Singapore LTA lines up largest ever transport poll
Travel pattern survey of 10,000 households to cost $1m and help shape future policies
By Christopher Tan, Senior Correspondent
MORE than 10,000 households will be polled in what is believed to be the biggest transport survey here to date.
The findings of the travel pattern survey will shape transport policies, track the efficiency of the road and rail networks, and hopefully improve life for commuters.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said the survey will help the Government in ‘projecting future travel demand’ so that it can better time the roll-out of transport infrastructure and services.
The LTA has commissioned Media Research Consultants - a firm owned by MediaCorp - to undertake the task for close to $1 million.
An LTA spokesman said that people will be asked ‘about the trips they made the day before, such as the mode of travel, starting and ending location, travel time’. The data collected will allow the body to monitor trends.
‘The survey will provide useful travel information that will facilitate LTA in policy planning and enhance transport services for commuters,’ she added.
The survey is in line with the Transport Ministry’s promise to put the travelling public at the centre of its policies. It already has a community outreach arm where feedback from residents is sought on the grassroots level.
Said chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport Cedric Foo: ‘Commuter needs and expectations change over time and are affected by shifts in demography, income, family structure and so forth.
‘The only way to have a truly people-centred transport system is for LTA to conduct customer surveys regularly.’
Media Research Consultants’ contract for $997,000 is 60 per cent more than what international consultants Booz Allen Hamilton were paid for the recently completed Land Transport Review.
The LTA spokesman said the scope of services for this survey is different from the review undertaken by Booz Allen Hamilton.
‘There are extensive door-to-door household interviews to be conducted islandwide, and it is thus more labour-intensive,’ she said.
The Straits Times understands that some data will be used to gauge the success of initiatives in the Land Transport Review.
These include moves to raise the percentage of people taking public transport to 70 per cent by 2020, and to close the gap between journey times of buses and trains and those who travel by car.
Media Research Consultants’ vice-president for research and business development Andrew Lau said that data collection will take ‘five to six months’. The report will be ready by ‘year-end or early next year’.
The LTA said it last did a travel pattern survey in 2004, when 9,500 households were polled.
It also pointed out that its study is different from the household survey the Department of Statistics does periodically.
‘The survey commissioned by LTA aims to collect data on travel patterns on a more detailed level,’ its spokesman said.
Source : Straits Times - 28 April 2008
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