Fewer Student Drivers in NUS, More Use Internal Transport
Text: Jovita Chua
It is much easier to find a parking space in NUS today compared to a few years ago, said student driver Nathanael Ong. According to the Office of Estate and Development, there has been a steady decline over the years in the number of students who applied for season parking passes, from 1770 two years ago to 1061 last year, indicative of a trend of fewer students driving to school.
Sulaiman Bin Salim, associate director of the department of Transport, Logistics and Car Park at OED said the decrease in student drivers could be attributed to the many efforts that the Singapore government has initiated over the years such as high COE prices, ERP systems and alternative options such as “Park & Ride.”
This is in line with Channel News Asia’s report on Oct. 7, 2013, which revealed that more Singaporeans are leaving their cars at home to take public transport.
The report included a recent survey conducted by the Land Transport Authority, which found more Singaporeans opting to take public transport to work instead of commuting by car, possibly accounting for a 13 percent increase in total daily journeys on public transport.
Similarly, NUS has implemented various measures such as a paid parking system, mobile apps to keep drivers informed, and additional bus routes within campus so as to regulate traffic flow on campus.
Salim said that the issue of “maintaining open roads” – which means ensuring that there would be minimal traffic congestion – in NUS has been on their agenda since 2001, when they were preparing for a larger student population.
According to its web page, the department of Transport, Logistics and Car Park aims to “optimise land use, moderate demand for parking lots, encourage commuting by public transport and manage vehicle usage and traffic flow within a small land area.”
As mentioned on its website, in order to “moderate demand for parking lots”, the department introduced the paid parking system in 2001 where parking gantries were installed at various car parks across campus and season parking passes were introduced.
According to statistics provided by the OED, there was a 30 percent decrease in cars on campus after the implementation of paid parking.
Despite more than a decade since its implementation, the paid parking system remains an effective deterrent for students to not park in school.
Ong, a final-year student from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, said that if he was not a season parking pass holder, he would most probably not drive to school every day.
“It is super expensive to park in NUS for the whole day if you do not have season parking,” Ong said.
A semester-long season parking pass for open lots costs $35 and the cost increases to $65 for covered lots. Without a pass, parking can cost up to $13 a day for an average nine-hour work schedule.
Even so, season parking passes are not guaranteed to all who apply for it. In the event of an over-subscription, applicants undergo balloting to determine who gets a pass.
But Salim said that most students who apply for a season parking pass will get one because there is sufficient supply for the demand at the moment, except for two particular car parks in the Faculty of Science and near LT 11 in the Faculty of Arts.
According to the department’s statistics, the success rate of applying for a season parking pass in these two carparks is 30 percent and 15 percent respectively, making them the most heavily used and sought after carparks on campus.
“These two areas are the hot spots; a lot of people park there. So sometimes we have to give priority to faculty members instead of students,” Salim explained.
Salim said students were therefore encouraged to park at other carparks and make use of alternative options like taking the internal shuttle bus or walking to their classes.
The department has also introduced new measures in recent years such as creating a mobile app called “NUS Carparks” to help users locate available parking lots in the campus so as to ensure a more even distribution of cars across campus. The app was released in July this year and even provides a map to direct users to the nearest available parking lot.
The OED has also “encourage(d) commuting by public transport” – as mentioned on its website – by ensuring that there are sufficient internal shuttle buses on campus to handle the human traffic and demand.
Salim said, “The Circle Line has certainly been helpful in this area. But in terms of what we have done, we have increased the frequencies of internal bus shuttle services starting this semester.”
He was referring to the two newly introduced express bus routes in the morning which connects the Kent Ridge MRT station to UTown and Central Library with fewer stops along the way compared to the regular route.
Lin Dingzhou, an engineering student who takes public transport to school every day, welcomed this new express bus route.
“The direct bus helps to move the crowds at the bus stop because it can get quite crazy, especially in the morning. I think the buses come faster also since there are lesser stops,” Lin said.
The department is also developing another mobile app to inform users of the real-time crowd numbers at each bus stop so as to help students discern when are better times to head to the bus stop, and to inform internal shuttle bus operators about crowd numbers so as to better regulate their frequencies at specific times. The app is in its early stages and will most likely be available next year.
Salim said, “We are always looking for ways to encourage students to take a more sustainable and environmental approach with regards to transport, and we hope to provide suitable platforms for that to happen.”
