In this introduction to Part Three of the book, we shall discuss:

• the URA's concept plan for Singapore as we develop into the early twenty-first century;
• the concept of optimum population and the Malthusian model;
• the problems which Singapore might face as a result of having Asia's fastest ageing population;
• the concept of dependency ratio;
• the development of Singapore's population policies;
• measures taken to improve land transport in Singapore;
• a new heirarchy of settlements for Singapore; and
• the evolution of public housing in Singapore.

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This chapter contains two snapshots taken at local time.

X marks the spot

The following chapters are a descriptive account of various regions of Singapore. As mentioned earlier, I have opted to use the URA's division of the island into five main regions. This is to better facilitate comparison with other texts, as and when they are published.

The URA in its 1991 document 'Living the Next Lap - Towards a Tropical City of Excellence' projected Singapore's land use development in terms of three landmark years, namely AD 2000, 2010 and the so-called 'Year X'.

Year X is when the population of Singapore reaches four million (in 1998, it was estimated at 3.89 million, of whom 3.22 million were citizens and Permanent Residents). A population of four million is seen by the government as optimal for Singapore because it is at this level when our economic resources will be fully utilized.

A doomsday prophet

This concept of optimum population is nothing new. As long ago as 1798, the economist Thomas Malthus [?] proposed a model of population growth based on the feedback mechanisms of famine and overcrowding. He stated that these two feedbacks would bring population numbers back into line with the carrying capacity [?], which is the ability of the local environment [?] to support them. For example, an increase in population may mean less food per individual, more a higher death rate, and a subsequent fall in numbers.

The main tenet of the Malthusian model is that population tends to increase geometrically while food sources only increase arithmetically. Given these assumptions, any rate of population increase will eventually outstrip food supply. When population growth reached this point, it would be reduced by war, famine and / or birth control.

Source: Federal Publications (1992)

The Malthusian model however came under heavy criticism because, even assuming its fundamental assumptions were valid, it did not take into consideration technological change. Technological change is of paramount importance in such models because, as any student of economics will tell you, it redefines the model's parameters. In other words, that which was once impossible becomes possible. Because of the inherent difficulties in predicting technological change, and because of its dubious fundamental assumptions in the first place, the Malthusian model is much flawed.

Golden girls

A term which you may have heard or read about in the mass media is 'Singapore's greying population'. This is a reference to the increasing proportion of elderly Singaporeans. In fact, we have Asia's fastest ageing population. For instance, while today only 6.5 percent of the population is over sixty-five, by 2030, it is projected that a quarter of Singapore's population will be over sixty years old. Each aged person will then be supported by only 2.2 working people on average. Today, our old age dependency ratio [?] is 1 : 8.6.

Put another way, it will take only twenty-one years from now for the proportion of those aged sixty-five and above to double, compared to the twenty-six years it took Japan (between 1970 and 1996) and the 115 years it took France. This phenomenon has resulted first because fertility rates [?] have been declining since the mid-sixties (for reasons which are given below), and second because of the increasing life expectancy [?] of Singaporeans. The latter is seventy-four years at birth for males, seventy-nine years for females, while the fertility rate is presently 1.7 children per woman. This compares to the replacement level [?] of 2.1. Infant mortality is only 3.8 per thousand-live-births.

Geriatricians classify the aged into two groups: the young-old (aged between sixty to seventy-five years) require social programmes, health screenings and check-ups (for diabetes and hypertension, for example); the old-old are often home- or bed-bound, whose earlier ailments may have made them less mobile.

To cater for the varying needs of the elderly, research into geriatric medicine will increase, more daycare centres for the elderly will be built, and befrienders (volunteers who visit to keep the elderly company), rehabilitation centres, nursing homes, home-help, hospices (for the terminally ill) and retirement villages in housing estates will be increasingly needed.

