Feature Articles
Reducing Peak Land Transport Emissions by 80%
8 March 2022
LTA will intensify electrification and sustainability efforts across public and private transport
Land transport emissions peaked at 7.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2016, well in advance of the 2030 timeline set at the national level. The Government is committed to further lowering land transport emissions and has set a new target of reducing emissions from the 2016 peak by 80% by or around mid-century. Vehicle electrification, along with the decarbonisation of the power grid, will be a needle-mover.
To pave the way, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will ramp up the electrification of our public bus fleet and incorporate more clean energy measures into our transport infrastructure. In addition, more will be done to spur the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), including our taxi fleet.
Electrification of public buses and taxis
LTA has committed to having a 100% cleaner energy bus fleet by 2040. 60 electric buses have already been purchased and deployed to help us better understand the operational and technical considerations of a larger-scale rollout. Moving forward, bus buys from now until 2030 will primarily be electric. By 2030, half of our public bus fleet will be electric buses, as LTA replaces diesel buses that have reached their statutory lifespan. We will replace over 400 diesel buses by 2025.
Our point-to-point sector also plays an important role in reducing land transport carbon emissions. We are encouraged that some taxi operators have already embarked on the electrification of their fleets. Our taxi operators have committed that at least half of our taxis will be electric by 2030. To support this, LTA will extend the statutory lifespan of all electric taxis from eight years to 10 years. This will give operators more time to optimise their electric taxi investments. For private hire cars, 50% of the GrabRentals fleet will go electric by 2030. LTA will continue working closely with private hire car operators to increase EV adoption.
Building up EV infrastructure and regulatory frameworks
To drive the adoption of electric vehicles, every HDB town will be EV-Ready by 2025. This means LTA will deploy charging points in all HDB carparks (~2,000 car parks) by 2025, with a minimum of three chargers in each carpark at the beginning and more to be deployed as EV adoption picks up pace. To this end, LTA will be launching a large-scale tender for HDB carparks in the first half of 2022. This is another significant step towards achieving our target of 60,000 charging points by 2030.
LTA will take the lead to progressively upgrade the required electrical infrastructure in all residential estates, to ensure there is sufficient electrical capacity to support EV charging. The upgrades will be financed by LTA through the issuance of green bonds, and the costs will be recovered from EV charging operators and EV users over the longer term. LTA is working with relevant agencies to develop the implementation details.
New legislation to ensure safe and reliable EV charging will also be introduced, with public consultation set for later this year. Details of the public consultation will be shared with the industry and published on LTA’s website when ready.
Certificate of Entitlement (COE) Category A: Revised Maximum Power Output (MPO) Threshold for Electric Cars
As part of our ongoing efforts to support the adoption of electric cars, we will revise the Category A Maximum Power Output (MPO) threshold for electric cars from 97kW to 110kW. This will allow more mass-market electric cars to come under Category A.
The MPO threshold for Categories A and B was set at 97kW in 2013, given the predominantly internal combustion engine (ICE) car population then. This threshold will continue to apply for non-electric cars.
This change will take effect from the first COE bidding exercise in May 2022, which will take place from 4 to 6 May 2022.
Harnessing solar power in our public transport infrastructure
To reduce carbon emissions and lower energy costs, LTA will install solar panels on the roofs of new or recently-upgraded land transport infrastructure such as rail and bus depots, offices and facility buildings. This will support LTA’s existing plans to achieve the solar energy deployment targets of 16 megawatt-peak (MWp) by 2025 and 25 MWp by 2030.
In addition, LTA will call an open tender in March this year to deploy solar panels on other land transport infrastructure, including the upcoming Integrated Train Testing Centre, pedestrian overhead bridges and covered linkways.
Through the open tender, LTA will be able to contribute up to 20MWp of additional solar capacity. This is equivalent to the power needed to charge up to 285 single deck e-buses for an entire year. LTA will continue to incorporate more solar panels into our transport infrastructure where possible.