Singapore's Transport Minister Raymond Lim announced Monday that his country will develop a new roadmap to articulate and guide the key land transport developments over the next 10 to 15 years.

Lim said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) would make a comprehensive review of the public transport by the end of 2007.

This is a follow up to the white paper on land transport, which is the government's blueprint for a world-class road and rail system released in 1996, Lim said.

Buying and using a car come at a price in Singapore but the car population grew by some 10 percent between 1997 and 2004. There are about 780,000 vehicles on Singapore's streets and most of them are used intensively - with the daily number of trips increasing by 23 percent.

In contrast, the proportion of trips taken on public transport dipped from 67 percent to 63 percent over the same period.

"For a start, we will have to reverse the trend of declining public transport modal share, and over time, we aim to raise it," said Lim.

He added that "Our focus would be on the morning peak period, where we target to increase the public transport model share of 63 percent to at least 70 percent over the next 10 to 15 years."

The authority hopes to achieve a high quality and sustainable land transport system that is able to handle a significantly larger population base with greater economic, business and tourism activities in tandem with Singapore's next phase of development, according to the minister.

With competing demand for limited land, Singapore has put the brakes on car ownership and its usage. In the last 15 years, the vehicle population grew at 2.3 percent per year while roads grew at 1 percent annually.

In addition, experts suggested that a main issue to Singapore's public transport system is to cut waiting time by increasing the frequency of public transport services significantly, and expand the train network, as well as add more "human touch" in transport planning.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet