When balance slips quietly out of reach, systems begin to strain, and risk shows its truest face.
In January 1998, the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) for cars between 1,601 and 2,000 cc fell to S$50, the lowest in Singapore’s history.
I was working at the Land Transport Authority (LTA) Registry of Vehicles then. The official explanation made sense, the Asian Financial Crisis had weakened demand, but among colleagues, the conversations were different.
Many believed the result reflected not demand alone, but how the market behaved. Dealers made up most of the bidders, and if many held back in that round, the clearing price would naturally collapse. No one could prove coordination, yet the suspicion lingered.
That episode later prompted a major restructuring. LTA merged four car categories into two to create a broader and steadier market.
A Memory that Returns with the Numbers
These figures bring that memory back. In the October 2025 exercise, COEs closed at S$128,105 for smaller cars, S$141,000 for larger cars, and S$140,009 for the open category.
The COE system was introduced to manage vehicle growth and keep roads sustainable. Yet when prices remain high for extended periods, questions of proportion and purpose naturally arise.
We now see more luxury and performance cars, while families with school-going children or elderly parents find private transport slipping further from reach.
Revisiting the Original Vision
When the Land Transport Authority was formed in 1995, its mission was clear: to build a world-class transport system for Singapore.
The 1996 White Paper on A World Class Land Transport System outlined four key goals:
- Integrating transport and land use planning
- Expanding the road network and maximising its capacity
- Managing demand of road usage
- Providing quality public transport choices
It also noted something that is easy to forget today: that if usage measures like ERP worked well, more COEs could be released to enable more Singaporeans to own cars.
The paper even mentioned “social and equity considerations,” recognising that fairness and inclusiveness were part of what made a system world-class.
The intent then was balance: managing usage responsibly while keeping ownership within reach.
When the Cost of Ownership Outweighs the Cost of Use
Nearly three decades on, ERP has indeed helped manage congestion. But its effectiveness has levelled as demand patterns evolved. When COE prices stay persistently high, car ownership concentrates among those already willing and able to absorb high costs. For such owners, ERP’s price signals lose their moderating effect.
A high COE makes every unused day a wasted value, reinforcing the urge to drive rather than to hold back.
The principle of usage-based pricing works best when ownership is broad yet balanced, when people drive because they need to, not simply because they can. That harmony between usage and ownership depends not only on technology or enforcement but also on how cost structures align with everyday realities. Public transport should remain the more practical choice, where the time and money spent on a journey stay meaningfully lower than driving a car through high petrol, ERP, and parking fees.
What Makes a System World-Class
Public transport is far better connected today, yet frequent MRT and LRT disruptions and persistently high COE prices suggest that world-class transport is a broader measure than capacity and reach.
True quality lies in how the system as a whole meets the needs of people from all walks of life, balancing access, reliability, and fairness in practice, not only in design.
Risk work has always been about proportion and steadiness. When conditions stay at the extreme for too long, even strong structures begin to strain as flexibility diminishes and tension builds quietly over time. Sustaining balance allows systems to remain resilient, responsive, and relevant to those they were built to serve.
The S$50 COE may have been remembered as a fluke, but in hindsight, it revealed a truth about how systems behave under pressure. Every framework, whether economic or social, begins to show signs of fatigue long before it fails completely.
The real challenge lies in recognising those signs early enough to restore balance before the imbalance becomes accepted as normal.