Speech by Minister for Transport Mr Jeffrey Siow at the Singapore Urban Mobility Week 2026

Distinguished guests,

Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

1.          Good morning. A very warm welcome to Singapore Urban Mobility Week, especially to our friends who have travelled a long way here from overseas. Welcome to Singapore.

a.          The Singapore Urban Mobility Week is a flagship event, bringing together policymakers, operators, technologists and industry experts in transport.

b.          The theme for this year is ‘Drive the Future – Autonomous Innovation, Smart Infrastructure, and Urban Mobility’.

c.           For many cities, land is finite. Infrastructure is expensive. Commuter profiles are changing, and their expectations of us continue to rise.

2.          In Singapore, we face these challenges most acutely.

a.          We are a small island, just 50 kilometres from east to west.

b.          But in this small area, we accommodate the travel demands of nearly six million people, a major industrial base, and two of the world's busiest air and sea hubs.

3.          But being a small city-state has its advantages.

a.          We can innovate more quickly, whether in technology, infrastructure, or policy choices.

b.          This morning, I would like to share how innovation has shaped Singapore’s transport system, and how it is helping us prepare for the next wave of the transport challenges we share.

LOOKING BACK

Rethinking how we build & operate public transport

4.          That story starts with the most consequential public transport decision Singapore has ever made: to build our Mass Rapid Transit system, or MRT.

a.          Today, Singapore has an urban rail network of 275km across eight separate lines. By the early 2030s, we would be at 360km, comparable to the London Underground and New York Subway. 

b.          The MRT is an integral part of our daily life, that young Singaporeans will not be able to imagine Singapore without it.

c.           But in reality, the MRT almost didn’t happen.

5.          When Singapore contemplated building the MRT in the 1980s, we had an extensive national debate.

a.          For a young, small and developing nation, it was not clear that we could afford this expensive metro system. The existing bus network fulfilled the transport needs of that time, and could still be expanded.

b.          But looking back, we made the right decision.

c.           The Singapore of today would not be the same thriving, prosperous, vibrant, global city, without our MRT.

6.          As a young boy, I remember taking a ride on one of the first MRT trains, and I did so with my father. It was the first time either of us had ridden a train of any kind. It was a marvellous joyride. One that I still remember. But neither of us imagined I would end up being the Transport Minister!

a.          Nearly 40 years later, the MRT has become an ordinary part of daily life. But Singaporeans of my vintage and older won’t forget how extraordinary that first MRT ride was.

7.          We have continued to invest in our MRT system.

a.          In 2003, we opened the North East Line – the world's first fully automated underground driverless subway. Driverless technology was then still relatively new. But we adopted it at scale.

b.          Today, all of our trains are driverless.

c.           In the 2010s, we made a significant investment in condition-based maintenance. We began retrofitting sensors on our trains and tracks, and trained our workers to collect data, predict problems, and deal with them before they happen.

d.          Today, the rail reliability of our train network is above 3 million mean kilometres between failure – 30 times what it was before this effort began.

Rethinking how we manage demand and congestion

8.          In private transport, we have been just as innovative, especially in managing road congestion.

9.          As Singapore’s economy grew in the 1970s, car ownership increased, and our roads became increasingly congested.

a.          But there was no space to build more road, especially in the city areas where the opportunity cost was greatest.

b.          In 1975, Singapore introduced the Area Licensing Scheme (ALS). Motorists who wanted to enter the city area had to pay to enter the city centre, during restricted hours. Today, many cities like London and Stockholm have similar schemes. 

i.            Enforcement was manual. We had police officers stationed at the boundary of the city area, looking out for cars that did not have the correct labels, or did not have the correct number of people to qualify  for an exemption.

ii.           There were apocryphal stories about how inflatable dolls were put in front seats to try to escape the ALS charges.

10.        In 1998, we adopted technology through the Electronic Road Pricing system or ERP. Motorists could now pay congestion charges electronically as they passed through physical gantries.

a.          Over the years, the gantries have become something of an icon on our roads. ERP gantries are the only things in Singapore, according to legend, have never broken down.

b.          But soon, this icon will disappear from our roads.

c.           From next year onwards, Singapore is upgrading to ERP 2.0. This uses satellite-based technology for road pricing, so the physical gantries will no longer be needed and will be removed.

11.        The technology has changed considerably over the decades, but the underlying principle behind road pricing has remained the same.

a.          We cannot simply build our way out of congestion.

b.          We must also shape demand. And pricing is one tool we have used with great success.

12.        When we faced peak hour congestion on parts of our MRT network, we applied the same principle.

a.          If we can nudge commuters to have some flexibility to travel outside the busiest periods, we can ease peak hour crowds, and run our trains more efficiently.

b.          This is why we re-introduced free morning off-peak travel on the North-East Line and its feeder light rail network (Sengkang-Punggol LRT).

c.           We had done this with some success in 2013. 

d.          Commuters who can shift their journeys off-peak, travel for free. Those who cannot, still benefit too from less crowded trains. 

e.           With account-based ticketing, we can eventually customise our incentives even more directly, so the people who are more likely to shift their journeys will benefit most from doing so.

13.        Ultimately, whether through smarter pricing or new infrastructure, our goal is to keep our public transport the most convenient choice for Singaporeans.

a.          The MRT remains the backbone of our land transport system, carrying more than 3.6 million rides every day.

b.          And we have major plans underway to continue to expand the network in the years ahead.

