Written Answer to Unanswered Oral Question

Speed Limiters for Lorries Ferrying Workers

Speakers

Transcript

28 Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) whether an update can be provided on when speed limiters will be required to be installed on lorries ferrying workers; and (b) what can be done to expedite the roll-out.

Mr K Shanmugam: On 9 March 2022, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) announced that the Government would mandate lorries with Maximum Laden Weight (MLW) between 3,500 kilogrammes and 12,000 kilogrammes to be fitted with speed management devices or speed limiters.

Since then, the Traffic Police has been working with industry stakeholders to evaluate the cost and effectiveness of the different types of speed limiter. In gist, while we want to ensure that speed limiters are accurate and not easy to tamper with, we are also mindful of the cost impact on vehicle owners, many of whom are small business owners. To that end, the Traffic Police are studying various models that use different technologies, as well as overseas experiences.

In addition, the Traffic Police are developing the implementation plan. This includes ensuring that the market will have sufficient capacity to meet the estimated demand of speed limiters, and sufficient number of authorised agents to install and inspect the devices. This is to ensure that vehicle owners can have the speed limiters installed quickly and minimise downtimes for their vehicles.

We aim to complete the evaluation of speed limiters and finalise the implementation plan by early next year.