BESIDES the new ERP system, Transport Minister Raymond Lim also announced a slew of other upcoming transport developments.

These will come in especially useful for residents living in the North-South corridor.

The first move that will help ease congestion in the area is the opening up of the rest of the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) on Sept 20.

About 3km of the expressway - from Sims Avenue to Fort Road on the East Coast Parkway - was opened in October last year.

When it is fully opened, the 12km expressway will link neighbourhoods in the north-eastern part of Singapore like Buangkok, Bartley and Tampines to the Pan Island Expressway (PIE) and the city. The KPE was built at the cost of $1.74 billion.

And to complement the KPE, another new expressway - the North-South Expressway (NSE) - will be built by 2020.

It will span 21km and costs between $7 billion and $8 billion. It will run parallel to the Central Expressway (CTE) and will be Singapore's 11th expressway.

The NSE is expected to cut travel time to the city for residents in the North by 30 per cent.

Currently, the $2.5 billion Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) is also on track for completion by 2013. It is a key expressway supporting the development of the Marina Bay.

Existing expressways and roads will also be widened.

By 2011, the CTE will be widened with an extra lane from Jalan Toa Payoh to Yio Chu Kang. Improvements will also be made to the north-bound CTE entry to the PIE where traffic merges.

Meanwhile, for car-owners and potential buyers, some good news announced yesterday include a road tax cut of 15 per cent across the board.

Mr Lim said this is to show that the ERP is not for raising government revenue, and the cut will cost the Government $110 million a year.

But to curb vehicle population growth, the number of Certificates of Entitlement (COE) to buy vehicles will be cut from 3 per cent to 1.5 per cent a year from 2009.