Proximity to such facilities is vital because sometimes the elderly are so tired after walking to a centre, they fall asleep and do not get the rehabilitation they need. In the retirement villages, it is envisaged that residents will share common services such as cleaning, laundry, meals and enjoy social activities together.

Singapore's first retirement village will most likely be built at Upper Bukit Timah by the Salvation Army at a cost of $200 million. Ready by 1998, it will feature a gerontology clinic, single and adjoining apartments, hydrotherapy and a nursing home.

Also opening that year will be Singapore's first home for those suffering from senile dementia. This will have small, self-enclosed units, so that residents will find it easier to be familiar with their surroundings. There will also be a computerised monitoring system to alert care-givers to residents who get lost in the home. The home will take in 210 residents and have a day-care service for fifty patients.

Two years later, elderly Singaporeans who already live in public housing will be given the opportunity to take thirty-year leases on studio apartments. These apartments will come with elderly-friendly features such as as lever taps, pedestal toilets, support hand-bars, large electrical switches, emergency alarm cords and non-slip floor tiles. This scheme would allow the elderly to enjoy the capital gains from selling off their larger apartments and live together with their peers in the same block.

Stop at two?

There was a time when Singapore's population worries were very different. In 1966, the Singapore Family Planning and Population Board (SFPPB) was set up. One of its primary aims was to reduce Singapore's birth rate from thirty per thousand to seventeen per thousand (Singapore's birth rate in 1994 was 16.9 per thousand). Abortion and sterilisation were legalised in 1970. Priority registration for primary schools was given to children whose parents had been sterilised. On the other hand, the tax allowance for children was withdrawn for large families.

In August 1983, the 'graduate mothers' scheme was introduced, not only because few female graduates were marrying, but also because those who were marrying, often had only one child. This is because the average age at which women generally first get married in Singapore is twenty-seven (that for men is thirty), compared to only twenty-four in 1968. Graduate mothers who had a third child were given a $10000 reduction in taxable income. Having achieved its aims, the SFPPB was closed in 1985.

The 'Stop-at-Two' policy was so successful that in March 1987, it was reversed in two ways. First, tax rebates were given to encourage parents to have bigger families. For example, parents of a newborn third child were granted a maximum rebate of $20000 spread over five years. Second, because women now comprise nearly forty percent of our workforce, working mothers enjoyed a further rebate of fifteen percent of their income. They could also take advantage of a four-year no-pay-leave for child care, and apply for part-time employment in the public sector if their children were below six years old.

It can thus be seen that over time, Singapore's age-structure changes. These changes can be measured by comparing population pyramids [?], which are graphs of the age- and sex-structure of a population at any one time. Of course, population pyramids can vary from region to region too, and that is why at the beginning of each of the next four chapters, I include pyramids for each region of Singapore.

SBS, MRT, COE ...

How might Singapore cope with a population of four million? One way is of course through improvements in land transport. Our 3006 kilometres of roads now take up eleven percent of Singapore's land area, which is about as much as housing does. But there is a limit to how many more roads we can build, as we will still need land [?] for housing, schools, offices, parks and gardens.

One of the earliest schemes to limit traffic congestion was the Area Licensing Scheme, which was implemented in June 1975, together with car pooling. Originally designed to regulate traffic flow during peak hours, the scheme was extended to last the whole day from January 1994. This was because average vehicle speeds during the unrestricted hours had dropped to as low as twenty kilometres per hour. The following year saw the introduction of Road Pricing along the East Coast Parkway, (ECP) which by 1997 had reduced morning peak-hour traffic by forty percent. In May 1997, Road Pricing will be extended to the Central Expressway and the Pan-Island Expressway.

