Friday, April 08, 2016

Satellite based ERP - issues to be addressed

The Land Transport Authority has carried out a study into the satellite-based ERP and has decided to spend $556 million to launch the system.

Han Fook Kwang (Satellite-based ERP: Great technology but what's the policy? 13 March)  said that we should discuss and decide on the policy before spending the money to implement this system.

I like to raise a few additional issues:

a)            Has the study simulated 1 million vehicles sending GPS data every 1 minute to a central server? This is a large volume of live data. Have we done the simulation to make sure that the system can handle such a volume considering the data bandwidth and immense storage that is needed?

b)            If some owners removed the GPS system from the vehicle, how will the satellite based system know that they are unauthorised vehicles on our roads? Under the gantry system, they have installed cameras to take pictures of the vehicle. What is the equivalent under the new system?

c)            Have we planned for days where the weather condition may hamper the reception of GPS signals?

d)            What about personal privacy? Who will control the access to the data about the movement of the vehicles and the personal privacy of the drivers?

I believe that the Land Transport Authority must have considered all of these issues. I like to ask them to share their findings. The new ERP satellite system is going to impact the people in many ways, beyond collecting of revenue for the government. Surely, the people should be allowed to give their views on this matter?

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