Commentary: COE debate should not be about putting cars within everyone’s reach

Commentary: COE debate should not be about putting cars within everyone’s reach Singapore’s transport debate has long centred on cars. The next phase should centre on people, says Samuel Chng of Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities. SINGAPORE: Why do cars continue to matter so much in a city with an extensive public transport network and climbing vehicle ownership costs? The answer is not simply status. For families, a car means getting young children to school before rushing to work, ferrying ageing parents to medical appointments, or responding when an unexpected need disrupts an already crowded day. That is why debates about the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) system generates reactions that cannot be understood through price and utilisation figures alone. Cars can represent flexibility and the certainty that daily life will remain manageable. As Singapore considers ideas to refresh its Land Transport Master Plan, the conversation should move beyond how many cars the city can support. It should also explore how public transport, shared mobility and private ownership can work together so that the need for flexibility does not become the need to own a car. AFFORDABILITY AND FAIRNESS Concerns that private-hire and leasing companies dominate the COE market have contributed to public frustration that cars are too expensive. Yet, car-leasing companies owned an average of about 10 per cent of Category A and B registrations in 2024 and 2025, according to a parliamentary reply in August. Affordability matters, but fairness is not about putting a car within everyone’s reach. The COE system must continue to maintain limits on vehicle growth while meeting mobility needs. Several suggestions have been raised in the Land Transport Authority’s focus group discussion on access to cars. First, merging Categories A and B, with rebates for lower-value cars and surcharges for more expensive models, could make the system more progressive while reducing manufacturers’ ability to design cars around engine-based thresholds. But values change and a merged pool could expose mass-market buyers to stronger premium-car demand. Second, allocating COEs based on needs could give greater priority to larger families or households facing stronger mobility constraints. But defining and verifying need could become complex and intrusive. Third, a separate leasing category could make corporate demand more transparent, while removing Category E could make demand within the remaining categories easier to interpret. Yet leasing and shared-car fleets spread access across users, and further categories could fragment the market or weaken alternatives to ownership. These trade-offs are why the refresh matters. These ideas can change how COEs allocate scarcity and who bears its cost, but not remove scarcity itself. Making cars more accessible to one group will usually shift cost or access elsewhere. A BROADER CAR-LITE STRATEGY The aim should be to provide credible alternatives to car ownership, not broadly affordable cars for all. Singapore cannot accommodate unrestricted car use without greater congestion and consequences for public transport. But car-lite options do not always offer the same certainty that cars do. Ride-hailing works well until heavy rain sends prices up or creates delays in ferrying a sick child. Public transport serves many journeys efficiently, but may not always meet the needs of households juggling childcare, eldercare, mobility constraints or unpredictable hours. A car-lite system succeeds when households can choose not to own a car without sacrificing reasonable access, reliability or flexibility. This requires three priorities. First, focus on mobility access across different stages of life. The transport system should be judged not only by how many people own cars, but by whether households can reliably access the mobility they need at different stages of life. Families with young children, caregivers and people with mobility challenges face different constraints from adults living near MRT stations.The aim should not be to guarantee ownership, but to provide more reliable ways of meeting mobility needs. Private-hire services could better accommodate families with young children, shared mobility could become more accessible in residential towns, and public transport connections could continue to improve for seniors and people with mobility constraints. This direction is reinforced by the LTA’s focus group discussion, where participants called for more accessible and family-friendly car-sharing services, better first- and last-mile connections, and more inclusive public transport. Second, make shared mobility a dependable complement to mass public transport. Ride-hailing and car-sharing must be dependable, affordable and seamless not only under ideal conditions, but also during peak demand, bad weather and stressful moments. This requires closer attention to how such services are regulated and coordinated as part of the wider transport system. Car access need not mean permanent ownership. A household might use public transport most of the week, turn to ride-hailing during caregiving crunch points and rent a shared car occasionally. Normalising this flexible relationship with cars may be as important as adjusting the COE rules. THE NEXT PHASE OF THE TRANSPORT DEBATE Third, ensure that lived experience shapes Singapore’s Land Transport Master Plan refresh. Singapore’s transport system has worked because people broadly accepted its trade-offs. That acceptance depends not only on the efficiency of transportation modes, but also on whether policies feel fair, responsive and grounded in lived realities. Public engagement is therefore more than a technical exercise. The latest phase - involving more than 400 participants in thematic discussions, alongside shadowing across 21 commuter profiles – shows the value of grounding policy in lived experience. The next test is how these insights inform the COE consultation paper due later this year and the wider Land Transport Master Plan refresh in 2027. Singapore’s transport debate has long centred on cars. The next phase should centre more clearly on people. The question cannot stop at who gets to own a car. It must also ask how public transport, point-to-point services and shared cars can provide reliable mobility across different stages of life, without turning every need for flexibility into a need for car ownership. Samuel Chng is a Research Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design, where he heads the Urban Psychology Lab.