'Live' snapshot of the ECP

1 MB QuickTime movie (27 secs duration) on why the ALS hours were extended in 1994.
Source: Television Corporation of Singapore

Since 1988, traffic in the city has benefited from computer-controlled traffic lights, known as the 'Green Link Determining' - GLIDE - system. Sensors embedded in the road detect the traffic volume and adjust traffic light cycles for a smoother flow. This allows road users to save an average of fifteen percent on travelling time. GLIDE was progressively extended into other parts of the island, at a cost of $20.3 million. By the end of 1996, all 1300 traffic-light junctions in Singapore were GLIDE-guided, effectively increasing road capacity.

In 1994, there was one car for every nine persons in Singapore. Since May 1990, in an effort to curb the growth of the vehicle population, the government introduced the Vehicle Quota system, in which any person who wishes to register a vehicle must first obtain a Certificate Of Entitlement through bidding.

In addition, May 1991 saw the introduction of the Weekend Car scheme. This allowed more people to own private cars without adding to congestion during peak hours. The scheme was modified to the Off-Peak Car scheme in October 1994. Fiscal incentives and compulsory vehicle inspections have long been in place to discourage car owners from using older cars. All these schemes have resulted in a car population of around 300000 today.

It is projected that by 2010, there will be about 500000 cars on the road. Singaporeans will be making ten million daily transport trips, by all modes of transport. The figure for 1991 was only 6.6 million, of which around half were on public buses. The aim is for this figure to eventually reach 75 percent. The 'Bus Plus' scheme was launched in August 1994 to provide high-quality scheduled mini-bus services from some residential estates to the Central Business District (CBD) during peak hours on weekdays. A year after its inauguration, there were seven Bus Plus services covering sixty private estates. The Singapore Bus Service's 'SuperBus' is supposed to be the world's largest double-decker.

1995 was a landmark year, not only because it saw the introduction of the 14.5 metre long, 110-passenger 'super-long bus' - not to be confused with the nineteen-metre long, 147-passenger articulated buses which were introduced the year after (both are suitable for popular routes from which double-deckers (which have a capacity of 131 passengers) are barred because of height limits - for example, at Changi airport) - and the Passenger Information System (comprising real-time information displays about bus arrivals on electronic boards at certain bus-stops, as well as touch-screen electronic kiosks at all sixteen bus interchanges), but most importantly because it was then that the road transport division of the Public Works Department (PWD), the land transport division of the Communications Ministry, the Registry of Vehicles and the MRT Corporation were merged into the LTA, with a view to providing every Singaporean with easy access to a wide selection of public transport to suit each preference and pocket. By the way, the passenger capacity for a regular bus is only eighty-six.

A vintage 'Singapore Traction Company' bus ...

... the predecessor to today's 'super-long' bus.

The LTA will work closely with town planners in the URA and HDB to integrate transport infrastructure as part of the design and construction of new building developments. The LTA will consider the links between different aspects of transport (for example, not requiring passengers transiting between the MRT and LRT to pass through ticketing gates, as shown below) and evaluate the trade-offs between alternative transport options (for example, between investing in a viaduct, a light rail system, or road pricing).

An example of this co-operation in action is the Park-and-Ride scheme, first introduced in August 1990. Motorists under this scheme are encouraged to buy a package of a farecard and a monthly season parking ticket. Farecards will eventually be contactless to speed up boarding times. Twenty-six carparks, or the equivalent of 3800 parking lots, are available under Park-and-Ride.

At the same time as taxi-sharing, Singapore's first car-sharing co-öperative began in June 1997 (two months earlier, commuters were given the option of booking a taxi via strategically placed coin-operated terminals linked to the satellite despatch system - four hundred bookings a month are made this way; this is similar to taxi-pooling (introduced in August 1998), whereby commuters heading towards the same destination get a guaranteed service for only sixty percent of the fare). In this scheme, cars will be shared among approximately fifteen to twenty people in each estate. Members will pay an entrance fee, monthly subscriptions, as well as lower-than-market-rate rental fees when they use the cars. It is envisaged that cars will be booked for use for not more than a few hours at a time - members who need a car for longer periods will be referred to car rental companies.

