SINGAPORE — Drivers heading into the Orchard Road shopping belt will soon have to watch the ERP gantries again.
Electronic Road Pricing charges will return to the Orchard area on weekdays from September 7, 2026, ending more than six years in which the Orchard cordon remained unpriced following the COVID-19 circuit breaker.
The Land Transport Authority said on Monday, August 31, that a S$1 weekday ERP charge will resume across 11 locations forming the Orchard cordon after congestion persisted and traffic speeds remained below optimal levels.
But for motorists, the bigger question may be what happens next.
LTA revealed that traffic speeds on Saturdays have also remained persistently below optimal levels since October 2025, meaning weekend ERP charges could eventually return as well. The authority will monitor conditions during the coming quarter before deciding whether Saturday operations should resume.
The 11 Orchard ERP locations
The S$1 weekday charge will apply at locations covering:
- Buyong Road
- Cairnhill Road
- Clemenceau Avenue
- Killiney Road
- Kramat Road
- Orchard Link
- Orchard Road
- Orchard Turn
- Oxley Road
- YMCA
- Fort Canning Tunnel
LTA considers 20km/h to 30km/h the optimal traffic-speed range for arterial roads. Orchard traffic has remained below that benchmark since October 2025, according to the authority.
That deterioration was not sudden.
LTA first publicly flagged the worsening Orchard situation earlier in 2026. In March, the agency said speeds in the district were persistently below optimal levels. By May, it warned that ERP could be reinstated if congestion deteriorated further.
The latest announcement shows that warning has now turned into action.
Orchard Link and Bideford Road were already flashing warning signs
Earlier reporting by The Straits Times provided another clue about where the congestion pressure was building.
Responding to the newspaper in May, LTA said traffic speeds had been persistently below optimal levels on both weekdays and Saturdays, particularly around the Orchard Link and Bideford Road corridor.
The authority said at the time that if speeds remained below 20km/h for a sustained period, it would reactivate the Orchard cordon.
AsiaOne and Mothership also reported LTA’s earlier warning that Orchard could lose its ERP-free status if conditions continued to worsen between June and September.
That threshold has now effectively been reached.
Why was Orchard ERP removed in the first place?
Orchard Road was not traditionally an ERP-free zone.
Charging was suspended during Singapore’s COVID-19 circuit breaker in April 2020, when travel demand collapsed. While ERP pricing subsequently returned at congested expressway locations as traffic recovered, the Orchard cordon remained at zero for more than six years.
Before the pandemic, ERP had long been used to discourage unnecessary through-traffic in the shopping district.
LTA has previously explained that the system is not designed mainly as a revenue-raising tool but as a congestion-management mechanism: motorists who can change their route, departure time or mode of transport are encouraged to do so when roads become overloaded.
Historically, Saturday ERP charging in Orchard is also nothing new. The district previously had charges on Saturdays, with LTA arguing that pricing was necessary to keep traffic moving within the 20km/h-to-30km/h target range.
So if Saturday charging does return, it would effectively restore another part of Orchard’s pre-pandemic traffic-management regime.
Orchard isn’t LTA’s only congestion problem
The same August 31 announcement contained another warning for drivers.
LTA said heavy traffic on the Central Expressway before Braddell Road has been extending further into the weekday morning, reaching into the late-morning period.
If that congestion persists, the authority said it could extend ERP operating hours there as well.
That points to a broader pattern: rather than simply increasing prices at existing peaks, LTA is prepared to expand when and where ERP applies when congestion lasts longer.
And then comes ERP 2
There is another reason the Orchard announcement matters.
Singapore is preparing to transition to the satellite-based ERP 2 system from January 1, 2027. Under ERP 2, physical gantries will eventually be progressively removed and vehicles’ On-Board Units will use satellite positioning to support road charging and provide features such as advance ERP alerts.
That means Orchard’s old-style ERP gantries are being brought back into active use only months before Singapore enters a new era of electronic road pricing.
ERP 2 does not automatically mean distance-based road charging will begin on January 1. LTA says the technology can support different future congestion-management policies, including distance-based charging, but such options are separate policy decisions.
For now, the immediate message to drivers is much simpler.
From September 7, Orchard Road is no longer an ERP-free zone on weekdays.
And if weekend traffic does not improve, Saturday motorists may be next.
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