RECENTLY, there have been a lot of discussion and grievances aired about the new Electronic Road Pricing gantries.

So I will not dwell on the Land Transport Authority's decision to set up more ERP gantries.

Instead, I would like to focus on the overall congestion problem that we see on our roads.

Singapore has many roads.

However, sometimes I wonder if it is necessary to build so many roads that occupy precious land space which could have been put to better use.

The Certificate of Entitlement scheme was established with the foresight to limit the number of vehicles on the road and it is a good system.

However, it seems that LTA has not been actively restricting the number of COEs released.

This has resulted in a steady growth in the car population to a situation in which our roads can no longer sustain.

I understand that LTA has explained previously a formula it uses to calculate the number of COEs released to the market, but apparently, the formula is not working.

I would like to propose the following two changes to the COE system.

First, instead of basing the formula of releasing the number of COEs on the amount of road space available, we should calculate the appropriate number of COEs based on the number of households we have.

Secondly, give households that do not own a car the priority to bid for a COE.

If these households choose not to bid for a COE, the COE will then be open to households which already own a car.

Of course, the COE system alone cannot solve the congestion on the road.

Our public transport system plays a role too.

One reason why people still want to purchase cars is that our public transport system has been stretched to its limit by our increasing population.

Our MRT, for example, does not arrive frequently enough to cater to the peak-hour crowd, thus resulting in overcrowded trains.

If the Government is looking at increasing Singapore's population to 6 million by the next decade, it needs to come up with and maintain a more efficient public transport system.

Mr Ng Hian James