For the first time, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has sold the right to manage and operate advertising spaces at about 120 pedestrian overhead bridges, underpasses and covered linkways.
A 10-year contract starting from Jan 1, 2024 was awarded on Tuesday (Nov 14) to Stellar Experience, a subsidiary of public transport operator SMRT.
Previously, bus and taxi shelter advertising spaces were tendered out as two separate contracts. The two advertising concessions awarded to Clear Channel Singapore and JC Decaux Singapore will expire in December 2023 and March 2025 respectively.
The new contract is the first time LTA has consolidated the advertising concessions for bus and taxi shelters into a single contract. The contract also includes advertising spaces at about 120 pedestrian overhead bridges, underpasses and covered linkways.
“This is the first time LTA is including pedestrian overhead bridges, pedestrian underpasses and covered linkways for advertising,” LTA said on Thursday in response to CNA’s queries.
“We therefore decided to start on a smaller scale to test the advertising potential of these newly-included assets.”
LTA added that the advertising spaces are situated in locations such as commercial-mixed use developments and industrial estates.
“The locations of these selected assets were decided after consultation with relevant agencies,” the authority said.
The updating, installation and maintenance of bus stop poles are also included as part of the contract.
“Consolidation of bus and taxi shelter assets, and the inclusion of additional advertising assets into single contract will provide the advertising operator with greater scale and enable the advertising operator to sell across multiple platforms,” said LTA.
“This will help to boost advertising revenue, and in turn the concession fees.”
The concession fees collected will be contributed to the government’s consolidated funds.
LTA received seven proposals from four bidders for the tender. Besides Stellar Experience, the other three were Clear Channel Singapore, JC Decaux Singapore, and Moove Media.
The authority said that Stellar Experience was assessed to have submitted the strongest overall proposal, with a competitive bid of about S$270 million (US$200 million) in concession fees over the concession term.
Proposals were evaluated on their quality, whether tenderers are able to maintain the bus stops and taxi shelters per LTA’s requirements, as well as their ability to generate non-fare revenue from these road assets, it added.
CNA
