United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The vision of the Land Transport Authority of Singapore (LTA) is for a world-class land transport system for Singapore and this is guided and driven by its mission statement:

“To provide an efficient and cost-effective land transport system for different needs.”

LTA’s main responsibilities include:

(i) Planning, designing, construction, management and maintenance of the transit systems, roads and related facilities;

(ii) Acting as an agent of the Singapore Government in the administration, assessment, collection and enforcement of various taxes, fees and charges and other services relating to land transportation;

(iii) Advising the Singapore Government on matters related to the land transport system; and

(iv) Representing Singapore internationally in respect of matters relating to land transport.

LTA’s customers include every individual in Singapore -- pedestrians, commuters, drivers, vehicle buyers, vehicle owners, motor dealers, public transport operators, property developers, professionals, and private enterprises. LTA’s schemes and programmes are implemented with everyone in mind. Any one who walks, drives, or uses public transport, would essentially come face-to-face with some of the infrastructure built by LTA, or benefited from LTA’s policies and services.

A notable innovation of LTA is the world’s first Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system, launched in 1998, which has since been established as a global benchmark for urban traffic management in many countries. The project garnered for LTA the National IT Award 1998 for the pervasive and creative use of information technology in both its internal operations and services to the public.

LTA’s innovation effort goes beyond traffic management and infrastructure development projects. LTA was among the first government agencies to introduce a government-related portal with transaction-capable services for the public when it launched the ONE.MOTORING portal in May 2001. LTA’s latest innovation endeavour is e-Services@ONE.MOTORING which was introduced in February 2006. Sited at the ONE.MOTORING portal, it has enhanced the portal as an innovative, informative, intelligent and integrated portal to:

(i) Provide motorists, members of the motoring industry, car enthusiasts and road users the convenience of having a wide array of motoring and traffic information aggregated in a single hub;

(ii) Deliver integrated services through collaboration with the private sector to reap synergies and exploit new opportunities to provide vibrant content and create new value for our motorists and the motor industry; and

