Singapore licence plates
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Motor vehicle licence plates in Singapore are administered by the Land Transport Authority. In general, all licence plates numbers in Singapore come with the vehicular registration number, suffixed by the official reference in the form of a letter of the alphabet. Thus, current car numbers may be in the form of SDZ1234A, of which "SDZ1234" is the registration number, while "A" is a checksum digit (i.e. a digit that helps prevent countefeiting of number plates). Characters "F", "I", "N", "O", "Q", "V" and "W" are never used as check digit.
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[edit] Types of numbers
Private car licence plate numbers began in the early days with a Single Prefix S, moving on to SB to SY, skipping a few like SH (reserved for taxis), SJ, SZ. After SY, Cars start with E, Motobikes with F and Goods Vehicle with G. E was followed by EA, EB with the letters EC in 1973 up till EZ. From 1984, the "S" series of number plates were launched again, starting from SBA. Currently, the SGS series are available for selection for private cars.
Other classes of vehicles have registration numbers beginning with specific letters:
- A series: Motorcycles (used until 1980)
- CB series: Company or school buses
- F series: Motorcycles
- FB series: Motorcycles [Ex. FBA, FBB...], m/cycle plate started in end of Dec 2005
- G series: Goods vehicles (class 3) [GA-GZ,GBA..GBB]etc
- P series: Private buses (PA, PB, PH, PZ were used to separate Private bus, Pte Hire etc, subsequently they were not issued and all are issued under PA
- Q series: Company vehicles (QBx, QCx etc, except QX and QY)
- SH series: Taxies or Street Hire vehicles
- W series: Heavy vehicles (class 5) (Currently issuing WC)
- X series: Heavy vehicles (class 5) (Currently issuing XD)
- Y series: Heavy vehicles (class 3/4/5)
In addition, the following are controlled for specific types of vehicles, including:
- S/CC: Vehicles of the Consular Corps
- S/CD: Vehicles of the Diplomatic Corps
- S/TE: "Technical Employment" vehicles
- CSS: City Shuttle Service buses
- MID: Singapore Armed Forces vehicles (suffix), originally stood for Ministry of Interior and Defence.
- QX: Law enforcement-related vehicles operated by government agencies (Singapore Police Force, Singapore Civil Defence Force, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, etc)
- QY: Quasi-Government / Statutory Boards
- RD: Research & Development (like fuel-cell cars, smart car rental cars)
- ROV: Registry of Vehicles, now known as LTA [Land Transport Authority]
- RU: Restricted Use vehicles, a special category where taxes are not paid. A vehicle with such a licence restricted to certain areas, for example a pushback truck within Singapore Changi Airport grounds or on Sentosa Island.
- SAFPU: Vehicles operated by the Singapore Armed Forces Military Police Command
- SBS: Buses operated by SBS Transit
- SEP: "Singapore Elected President" - The Official Car of The President of the Republic of Singapore (SEP 1)
- SP: "Speaker of Parliament" (SP 1)
- SJ: Supreme Court Justices - With the Chief Justice's car displaying plate number "SJ 1", and so on.
- S1 & S3: "State Cars" - Used for ferrying high government officials or foreign dignitaries during State functions.
- SPF: Police commissioner of the Singapore Police Force (SPF1)
- TIB: Buses operated by SMRT Buses
- TP: Motorcycles of the Traffic Police Department, Singapore Police Force
- SZ/SZA: Rental vehicle. No new issues. New Hire/Rental cars use same series as normal cars
Special prefixes were used for specific events, such as:
- WTO: For vehicles used during the World Trade Organization's inaugural Ministerial Conference held in Singapore in December 1996
- IOC: For vehicles used during the International Olympic Committee's 117th Session held in Singapore in July 2005
- NDP: For vehicles used during the National Day Parade, 2005, in August 9, 2005.
- SAA: For vehicles used during Asian Aerospace.
[edit] Middle Digit SEX scandal
There was some speculation as to whether the Singapore government would continue the SDZ series to its next logical sequence - i.e. SEA and then on to SEX etc... Apparently the government decided to adopt the policy of using no vowels in the middle digit to avoid meaningful 3 letter word combinations. Indeed there was never a SA sequence issued (the S sequence started with SBA), although this was because the West Coast Division of Sabah state in Malaysia was already (and still is) using the SA sequence.
[edit] Personalised Registrations
The Land Transport Authority has announced they may begin implementing the use of personal registration licence plates (Vanity plates) as early as late 2007, and are currently working on the details of the plan. These licence plates may take up to 12 characters compared to the current eight.[1] For now, there is a thriving trade in the sale of number plates that have significant digits (i.e. lucky numbers) or letter combinations like SGD.
[edit] Colours
[edit] Private Vehicles
People who register their car as a private vehicle may choose between a white one in the front plate, and a yellow one in the back plate or a black number plate on both sides.
[edit] Off-peak Vehicles
Vehicles reqistered as "Off-peak Vehicles", also known as "Weekend Cars", pay a cheaper road tax as compared to commercial vehicles, although COE charges still apply as with the commercial vehicles. They display number plates with white characters on a red background. These vehicles are only allowed to run on the roads in Singapore after office hours (7pm-7am) on weekdays, after 3pm on Saturdays and all day on Sunday and public holidays.
In the case where owners of private vehicles choose to run on the roads on weekdays during office hours, they are required to buy a calendar coupon at $20 each. Cars owners who buy such coupons are only limited to run on the roads in Singapore for up to five working days. Doing so after the five days constitutes an offence which attracts a fine and $20 surcharge.
Off-peak vehicles pay a relatively lower road tax (a discount of up to $800) as compared to other private vehicles and are also given rebate of $17,000 which can be offset against COE and ARF.
Even so, majority of the people in Singapore do not use Off-peak vehicles.
[edit] Commercial Vehicles
Light Goods Vehicles and Goods cum Passenger Vehicles uses the G series prefix. From G to GA through GZ, and the GBA, current issue is GBA.
[edit] Official Vehicles
[edit] Other categories
"Restricted Use" vehicles display a number plate with a diagonal red and green pattern with white letters with the two lead characters "RU".
"Classic Car" vehicles display a number plate with white lettering on red and yellow background, with seal affixed on number plate by an authorised inspection centre.
[edit] References
- ^ "Name your own plates soon for Singapore Cars", "The Straits Times" March 26, 2007
