Road usage versus car ownership

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC: Is the vehicle COE system still fit for purpose? Should it be tweaked or revamped, and if so, how?

Lawrence Loh Director, Centre for Governance and Sustainability NUS Business School

There have been many suggestions and reviews on the time-honed COE (certificate of entitlement) system. It appears that the model has reached a steady state. If we were to stick to the fundamental objective of car population control, a market-sensitive system like COE works well. But going forward, we should move more to a usage-based scheme rather than the ownership-based COE system - this is fairer and reflects infrastructure utilisation better. If the road pricings can be changed, the market will make corresponding adjustments to the COE prices accordingly. We should then shift our paradigm from controlling car population to car usage. Indeed we should be pricing road congestion, not car ownership.