(iii) Deliver service excellence through customer interaction (touch-points), customer delight (experience) and customer intimacy (personalised services), while improving internal cost effectiveness and administrative efficiency.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
All vehicles registered for use in Singapore must meet with strict safety and emission standards. This is ensured by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) which operates a vehicle registry and licences and regulates the use of vehicles in Singapore. There are currently about 800,000 vehicles registered in Singapore. Annually, LTA processes about 150,000 vehicle registrations, 120,000 vehicle de-registrations, 80,000 vehicle transfers and 1.2 million vehicle licence renewals. LTA’s service vision is to offer an efficient vehicle registration and licensing service that is covenient, accessible, reliable and secure. Central to this vision is the provision of services on demand over a wide spectrum of delivery channels to complement over-the-counter services, whenever and wherever such services are required by leveraging on Information and Communication Technology. This vision has been achieved with the launch of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING in February 2006, which allows the public and the motoring industry to transact with LTA at the click of the mouse, anywhere, from the comfort of their homes or offices, through their preferred interaction channels, be it mobile phones, internet, ATMs, kiosks etc. The development of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING involved not only a system upgrade but an extensive re-engineering of existing business processes through review of customer feedback, operational policies, existing workflows and processes and industrial business practices. This provided an opportunity to streamline cumbersome and complex business processes that lacked transparency, and to achieve better integration of requirements from all stakeholders. These efforts resulted in a one-stop, integrated e-services system that meets the needs of all stakeholders. With e-Services@ONE.MOTORING, motor dealers are able to submit their applications online at their premises on behalf of their customers (the vehicle owners) without having to visit LTA’s office to submit physical documents. In turn, vehicle owners no longer need to leave their identification documents, such as their passport or identity card, with their motor dealers for submission to LTA when they buy or sell a vehicle. With the one-stop service at the motor dealers’ premises, made possible by e-Services@ONE.MOTORING, motor dealers and vehicle owners can complete their vehicle-related transactions with LTA immediately at one location. With a click of the mouse, vehicle owners can also obtain real-time information on the particulars of their vehicles and other vehicle-related assets, make enquiries and carry out transactions at any time of the day or even while overseas. They no longer need to rely heavily on motor dealers to carry out their transactions. e-Services@ONE.MOTORING has also enhanced LTA’s operational efficiency and work quality. For example, our enforcement officers are able to obtain accurate and timely vehicle and owner information easily via Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) for on-the-road enforcement of road traffic offences. It has also enabled LTA to cut down on counter services and better deployment of staff to focus on more value-added work. In summary, the key achievements of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING are faster turnaround time, reduced number of trips to service counters, more convenient services, greater transparency of policies and operational requirements, minimised manual data entry and verification, and enhanced operational efficency and work quality for all stakeholders involved in vehicle registration and licensing activities and operations.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
TIME - MILESTONE April 2001 - Review customer feedback and conduct business process re-engineering study on vehicle registration and licensing. October 2001 - Identify appropriate system architecture to support new processes. September 2002 - Gather requirements and solicit feedback from various stakeholders such as motor and finance companies, etc. On-going till March 2005 - Develop system, review user interface for new workflows and processes, and test new system. April 2005 - Brief and train motor industry user groups on the new system workflows and operating procedures. July 2005 - Conduct first pilot trial for all users to familiarise them with new processes, procedures and system. Ensure system readiness (e.g. setup of computers, etc). Seek feedback from users for incorporation as refinements to the system, if necessary. November 2005 - Conduct second pilot trial with all users and continue training for external and internal users. 28 February 2006 - Launch e-Services@ONE.MOTORING. On-going - Review and refine business processes and services for continual improvement of customer experience.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
LTA’s vehicle registration and licensing operations involved maintenance of a vehicle registry and processing of all transactions throughout the lifetime of a vehicle. These transactions include the registration of vehicles, transfer of vehicle ownership, renewal of vehicle licence (commonly known as road tax) and de-registration of vehicles. LTA processed annually about 3 million vehicle registration and licensing business transactions exceeding S$4 billion in total value, while collecting S$2 billion in vehicle taxes for the Singapore Government. SITUATION IN THE PAST In the past, almost all vehicle registration and licensing transactions were done at LTA’s premises. Many of the transactions required production of documents such as vehicle registration card, owner identification documents, insurance certificate, inspection certificate, etc., for verification and confirmation of the transactions. A typical transaction to register a new vehicle with LTA would take about 2 to 3 days to complete as motor dealers had to perform data entry, collate all necessary documents and submit them to LTA. LTA would then verify all documents and confirm the transaction by the next day. The motor dealers would then collect back these documents and the vehicle registration card issued by LTA to be handed to their customer with the delivery of the new vehicle. Online enquiries were limited while online application services were restricted to simple transactions like payment of road tax and fines. Thus, vehicle owners had limited choices and had to rely extensively on motor dealers to carry out their transactions with LTA. Typically, they had to wait a few days for the motor dealers to complete their transactions and a waiting period of 3 days was the norm before they could collect their new vehicles. LTA’s system supporting the vehicle registration and licensing operations was also inflexible and incompatible for internet-based solutions. It was not able to keep up with the increasing demands of today's internet-based environment where the public expected more self-help, convenient and easily accessible services.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