Tags: feature
It is much easier to find a parking space in NUS today compared to a few years ago, said student driver Nathanael Ong. According to the Office of Estate and Development, there has been a steady decline over the years in the number of students who applied for season parking passes, from 1770 two years ago to 1061 last year, indicative of a trend of fewer students driving to school.
Sulaiman Bin Salim, associate director of the department of Transport, Logistics and Car Park at OED said the decrease in student drivers could be attributed to the many efforts that the Singapore government has initiated over the years such as high COE prices, ERP systems and alternative options such as “Park & Ride.”
This is in line with Channel News Asia’s report on Oct. 7, 2013, which revealed that more Singaporeans are leaving their cars at home to take public transport.
The report included a recent survey conducted by the Land Transport Authority, which found more Singaporeans opting to take public transport to work instead of commuting by car, possibly accounting for a 13 percent increase in total daily journeys on public transport.
Similarly, NUS has implemented various measures such as a paid parking system, mobile apps to keep drivers informed, and additional bus routes within campus so as to regulate traffic flow on campus.
Salim said that the issue of “maintaining open roads” – which means ensuring that there would be minimal traffic congestion – in NUS has been on their agenda since 2001, when they were preparing for a larger student population.
According to its web page, the department of Transport, Logistics and Car Park aims to “optimise land use, moderate demand for parking lots, encourage commuting by public transport and manage vehicle usage and traffic flow within a small land area.”
As mentioned on its website, in order to “moderate demand for parking lots”, the department introduced the paid parking system in 2001 where parking gantries were installed at various car parks across campus and season parking passes were introduced.
According to statistics provided by the OED, there was a 30 percent decrease in cars on campus after the implementation of paid parking.
Despite more than a decade since its implementation, the paid parking system remains an effective deterrent for students to not park in school.
Ong, a final-year student from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, said that if he was not a season parking pass holder, he would most probably not drive to school every day.
“It is super expensive to park in NUS for the whole day if you do not have season parking,” Ong said.
A semester-long season parking pass for open lots costs $35 and the cost increases to $65 for covered lots. Without a pass, parking can cost up to $13 a day for an average nine-hour work schedule.
Even so, season parking passes are not guaranteed to all who apply for it. In the event of an over-subscription, applicants undergo balloting to determine who gets a pass.
But Salim said that most students who apply for a season parking pass will get one because there is sufficient supply for the demand at the moment, except for two particular car parks in the Faculty of Science and near LT 11 in the Faculty of Arts.
According to the department’s statistics, the success rate of applying for a season parking pass in these two carparks is 30 percent and 15 percent respectively, making them the most heavily used and sought after carparks on campus.
“These two areas are the hot spots; a lot of people park there. So sometimes we have to give priority to faculty members instead of students,” Salim explained.
Salim said students were therefore encouraged to park at other carparks and make use of alternative options like taking the internal shuttle bus or walking to their classes.
The department has also introduced new measures in recent years such as creating a mobile app called “NUS Carparks” to help users locate available parking lots in the campus so as to ensure a more even distribution of cars across campus. The app was released in July this year and even provides a map to direct users to the nearest available parking lot.
The OED has also “encourage(d) commuting by public transport” – as mentioned on its website – by ensuring that there are sufficient internal shuttle buses on campus to handle the human traffic and demand.
Salim said, “The Circle Line has certainly been helpful in this area. But in terms of what we have done, we have increased the frequencies of internal bus shuttle services starting this semester.”
He was referring to the two newly introduced express bus routes in the morning which connects the Kent Ridge MRT station to UTown and Central Library with fewer stops along the way compared to the regular route.
Lin Dingzhou, an engineering student who takes public transport to school every day, welcomed this new express bus route.
“The direct bus helps to move the crowds at the bus stop because it can get quite crazy, especially in the morning. I think the buses come faster also since there are lesser stops,” Lin said.
The department is also developing another mobile app to inform users of the real-time crowd numbers at each bus stop so as to help students discern when are better times to head to the bus stop, and to inform internal shuttle bus operators about crowd numbers so as to better regulate their frequencies at specific times. The app is in its early stages and will most likely be available next year.
Salim said, “We are always looking for ways to encourage students to take a more sustainable and environmental approach with regards to transport, and we hope to provide suitable platforms for that to happen.”
Tags: feature