1. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will extend the capabilities of its intelligent incident management system, namely the Expressway Monitoring Advisory System (EMAS), to ten major arterial roads in phases over the next four years.

2. Started since 2001, the EMAS has been effective in ensuring that LTA responds to incidents quickly and clears the obstructions on roads expeditiously, so that traffic returns back to normal as quickly as possible.

3. An earlier study on the effectiveness of EMAS concluded that with the implementation of EMAS, there has been an average time savings of 24 minutes per incident. With shorter delays on our expressways, this translates to cost savings of about $40 million per year. Given its effectiveness and following positive feedback from motorists, the LTA will be extending the service to major arterial roads .

4. The LTA will be calling for tenders soon.The first phase of the extension, which will be along the Woodlands Road-Upper Bukit Timah Road-Bukit Timah Road-Dunearn Road corridor, is expected to be in place by 2010. Please refer to Annex A for the other major arterial roads that EMAS will extended to. These roads are selected because they are highly utilised by motorists and serve as alternate routes to the expressways they run parallel to.

A More Pleasant Motoring Experience
5. With the expansion of EMAS coverage to major arterial roads, motorists can look to a more pleasant, efficient  and safer journey. Equipped with information of traffic conditions on both expressways and their nearby arterial roads, motorists can better plan their travel to avoid congested and incident areas, thereby saving commuting time.

6. "We have received positive feedback from motorists on the effectiveness of EMAS on the expressways. The introduction of EMAS to arterial roads is a natural extension of an effective system and is in line with the our strategy to harness technology to optimise the use of our road network," said Mr Yam Ah Mee, Chief Executive, Land Transport Authority.

How EMAS Works
7. Like its expressways predecessor, EMAS on arterial roads will perform live-video surveillance, incident detection and real-time traffic alert functions.

8. Incidents on these roads will be picked up and verified by sensors and cameras installed throughout the corridors. Vehicle recovery services will then be dispatched to clear the incidents and control traffic. Whenever necessary, the Singapore Civil Defence Force and Traffic Police will be activated to provide appropriate assistance to affected motorists. The improved response time will reduce congestion and promote smoother traffic on the road networks.

9. Please refer to Annex B on how EMAS works.