Singapore footpath wars: Why reclaiming car space could solve the PMD and PMA problem

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
This is a podcast by The Straits Times.

**Lynda Hong** (0:09)
New rules for Personal Mobility Aids, or PMAs, have officially kicked in from June 1st. If you're under 70 and riding a mobility scooter, you now need a certificate of medical need, and speeds have been slashed to 6 kilometers per hour. These rules were introduced after years of pedestrians brushing shoulders with PMAs and other active mobility devices on our paths. But instead of squeezing pedestrians and riders onto tiny pavements, could we reclaim our car lanes to build a true sweat-free transport network for our first and last mile commutes?
Hello, I'm Lynda Hong, Assistant Podcast Editor of The Straits Times. Welcome to In Your Opinion. In this episode, I'm joined by Associate Professor Yap Fook Fah, Director from the Transport Center at NTU, to discuss how we can improve active mobility.
Welcome to the show, Professor.

**Yap Fook Fah** (1:05)
Hi, Lynda. Thanks for having me.

**Lynda Hong** (1:07)
Okay, Prof.
In recent years, we've seen many classifications of active mobility devices. You have PMAs, you have personal mobility devices like e-scooters as well, kick scooters, then you also have personal assisted bikes. From a transport planning perspective, is there a need for so many classifications?

**Yap Fook Fah** (1:30)
So, Lynda, I think to be honest, sometimes I get a little bit confused myself. Maybe, let me try to break it down a little bit for you. So, the most helpful way I like to think about this is to look at the design intention of the various devices.
So, take PMA, personal mobility aids. So, these are designed for people with mobility issues. So, they are like wheelchairs but electrified. Okay, so they are a little bit heavier, usually have four wheels, now go a bit slower. Okay, and they are used typically on footpaths or shared paths. Okay, so then we also have the PABs, the power assisted bicycles. So, basically these are designed to be like bicycles. They are bicycles but with electric power assist.
Now, you know that we know bicycles very well. They are old technology and there are lots of safety standards for bikes. So, we know the characteristics of these bikes very well. So, therefore, they are allowed on the roads, right? Because we know how they behave as a mechanical device.
And then we have this entirely new breed of micro mobility devices. And we lump them all together, we call them personal mobility devices. And so, we have these electric scooters, the stand up scooters. But we also have like segue type devices.

**Lynda Hong** (2:58)
And the scooters, some of them also come with seats.

**Yap Fook Fah** (3:00)
Yeah, seats without seats, so we have a lot of form factors. So in fact, they all lump together. And, but the problem is they could be very different in structure, in the geometry and the design from bicycles. So that's why they are usually not allowed on the roads to mix with the heavy traffic, because we don't really know whether they are that safe to mix with the heavier traffic, like cars, motorcycles, higher speed.
So, yeah, so that's basically the gist of why we have these different classifications.

**Lynda Hong** (3:35)
And just now, instead of talking, mentioning PBAs as power-mobile, power-assisted bikes, I said personal-assisted bikes, which adds on to this confusion as well. So, there's so many classifications. You feel that we are overregulating. And also, I also like to mention LTA also has another classification of the roads. We have shared paths, we have pedestrian-only paths, and then we have footpaths, and then we have roads.
Is this too much regulation already? If we make these devices too difficult to use, and the only comfortable alternative is buying a car, are we accidentally making mobility a luxury that only the rich can afford?

**Yap Fook Fah** (4:24)
Yeah, I think that it could be quite overwhelming for somebody who just wants to use the device, right? So there seems to be so many rules, and so many types of paths and so on. But when we talk about PMAs, I think we need to acknowledge that some of the concerns are quite real.
There are safety concerns on the footpaths, because these PMAs, including mobility scooters, they are quite large and heavy, like the size of a golf cart buggy. And so you're running it on the paths, and at a speed that is quite a lot higher than a walking speed. So there's a safety concern. And then there's a concern about a battery fire, especially when these devices are charged at home.

**Lynda Hong** (5:09)
For the power-assisted bikes or PMAs as well.

**Yap Fook Fah** (5:12)