Another 2,300 motorists used the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) in the opposite direction, towards the Tampines Expressway, during the morning peak hours of 7am to 10am.

The KPE is designed to handle 6,000 vehicles per hour on each carriageway.

Traffic was observed to be smooth, and there were neither vehicle breakdowns nor accidents, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

Until the 12km-long expressway opened to traffic last Saturday, residents living in housing estates in the north-east - Punggol, Hougang and Sengkang - relied heavily on the Central Expressway (CTE) to get downtown.

The KPE serves their estates, with the other end of the tunnel surfacing at the East Coast Parkway (ECP) near Rochor Road.

The jury is still out, however, on whether the KPE has taken some load off the usually congested CTE.

The LTA said it observed 'no significant changes' to the volume of traffic on the CTE yesterday, but added: 'As today is only the first workday since the KPE's opening, traffic patterns will take some time to settle.'

But one motorist who took her usual route along the CTE felt the difference the KPE made to her morning drive.

Till last week, Ms Sashirekka Rountan, a 24-year-old sales manager who lives in Yishun, was taking 45 minutes to drive to her office at City Hall.

At 8.30am yesterday, she took 30 minutes. She said: 'There was no jam at all, which was a huge change from before, when I'd always have to wait in a traffic jam at some point.'

A Straits Times check at the CTE between 8am and 8.20am yesterday found smooth-flowing traffic between Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 and Havelock Road.

Another check on the traffic flow back towards the north-east in the evening also found the going smooth.

During the morning and evening, the KPE had only a handful of cars at any point along it.

Civil servant Melvin Yong, 36, took the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) and then the KPE to go to his Punggol home from his workplace in Novena, and was happy to have his usual 45-minute journey cut to 20 minutes. 'It was my first time driving during the peak hours with almost no traffic on the expressway.'

Because of its long underground portion, the KPE has a 70kmh speed limit, 10kmh lower than that of other expressways. The Traffic Police have said that they will be strict about this.

When the first 3km-long phase of the KPE linking the ECP to the PIE opened a year ago, also with a 70kmh speed limit, an average of 210 speedsters were caught a week.

mariaa@sph.com.sg

ghimlay@sph.com.sg

Additional reporting by Teh Joo Lin & April Chong

Read Christopher Tan's KPE driving experience in his blog here