Singapore continues to lead on efforts to take cars off streets

The city-state of Singapore has repeatedly proven itself a leader in traffic management. It was the first in the world to introduce a congestion pricing scheme to relieve build-ups of vehicles in the city centre. An initial scheme was first implemented in 1975, and in 1998 it took advantage of various new technologies to implement the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system. This allowed for the collection of tolls from vehicles without requiring them to stop or slow down, and new vehicles sold in Singapore are built to work with the system, as well as allow easy payment for car-parks, tolls and other road services. Other cities have followed suit, including ASEAN neighbours such as Jakarta, which plans to put its own system into operation by 2019.