Forum: Carpark gantry failures deserve accountability
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Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow recently said that vendors should face penalties for failing to meet service standards (Bus arrival timing disruption: Vendor to be penalised, March 3). The same principle should apply to another persistent problem motorists face: unreliable carpark gantries.
A common issue is gantries failing to read the CashCard in the on-board unit (OBU). Drivers are then forced to remove the card from the OBU to tap the reader manually.
With the OBU now positioned farther from the driver than the in-vehicle unit it replaced, this becomes awkward and potentially unsafe, particularly at narrow exits where drivers must stretch while keeping their vehicles in position.
To trigger the sensor, drivers often inch their vehicles forward or reverse repeatedly, increasing the risk of minor collisions in tight spaces. In wet weather, the situation worsens. Drivers may have to wind down their windows in the rain or even step out of the vehicle to tap the card.
These are not rare glitches; they are recurring disruptions that cause queues to build within carparks and spill onto surrounding roads.
The consequences extend beyond inconvenience. They include wasted fuel, lost time, heightened stress and avoidable accident risks, all borne directly by motorists.
Reliability is clearly achievable. Electronic Road Pricing gantries operate islandwide with remarkable consistency. If such robustness is possible for national road pricing infrastructure, similar standards should reasonably apply to carpark systems.
If transport vendors are to be held accountable, as Mr Siow rightly stated, it may be timely to apply similar standards to carpark operators. These could include clear uptime benchmarks, transparent audits and meaningful penalties for recurring failures.
Singapore’s reputation for efficient infrastructure rests on everyday reliability. Exiting a carpark should be seamless and uneventful, not a test of patience or a source of risk.
Quek Chin Hwee Steven
