SINGAPORE : The number of Certificates of Entitlement (COEs) available this year will be about 24 per cent lower compared to last year.

A total of 83,789 COEs will be available for this quota year, which starts from May and ends in April next year.

Transport Minister Raymond Lim said part of this quota is to allow the vehicle population to grow by 1.5 per cent, a target set under the Land Transport Masterplan announced last year.

Bidding under this quota will start in April this year.

The drop in COEs available came as no surprise. It is in line with a previously announced move to reduce the annual vehicle growth cap from 3 per cent to one and a half per cent.

And more changes are set to take place. Mr Lim said his ministry is looking at tweaking the Vehicle Quota System.

When the transport ministry comes up with its annual COE quota, it looks at two things - the 3 per cent caps and the expected number of vehicles that will be deregistered.

One common complaint in the past was that there was a mismatch between the number of deregistrations projected by LTA and the actual numbers.

"Such forecasts have inherent inaccuracies and the net vehicle growth rate may turn out higher or lower from the targeted rate," said Cedric Foo, GPC (Government Parliamentary Committee) Chair for Transport.

Mr Lim acknowledged this. "This is not to say the COE system does not work. It does, because any errors in projections are always corrected in current or subsequent years," said the transport minister.

However, he added the system could be improved. One possible approach is more frequent reviews.

"It will improve the responsiveness of the system, but there will, however, be trade-offs, such as more uncertainty over the quota released," said Mr Lim.

And so, the LTA will consult the motor vehicle industry as part of its review.

Meanwhile, the ministry is also looking at ways to enhance the Off-Peak Car Scheme to attract more motorists to make the switch.

Currently, there are about 42,000 such cars on Singapore roads - that is an eight-fold increase over the last three years. However, there have been complaints - from limited hours of use to cumbersome paper licences.

So, three areas are being looked at.

1) Replacing paper licences with tamper-proof electronic ones
2) Giving cash rebates to motorists who convert their normal cars to off-peak cars, instead of when the car is deregistered
3) Relook at the restricted hours where off-peak car owners can drive freely. They have long lobbied for full-day free use on Saturdays instead of half a day.

However, such measures may come with changes in the tax breaks such motorists now enjoy.