LTA embarked on the e-Services@ONE.MOTORING project to meet the increasing expectations of the various stakeholders such as the public and the motor industry and to create a new service paradigm for serving these stakeholders. The e-Services@ONE.MOTORING was developed to meet 5 main goals: (i)To provide vehicle owners and the public with self-help electronic services that meet their needs in terms of convenience, accessibility, reliability, security and transaction speed. (ii)To provide motor industry users, i.e. motor dealers, with the means to provide a one-stop service for their customers, by enabling them to submit and transact with LTA from their office or showroom. (iii)To take the opportunity to consolidate and integrate business functions on standalone PCs and other LTA systems as well as leveraging on the internet to deliver our transactional services more effectively through multiple access channels, and accept more electronic payment methods. (iv)To re-engineer and integrate our business processes both internally and with external partners to enhance productivity and regulatory effectiveness, such as more frequent or online updates of inspection results and insurance information, and obtaining information at source for accuracy and reducing repetitive data entry. (v)To be paperless, as far as possible, to facilitate electronic transactions. To achieve these 5 goals, LTA adopted the strategies, as described in the next section, to deliver one-stop e-services for all motoring needs of the public, the motor industry and LTA users.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
LEVERAGING ON TECHNOLOGY TO OFFER CUSTOMER SERVICES THAT ARE CONVENIENT AND ACCESSIBLE Moving away from the conventional service delivery method of having LTA transactions done at specified physical locations and during office hours, e-Services@ONE.MOTORING offers a wide array of services via internet and mobile technology to free up customers from the constraints of time and locality. The online services allow vehicle owners more access to detailed information on their vehicles and related assets e.g. due dates for renewal of road tax,, etc. There is also a wider range of online enquiry services such as enquiry of highest vehicle registration number that could be automatically assigned for registrations, a very popular service among vehicle buyers. In addition, a host of answers to Frequently-Asked- Questions are also made available online for easy access by the public. These have enabled LTA to make our policies and procedures more transparent. e-Services@ONE.MOTORING receives an average of 57,000 transactions on a weekday, with 60% from the use of free enquiry e-services, etc. The remaining 40% are business transactions, such as road tax renewals, vehicle registrations,etc. Of these, more than 50% are performed at the premises of motor dealers and other LTA-authorised service providers. BEING PRO-ENTERPRISE LTA adopted a consultative approach by actively soliciting and incorporating feedback/needs from stakeholders such as financial institutions, insurance agents and the motor trade industry. LTA played a pivotal role in facilitating the achievement of synergy in the business processes across the motor and finance industries. Based on these collaborative efforts, e-Services@ONE.MOTORING has been designed to be user-friendly and to facilitate the work of the motor and finance trade. Today, e-Services@ONE.MOTORING has become an essential business tool for the motor industry. With the introduction of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING, some 820 motor dealers have been appointed as Electronic Service Agents (ESAs) who would access e-Services@ONE.MOTORING to submit vehicle registrations, transfers and de-registrations, etc, to LTA for their own account or on behalf of their customers. There is now a more seamless transactional flow, enabling ESAs to provide a one-stop service for the buying and selling of vehicles. In fact, their customers can now register and drive a new car off from their vehicle showrooms in a shorter time. ADOPTING PAPERLESS REGIME AND OFFERING INTEGRATED SERVICES Through innovative use of technology, vehicle owners no longer need to submit documents such as inspection certificates, insurance certificates, etcor produce the vehicle registration card to effect transactions. More information is now made available on e-Services@ONE.MOTORING to ensure transparency in vehicle transactions. System-to-system interfaces with more than 30 external agencies such as Singapore Customs, Hire Purchase, Finance and Leasing Association of Singapore, etc are implemented for information sharing and to verify and obtain information from source, so as to provide seamless processing of transactions and to safeguard the interests of all parties involved in a transaction. This includes checking on the financing status of a vehicle before its transfer or de-registration to prevent unauthorised transactions, and use of transaction PIN to perform transactions involving change of ownership status of a vehicle or tax rebate.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
