The construction of urban transport structures in Singapore

1. National master plan: integrating new towns with rail transport

Early 20th century street scene in Singapore, 2019.

Singapore was a poor island nation under British colonial rule in the early 1900s, with squalid slums surrounding the old harbour and business district. In those days, most Singaporeans used primitive modes of public transport – yellow buses and horse-drawn carriages – as well as hundreds of Chinese-run minibuses. As the city grew, conflicts arose between these outdated modes of transport and other motorised vehicles (Lee, 2019).

Therefore, after more than a decade of repeated studies and validation, the Singapore government formulated an island-wide conceptual development plan in 1971, which laid out 23 new towns in a circular pattern along the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) network. A large number of high-density, high-rise public housing units were built in the centre of each new town as a means of sharing the population pressure on the central city at the southern end, and the development of an integrated public transport system combining rail and buses was established.

In the mid-1970s, eleven Chinese-run island bus companies were merged into three at the behest of the government, and eventually became a state-controlled enterprise.

Singapore Masterplan, 2020.

Singapore’s overall planning is a star-shaped radial structure, whereby high-density residential areas, industrial parks and township district centres are surrounded by a ring around the city’s core. A high-capacity transport network efficiently connects the core to the periphery, which means that the government’s land-use planning is determined to guide transport development.

Since land resources in Singapore are extremely tight, in order to develop land more efficiently, high-density, high-rise public housing is needed in the new towns (Feng, 2020). While this is to accommodate those living in slums or agricultural areas with difficult conditions and to nationalise as much land as possible for construction, high-rise housing can also greatly increase plot ratios.

Singapore Urban Area Division, 2013.

Against this background, the father of planning in Singapore, Liu Taigue, came up with the concept of Satellite Towns: the country is divided into five regions, which are then subdivided into 25 satellite towns, each of which occupies roughly 45 per cent of the area occupied by residential units, with all the other configurations functioning. Singapore also has a unique housing pattern – (HDB) HDB flats, which can be viewed as living units, and HDB districts are residential clusters (Feng, 2020).

Singapore ION Orchard, 2020.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Singaporean government began to look at improving the efficiency of the MRT system rather than just focusing on development rates. They began to build complexes (tod) above MRT stations, and set up interchange and feeder bus stops or parking&railway near the more remote new city MRT stations.ION Orchard Shopping Centre is one of the quite successful TOD node designs, with one of Singapore’s busiest MRT stations located underneath it (Wabashi institutions, 2020).

In the future, Singapore will further develop its public transport system, and in 2019 they developed the Singapore Land Transport Master Plan 2040. The plan proposes “20-minute towns,45-minute cities”, so that 90 per cent of “walk, ride and ride” journeys during peak hours can be completed in 45 minutes, and 90 per cent of Singaporeans will be able to travel to and from their nearest neighbourhood centre within 20 minutes (Ma, 2006).

2. Establishment of a comprehensive public transport system

Singapore’s urban transport structure is currently dominated by five Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and three Light Rail Transit (LRT) lines. Buses supplement the MRT-LRT network on lighter duty corridors, while high-speed buses are responsible for the higher level of public transport services, with 261 bus routes and a daily ridership of 3 million. Taxis provide minicab-quality service. The precise articulation of the transport network together form a large network that covers almost the entire city (Zhang and Huang, 2014).

Map of bus stops in Singapore, 2023.

3. Strict control of traffic demand

As rail transport cannot satisfy everyone’s needs, and public transport and taxis will be affected by traffic congestion, which reduces their efficiency and affects the quality of service, Singapore has formulated a series of policies to restrict car travel, including: a vehicle quota system, a zone licence system, and an electronic toll road system to ensure that roads are smooth and that public transport systems are given priority. (The vehicle quota system mainly aims to limit the total number of small cars in Singapore by bidding for new licences; the area licence system aims to reduce congestion in the main urban areas during peak hours by restricting specific vehicles to pass through the main urban areas during specific hours; and the electronic toll road system aims to further control the number of small cars in a specific area by automatically charging cars passing through that area) (Zhang and Huang, 2014).

In simple terms, the cost of owning a small car in Singapore includes:
1. Import tax (45% of the import price);2. Registration fee (150% of the selling price);3. Fuel tax (50% of the retail price of petrol);4. Obtaining an Ownership Permit, which is only valid for ten years;5. Obtaining an Area Permit for a specific range of areas (the vehicle is subject to a toll ranging from $2.50-30 to drive to the city centre);6. Road tax (10% for cars with a lifespan of more than ten years, and 50% for cars with a lifespan of more than 14 years); and 6. then increased by 50 per cent)

Such measures have greatly increased the cost of purchasing and travelling by private car, so public transport has naturally become the choice of most people.

4. Conclusion

Singapore’s success as a great public transport metropolis can be attributed both to its wise and visionary model of integrated public transport and land-use planning, and to the trust and support of the Singaporean people in their Government. Moreover, the area of centralised planning in Singapore is similar to the extent of medium-sized regional planning in other countries.

Singapore’s path to success cannot be easily replicated elsewhere, and a unique combination of history and geopolitics has partly contributed to what we have today. The people living in this centrally planned metropolis have also made their share of sacrifices: having to choose standardised housing and compact living environments, as well as being confronted with a semi-authoritarian government that is highly pervasive in everyday life.

Reference list:

Busrouter SG (no date) Singapore Bus Routes Explorer. Available at: https://busrouter.sg/ (Accessed: 02 November 2023).

Feng, Z. (2020) A small country with big ambitions as seen in Singapore’s latest city plan(2) – Planning for the Central Area, Knowledge columns. Available at: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/105454433 (Accessed: 02 November 2023).

Lee, K. (2019) Old photos: this is Singapore in the 60s, this is Singapore before the rise, Old photos: this is Singapore in the 60s, this is Singapore before the rise_Lee Kuan Yew. Available at: https://www.sohu.com/a/345562550_100177186 (Accessed: 02 November 2023).

Ma, J. (2006) An exploration of the experience of Singapore’s integrated public transport development model., The Experience of Singapore’s Integrated Public Transport Development Model – Baidu Academic. Available at: https://xueshu.baidu.com/usercenter/paper/show?paperid=a693ea2cf3e728fdb28880fa082d9bcc&site=xueshu_se (Accessed: 02 November 2023).

Wabashi institutions (2020) Let Singapore Business show you how shopping centres can be efficient and diverse!, Knowledge columns. Available at: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/126700999 (Accessed: 02 November 2023).

Woodland Regional Centre (2013) Woodland Regional Centre, COMMERCIAL PROPERTY INSIDERS. Available at: https://commerciallaunches.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/woodland-regional-centre/ (Accessed: 02 November 2023).

Zhang, X. and Huang, K. (2014) Reflections on Urban Transport Planning in China – An Example of Urban Transport Planning in Singapore., Reflections on China’s Urban Transport Planning – Taking Singapore’s Urban Transport Planning as an Example – Baidu Scholar. Available at: https://xueshu.baidu.com/usercenter/paper/show?paperid=ab356b47bd4786c23d0800532822bdac&site=xueshu_se&hitarticle=1 (Accessed: 02 November 2023).