LTA To Extend EMAS Capabilities To 10 Major Arterial
Roads
1. The Land Transport
Authority (LTA) will extend the capabilities of its intelligent
incident management system, namely the Expressway Monitoring
Advisory System (EMAS), to ten major arterial roads in phases over
the next four years.
2. Started since 2001, the
EMAS has been effective in ensuring that LTA responds to incidents
quickly and clears the obstructions on roads expeditiously, so that
traffic returns back to normal as quickly as
possible.
3. An earlier study on the
effectiveness of EMAS concluded that with the implementation of
EMAS, there has been an average time savings of 24 minutes per
incident. With shorter delays on our expressways, this translates
to cost savings of about $40 million per year. Given its
effectiveness and following positive feedback from motorists, the
LTA will be extending the service to major arterial roads
.
4. The LTA will be calling for
tenders soon.The first phase of the extension, which will be along
the Woodlands Road-Upper Bukit Timah Road-Bukit Timah Road-Dunearn
Road corridor, is expected to be in place by 2010. Please refer to
Annex
A for the other major arterial roads that EMAS will extended
to. These roads are selected because they are highly utilised by
motorists and serve as alternate routes to the expressways they run
parallel to.
A More Pleasant
Motoring Experience
5. With the expansion of EMAS coverage to major arterial roads,
motorists can look to a more pleasant, efficient aneasant,
efficient and safer journey. Equipped with information of traffic
conditions on both expressways and their nearby arterial roads,
motorists can better plan their travel to avoid congested and
incident areas, thereby saving commuting time.
6. "We have received positive
feedback from motorists on the effectiveness of EMAS on the
expressways. The introduction of EMAS to arterial roads is a
natural extension of an effective system and is in line with the
our strategy to harness technology to optimise the use of our road
network," said Mr Yam Ah Mee, Chief Executive, Land Transport
Authority.
How EMAS
Works
7. Like its expressways predecessor, EMAS on arterial roads will
perform live-video surveillance, incident detection and real-time
traffic alert functions.
8. Incidents on these roads
will be picked up and verified by sensors and cameras installed
throughout the corridors. Vehicle recovery services will then be
dispatched to clear the incidents and control traffic. Whenever
necessary, the Singapore Civil Defence Force and Traffic Police
will be activated to provide appropriate assistance to affected
motorists. The improved response time will reduce congestion and
promote smoother traffic on the road networks.
9. Please refer to Annex B
on how EMAS works.