COE debate should focus on mobility needs, not universal car ownership: researcher

Samuel Chng of the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities argues the COE debate should prioritise flexible mobility alternatives over making cars affordable for all. He suggests merging COE categories, needs-based allocation, or a separate leasing pool, but warns each carries trade-offs that shif

SINGAPORE — The debate over the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) system should move beyond affordability and focus on providing reliable mobility alternatives so households do not have to own a car to meet their daily needs, a researcher has argued.

Samuel Chng, a Research Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, said in a commentary published on Monday (1 Sep) that cars represent flexibility and certainty for families juggling childcare, eldercare and unpredictable schedules. That is why COE debates generate reactions that cannot be understood through price and utilisation figures alone, he wrote.

As Singapore refreshes its Land Transport Master Plan, Chng said the conversation should 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.

Several suggestions have emerged from the Land Transport Authority’s focus group discussions on access to cars. One is merging Categories A and B, with rebates for lower-value cars and surcharges for more expensive models, to make the system more progressive. However, Chng noted that a merged pool could expose mass-market buyers to stronger premium-car demand.

A second idea is allocating COEs based on need, giving greater priority to larger families or households with stronger mobility constraints. But defining and verifying need could become complex and intrusive, he said.

A third proposal is a separate leasing category to make corporate demand more transparent, while removing Category E could make demand in the remaining categories easier to interpret. Yet Chng cautioned that 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,” he wrote. “Making cars more accessible to one group will usually shift cost or access elsewhere.”

Chng said the aim should be to provide credible alternatives to car ownership, not broadly affordable cars for all. A car-lite system succeeds when households can choose not to own a car without sacrificing reasonable access, reliability or flexibility, he argued.

He urged policymakers to focus on mobility access across different stages of life, make shared mobility a dependable complement to mass public transport, and ensure that lived experience shapes the Land Transport Master Plan refresh. The COE consultation paper is due later this year, with the wider master plan refresh expected in 2027.