ERP 2 OBU data to aid criminal investigations from 2027

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) in September said the new ERP system will be used in enforcement efforts in vehicle-related offences, such as the provision of illegal cross-border taxi services.

While ERP 2 could be used for enforcement against speeding offences, LTA at the time said further enhancements were needed before any such use.

Tin Pei Ling (Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC) earlier in the Nov 3 sitting asked what measures have been put in place to protect the use of ERP 2 data.

In her reply, Senior Minister of State for National Development and Transport Sun Xueling said the OBUs are designed with a high level of security and encryption.

She added that the system conforms to stringent international technical standards and strict regulations by the Infocomm Media Development Authority to ensure safety, reliability and interoperability.

Sun said: “Data stored in the OBUs cannot be directly accessed by motorists. That’s not the intention. So, any data transmitted by the OBUs can only be accessed by the Government and is stored in a secure environment.”

She added that data collected on individual vehicles is aggregated and anonymised when transferred to LTA’s back-end system for traffic management and planning.

But when specific vehicles have to be identified for enforcement purposes, LTA can retrieve location data from sensors and systems, she said.

LTA in October 2023 said the collected data would be used only for payment, charges and enforcement, for instance against non-payment of ERP charges.

Tin also asked for a few examples in which ERP 2 data could be used.

Sun said detecting deregistered vehicles, the use of off-peak cars driven outside their permitted hours, and the use of vehicles – such as those on lay-up and keeping schemes – that should not be driven on roads were a few likely instances. These were already enforced under the previous ERP system, she added.

Unused vehicles on the lay-up scheme need to be kept at a designated garage address, and their owners are temporarily exempted from paying road tax on them. Those on the keeping scheme are deregistered or special-category vehicles that have to be kept in a private compound for static display purposes.

On whether distance-based charging might be rolled out in future, Sun said the authorities will consider doing so at a later stage.

LTA in the past said there were “no immediate plans” to introduce distance-based charging when ERP 2 was announced.