e-Services@ONE.MOTORING was launched on 28 February 2006. REDUCED NUMBER OF VISITS TO LTA AND PHONE ENQUIRIES Before the launch of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING, LTA attended to 850,000 walk-in visits and 900,000 phone enquiries annually. Most transactions were carried out during office hours and at our local offices. After the launch of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING, walk-in visits dropped by 30%, while phone enquiries reduced by 50% without any adverse impact on customer service. 20% of transactions are carried out after office hours with transactions such as the renewal of road tax carried out from overseas. Overall e-service usage has increased with online enquiries contributing a staggering 7-fold increase while online transactions registered a 5-fold increase. REDUCED PROCESSING TIME AND PAPERWORK Physical documents that LTA previously issued such as the vehicle registration card, rebate certificates, etc,were dispensed with. Instead, LTA has gone paperless, where vehicle-owners can easily access all vehicle related services at a click of the mouse through their SingPass or user ID issued by LTA with the assurance that all electronic transactions are secured. Motor and finance industries which depended heavily on physical documents leveraged on our system to re-engineer their processes to provide better service to their customers. This includes faster turnaround time to process vehicle loans and register vehicles. SECURED TRANSACTIONS e-Services@ONE.MOTORING offers varying levels of security access to protect the integrity and security of transactions and the confidentiality of information within its vehicle database, while still offering ease and friendliness of access. LEVEL: AUTHENTICATION MODE - PURPOSE 1: No individual Profile Required - General Access 2: ID & Vehicle Number - Personal vehicle related transaction or enquiry 3: ID, Password OR Singpass - Personal particulars or vehicle related transaction or enquiry 4: Token, Two-factor Authentication - ESAs 5: One-time PIN - Transferor disposal of assets EXTENDED SERVICE HOURS With e-Services@ONE.MOTORING available from 6 am till midnight daily, motor dealers can transact with LTA after office hours, leaving their office hours free to concentrate on their sales and marketing activities. GREATER PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY The availability of a comprehensive range of self-help online services has enabled LTA to reduce physical counters at our premises. With queues for counter services reduced, LTA has replaced single-transactional counters with multi-transactional counters for better customer service. LTA’s hotline (1800 CALL-LTA) has also seen a reduction in incoming calls as more online enquiry services are made available. The overall benefit to LTA is better deployment of manpower to handle more value-add work. MORE ACCESS CHANNELS Besides internet, other interaction channels for frequently accessed services such as mobile phones, PDAs and kiosks are also available. These various channels offer choice and flexibility for information access, online alerts and personalised services – anytime, anywhere. Electronic payment of road tax can also be performed be done through Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore (NETS) using two payment modes – e-NETS Debit or e-NETS Virtual Account. Tie up with AXS also allows motorists to renew road tax at over 350 AXS stations island-wide.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
LTA continually reviews and finetunes our processes to meet the challenges of an ever-changing business environment and increasing customer expectations. This involves the finetuning of the usability of our existing e-services and exploring new e-services to facilitate the vehicle registration and licensing processes. Some new services being explored include the integration with insurance companies for one-stop renewal of motor insurance and vehicle licences. We also hold quarterly dialogue sessions with the motor and finance industries to actively solicit their feedback on LTA’s policies and processes for continuous improvement of our e-services and processes. We had also held sharing sessions with various public sector agencies and the private sector, both locally and overseas, to share our experiences. They include: OVERSEAS Jun 2006 - * Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Singapore Cooperation Programme Training Awards and Small Islands Developing States Technical Cooperation Programme * Participating Countries included the Republic of Seychelles, Republic of Maldives, The Cook Islands, Republic of Palau, Barbados, etc. Mar 2006 - * Shanghai Informatization Commission LOCAL Jun 2006 - * Nanyang Technological University - MBA Program We had also participated in various conferences and exhibitions to share our experiences and to bring greater awareness to the motoring community. These conferences and exhibitions, which were attended by both overseas delegates and locals, included the World Roads Conference held in Singapore in September 2006, the Singapore Motorshow 2006 in November 2006 and the Public Service Exhibition in November 2006. In addition, we had garnered awards and recognition for the project. We were a semi-finalist in the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) Awards 2006, and a Merit Award winner for the National Infocomm Award (Singapore) in the category of Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology (Public Sector) in October 2006. We were also voted as one of the top 5 government projects in Singapore which exemplified the innovative achievements and constant dedication of the Singapore Public Service to serve its nation and citizens in a poll organised by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Division of Singapore in October 2006. Positive feedback was also received from the public and motor industry which is indicative of the success and sustainability of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING. Below are some examples of the feedback received: (i) "From the comfort of my home, e-Services@ONE.MOTORING allows me to access vehicle-related information anywhere, anytime. This ensures that I do not have any outstanding matters with LTA especially when I'm not home frequently to receive any reminders sent via post. At least I can now renew my road tax while I'm away from Singapore. The access speed is also reasonably fast." - Ms Toh Ah Quee, Operations Manager, Marine Boat Charter, Malaysia (ii) “It is more secure because only assigned and authorised company personnel are able to access the system given the strict procedures. And it’s certainly more convenient due to the smooth registration process online which eliminates transport costs and queuing time.” - Mr Idris Bin Kassim, Registration Supervisor, Performance Motors

