How can Singaporeans be away from owning a car?

In this article, Automotive Intelligence team in KPMG Consulting provides you with an overview and key insights of the status of automobile market, public transportation and autonomous vehicles in Singapore.

1. Used car market in Singapore
2. Vehicles for personal use and public use
3. Public transportation in Singapore
4. Future of land transport in Singapore
5. Expectation for autonomous vehicles

Singapore is to be an attractive market for those who sell used cars. Due to the high cost to buy a new car, the number of the new cars registered has decreased to one third of the highest record in 2017 over the past decade as shown in the Figure1.

The famous heavy taxes and duties on private cars*¹ gave effect to reduce the number of new cars shown as “Age under a year” in the Figure1 and to increase the number of used cars transferred from private to corporate ownership.

The number of company cars was 146% in 2023 compared to 2017. As illustrated in Figure1, 2017 was the year when the number of private cars age under a year was at the highest in the Figure1. Used cars play a major role in Singapore market and company cars seem to be a popular benefit for employees in Singapore.

Despite of the cap on the number of vehicles registered and the high costs to own vehicles, the number of vehicles for personal use (both private and company cars are included) increased by 5% in 2023 compared to 2018 in the Table1.

Also, the Table1 shows that the number of cars for public transportation such as taxi and private hired car (PHC) is growing. “PHC” mainly refers to hiring a car personally or for more passengers like a taxi. The difference between taxi and PHC service is whether to be allowed to pick up customers on the roads. PHCs cannot be hailed on streets but can only be booked through the licensed ride-hailing operators. But PHCs are allowed to use pick-up points or driveways instead of taxi standings or roadsides.

[Table1:Units of cars for personal use and public use]

Source: Prepared by KPMG Consulting Co., Ltd. based on Land Transport Authority "MOTOR VEHICLE POPULATION BY VEHICLE TYPE"

Extending the rail length from 182km in 2013 to 228km in 2018 and 245km in 2021*², the number of trips by rail is stagnating while the population has been growing steadily since 2018 to the highest as the Table2 shows. As mass transportation, considering the gap on the demand between the peak and off times and limited areas to develop in this small country, further extension would not be the best solution.

Buses are on the same trend as the rail network as shown in the Table2. Buses could also have another problem at the peak time if they were trapped in traffic jam. The number of bus lines or vehicles would not be the problem but the efficiencies of their operations on the roads are suffered by traffic jam.

【Table2: Public transportation ridership】

Source: Prepared by KPMG Consulting Co., Ltd. based on Land Transport Authority "PUBLIC TRANSPORT RIDERSHIP", "PUBLIC TRANSPORT RIDERSHIP"

The Land Transport Agency (LTA) has been charged by the Singapore government on the long-term solution to encourage people to reduce a reliance on cars and look to the public transport system including point-to-point transport defined as taxis, PHCs and shared cars. In 2013, LTA has started the "Land Transport Master Plan (LTMP) 2040", which targets a “45-Minute City with 20-Minute Towns” in 2040. LTA has also set the following goals by 2030^*3.

• 80% of households would be within a 10-minute walk from a train station, which has already reached 64% in 2024 compared to 57% in 2012
• 85% of public transport journeys under 20km would be completed within 60 minutes, which has already achieved 79% in 2024 compared to 76% in 2012
• 75% of all peak-period journeys would be undertaken on public transport, which has already reached 67% in 2024 compared to 63% in 2012

Public transportation should play a main role and has been showing its progress since 2018. However, PHCs need further steps to reach these targets.

Along with the cap of the number of cars on the roads, to improve traffic efficiency, congestion management is the other way to reach its target. To standardize the traffic volumes, the electronic road pricing system for traffic congestion management has been already installed with the electronic payment, which allows to obtain location data of private vehicles.

Over the coming years, LTA is expecting self-driving vehicles to be one of the solutions on public roads by enabling more efficient dynamically-routed or on-demand forms of shared transportation. Through an intelligent algorithmic planning, optimizing routing could solve the congestion to improve traffic efficiency in real time.

LTA tested driving of autonomous vehicles in 2014 and the town development phase is coming*⁴. In January 2019, LTA started a collaborative pilot deployment of autonomous buses and shuttles in Punggol, Tengah and the Jurong Innovation District*⁵.

*1: OneMotoring by Land Transport Authority "Vehicle Tax Structure"
*2: Land Transport Authority "Rail Length (km) At End-of-Year"
*3:  Land Transport Authority "Land Transport Master Plan (LTMP) 2040"
*4,5:  Land Transport Authority "Autonomous Vehicles"

*References for Figure1: Land Transport Authority "AGE DISTRIBUTION OF CAR POPULATION", "MOTOR VEHICLE POPULATION BY VEHICLE TYPE"

KPMG Consulting
Manager, Yukie Koyano