bounds to motorists until 11pm starting from March 21.

Another driver, Mr Ng Wei Sing, 23, raised the issue of Certificates of Entitlement, observing that “people are still buying more cars”. This means the number of cars on the roads is unlikely to drop significantly enough to reduce congestion, the student said.