Sunday, February 04, 2007

Traffic Congestion in Many Cities

Most cities around the world face the problem of traffic congestion.

What is the underlying cause? Poor public transport system. It forces many people to buy their personal cars. This adds to the traffic congestion problem. Things get worse.

Our traffic system in Singapore used to be quite good. In recent years, the roads are getting congested. We are facing the same problem as other cities.

Here are my views on how to tackle the underlying problems:

* put more buses and trains on the road
* make supply more than demand
* this will encourage more people to use the public transport
* during the initial period for each route, there is a deficit that needs to be financed by tax revenue
* the operations can be managed by a private operator, with a subsidy for the initial period
* the private operator can tender to run the service
* the charges are fixed

Using this approach, the private operator will have the incentive to operate efficiently. There is a public service that will attract commuters to use it (as it is partially financed by tax revenue). When more people use public transport, there will be less cars on the road.

I hope that my concept can be tried.

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