14.        The Jurong Region Line will open in mid-2028, so residents in the west will be able to get onto the MRT network more quickly without needing a feeder bus.

a.          The Cross Island Line will be completed in the 2030s. This is a very important line as it connects all our radial lines, strengthening the resilience of the network and multiplying the number of new routes on the MRT.

b.          And we are now planning for the Seletar and Tengah Lines.

15.        These longer-term plans will take more than a few years, even decades to realise.

16.        But in the shorter term, let me take the opportunity to share a piece of good news:

a.          That on 26 December 2026, three new MRT stations will open for service:

i.            Bedok South station on the Thomson-East Coast Line,

ii.           Xilin station on the Downtown Line, and

iii.         Sungei Bedok station, a new interchange station connecting both lines.

b.          These new stations will stitch together two major train corridors, and give commuters in the East new routes, and faster journeys. 

c.           In fact, residents in the East will be able to take the Thomson-East Coast Line continuously into the city centre, up north to Woodlands, and soon, conveniently across the Straits into Malaysia.

d.          Hope residents in the East enjoy this Christmas present.

THE NEXT BOUND

17.        Singapore has an extensive public transport network that we can be proud of, because we have continued to plan early for growth, improvements and innovation.

a.          For example, we have been electrifying our buses, aiming to have more than 3,000 electric buses by 2030, and perhaps more beyond.

b.          For pedestrians, we have been improving the walking experience – building more covered walkways to protect them from the hot sun and the tropical rain.

i.            Singapore has the slightly dubious honour of the city with the longest covered pedestrian networks in the world, at more than 275 kilometres.

ii.           Here, umbrellas are becoming extinct.

18.        We are also planning ahead for new transport technologies that can provide more mobility options for our people. One very important mobility option is autonomous vehicles.

19.        Singapore has been preparing for autonomous vehicles for more than a decade.

a.          We set up our first autonomous vehicle test centre in 2015 to study how the technology could work in local conditions.

b.          In the last few years, advances in artificial intelligence and sensor technology have enabled autonomous vehicles to be deployed on city streets.

20.        I experienced these rides for myself in Guangzhou and the San Francisco Bay Area.

a.          Seeing how the vehicles navigated complex urban traffic in real-time convinced me that the technology was ready for deployment here in Singapore, and that we needed to move early to prepare for it.

b.          Autonomous vehicles are very useful as they can expand the range of mobility options for commuters. For example, to places where public transport does not serve, or safe late-night commutes.

c.           And even though there is no immediate impact on driver jobs, Singapore is already planning ahead, working closely with our operators and unions to help drivers transition into skilled roles in this new industry.

21.        So far, our early autonomous vehicle deployments have progressed well.

a.          We have 25 autonomous passenger vehicles on our roads now, alongside a handful of autonomous commercial vehicles being trialled.

b.          Public feedback, especially on the passenger vehicles, has been very positive. Once past the novelty of the first ride, they find the journeys quite boring, but smooth and comfortable.

c.           And importantly, based on data, the vehicles have proven to be very safe.

22.        But as we scale up, we want to do so with complete transparency, so that we can strengthen public confidence in autonomous vehicles.

23.        So from next month, Singapore will publish a quarterly report on all our autonomous vehicles deployment efforts.

a.          These reports will cover the scale of autonomous vehicle operations, riders' experiences, and safety outcomes.

b.          It will help our public have a clear picture of how our efforts are progressing in Singapore, and to objectively assess their performance based on evidence, rather than perception.

WHY SINGAPORE IS WELL PLACED TO INNOVATE

24.        I hope these examples have given you a sense of Singapore’s approach to transport innovation over the years.

a.          I spoke earlier about how Singapore’s small size has helped us move quickly.

b.          Just as important is having the ambition and vision to plan for the long term.

25.        Transport projects take years, sometimes decades, to realise.

a.          New technologies come with risks and require courage, apart from investment and experimentation.

b.          It is often easier to stick with what we know. Don’t fix something if it isn't broken!

26.        Yet, if we had taken the easy path

a.          We might never have built our MRT.

b.          We’d probably still have police officers at the road gantries checking paper licenses, and motorists finding creative ways to get around them!

c.           We would not be preparing today for the opportunities autonomous vehicles will bring.

27.        Making bold bets across decades requires a leadership that is accountable not just for today, but also for tomorrow.

a.          Singapore has been fortunate to have successive generations of governments prepared to think and build for the future.

b.          This same conviction continues to guide the current generation.

CONCLUSION

28.        Ladies and gentlemen, our work in the transport industry is vital because it affects the lives of so many people daily.

a.          Every person has a view on how his commute can be improved, and unsurprisingly, we get a lot of feedback!

b.          But I would like to think there is another reason for why so many people care about the work we do.

29.        I have been thinking about this.

a.          As children, many of us grew up playing with toy trains and buses

b.          And we carry fond memories of our earliest journeys – a first train ride, like the one I took with my dad.

c.           There is a reason why almost every major city in the world has a public transport museum, and why transport memorabilia – old train carriages and bus tickets and conductor uniforms – evoke so much love and nostalgia.

30.        Transport is far more than just infrastructure and technology and policy.

a.          It is part of our shared memories as a society.

b.          We have an innate love for transport.

i.            It may never be perfect, but it is ours.

c.           Our responsibility as leaders in transport is to lead with ambition and vision. To constantly improve what we have, and to continue to pursue new possibilities for the future.

31.        That is what I hope the discussions at the Singapore Urban Mobility Week will offer for you.

a.          The chance for all of us to connect, explore, and spark bold new ideas for the next bound.

b.          I wish you all a fruitful week of activities ahead, and all the best as we pursue our mobility goals for the future together. Thank you.