Also under evaluation are express buses and so-called 'guided buses', the latter of which travel along an elevated track, above traffic congestion. The guided bus will combine the flexibility of a bus with the advantages of a Light Rail Transit system. A scheme which allows passengers to buy their tickets while waiting for their bus (thus cutting boarding time) is also in place.

By AD 2000, some major roads such as Upper Thomson Road, Braddell/Lornie Roads, Dunearn/Bukit Timah Roads, Admiralty Road East, Jalan Buroh/Jalan Boon Lay/Tuas Road and Pasir Panjang/Telok Blangah Roads will be upgraded into a new class of roads called semi-expressways. They will link and feed the present eight expressways. They will have fewer junctions, more flyovers and computer-controlled traffic lights. A six-lane semi-expressway will handle 7200 cars hourly compared to only 4500 cars hourly today.

Also by the turn of the century is an even more exciting concept, namely the Singapore Underground Road System (Surs). This will comprise two concentric fifteen-kilometre long ring roads, up to four lanes wide. Built at a cost of $4.8 billion, Surs will create forty percent more road capacity within the city centre, and will complement Electronic Road Pricing (ERP), which will begin by April 1998, at a cost of $197 million. For the first year, ERP will be applied to regulate traffic in the CBD and on three major expressways.

By March 1998, a $9.5 million early warning system was in operation along the entire 13.6 kilometre Central Expressway (CTE). The Expressway Monitoring and Advisory System (Emas) warns motorists of obstructions, as well as alerts the police, medical teams and the media of any incidents. Thirty-five detection cameras mounted on lamp-posts alert the officers on duty of any slowdown. The location and nature of the slowdown are then verified by twelve surveillance cameras mounted on tall buildings flanking the expressway.

Emas is also able to advise motorists on the safe recommended speed and which lanes to use. To help drivers plan their journeys, messages indicating the travel time to several destinations are flashed on approximately fifty display boards and a few gantries located just before the exit points. Such messages are flashed at least two exits before the problem area, to give motorists ample time to leave the expressway and avoid the congestion. Emas will be extended to the other expressways by 2002.

The 2.4 kilometre tunnel stretch of the CTE already has its own monitoring and warning system. As a result, accidents are cleared between two to four times faster than normal.

The Integrated Transport Management System (ITMS) - a technical blueprint to unify the above initiatives thereby allowing motorists greater access to traffic information - is currently being drawn up by the LTA and the Information Technology Institute of the National Computer Board. Information on bus and train schedules, where traffic jams are, sites of roadworks and accidents and even weather information will be accessible also through electronic kiosks at bus-stops and shopping centres. Pager and handphone subscribers can request to be notified of traffic situations and be kept up-to-date.

As a first step, in 1998, a Global Positioning System will use the data relayed from taxis to provide real-time congestion information over the internet. By March 1999, this data, together with that from the GLIDE system, Emas, ERP, and the LTA's Road Information Management System will be linked to the LTA's traffic management centre. This means that operators of commercial vehicle fleets would also benefit, because freight would be delivered faster.

By 2000 for the first time in Asia, all buses will be tracked by satellite, giving commuters up-to-the-minute information on expected arrival times and delays. Apart from allowing better management of the bus fleet, commuters will also be able to plan their journeys better and cut down their travelling time. For a preview, visit the Trans-Island Bus Services Guide.

A year later, ITMS will integrate information from both the traffic as well as the public transport management systems. By 2004, the Punggol LRT line would result in travelling time between Punggol and Orchard Road being equivalent to a trip by car during off-peak hours!

Check out 'Street Wise' - a Shockwave banner designed by my good friend Wei Choong on the Macintosh! It allows you to test your familiarity with our local expressways! Drag your answer to the front and confirm by clicking it. If you need a hint, check the map at the bottom of the banner (from this map, you may also select your answer by dragging the magnifying glass over the expressway of your choice).