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
In the course of extensively re-engineering our business processes, many challenges were met with lessons gleaned along the way. MANAGING PROJECT DEMANDS Being a mission-critical system that cuts across many business processes, e-Services@ONE.MOTORING required the involvement of different functional groups within LTA. The challenge was to meet the varied needs and diverse work nature such as information technology, finance, operations, etc. To ensure an integrated approach for the project, staff from the various functional groups worked closely together throughout the project life cycle. Teamwork and close collaboration were essential to overcome the difficulties of a project with such a massive scale. To ensure that e-Services@ONE.MOTORING would remain scalable to take on the heavy load on various highly-used services, the system architecture was built using a multi-tier framework with no single point of failure. Many rounds of stress tests were conducted to emulate the real environment, especially since the portal had to manage many popular services and heavy concurrent load. Thorough preparation and testing of the system performance were essential to ensure that the system is robust enough to handle the expected customer load when launched. MANAGING STAKEHOLDERS' EXPECTATIONS As vehicle registration and licensing operations affect the livelihood of stakeholders, especially the motor and finance industries, it was important to involve them early in the re-engineering and requirement gathering process. This ensured that the needs and concerns of all parties were addressed and incorporated in the new system, wherever possible. Focus groups were formed to solicit new requirements and were consulted on new approaches. Meetings with various motor trade associations were also held frequently to gather feedback and update them on the progress of the system development. The implementation of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING involved a paradigm shift from physical counter-based transactions to virtual electronic transactions which in turn entailed a shift in the mindset of the various stakeholders. This presented a challenge to the motor trade and finance industries, especially to those who are not IT-savvy. Hence, it was important to conduct testing and training early. Prior to the launch of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING, training was offered to over 700 motor trade agencies who had indicated an interest in being ESAs. Two rounds of trials were subsequently conducted for these ESAs to familiarise on the new processes and procedures. This offered all stakeholders the opportunity to identify any gaps in the new processes and further refine them to minimise disruption to their operations when the new services are launched. Intense publicity on the new processes and system was also done in the run up to the system launch. Brochures were distributed to all vehicle owners and a series of press advertisement and articles were commissioned to educate the public on the new features of the new system. In summary, teamwork, close collaboration with various stakeholders, thorough testing of the system and early education and training to the users were key ingredients in overcoming the inherent challenges of a large and complex project resulting in the successful launch of e-Services@ONE.MOTORING.


Institution Name:		Land Transport Authority of Singapore
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Teck Guan Yeo
Title:		Director, Vehicle Services
Telephone/ Fax:		(65)65535330
Institution's / Project's Website:		(65)65535329
E-mail:		teck_guan_yeo@lta.gov.sg
Address:		10, Sin Ming Drive
Postal Code:		575701
City:
State/Province:
Country:		Singapore

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information