This paper explores the dynamics of the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) innovation in Singapore, tracing its implementation to subsequent diffusion to delineate the links between technology and society. The ERP system, introduced in 1998, is an elaborate and sophisticated toll collecting system using ICTs to regulate road usage. We use the actor–network theory (ANT) as a conceptual tool to analyse the dynamics of this innovation. Through a detailed examination of both human and non‐human actors, we are able to analyse how interests of heterogeneous members of a societal network can be aligned to introduce a technological innovation. In the process, we have observed issues arising from the differential power relationship that exists between road users and government planners as well as the integration of the social and technical aspects of this emerging socio‐technological system. As an emergent technology, the ERP innovation system reflects the social morphology of Singapore as it plays out its part in the making of this nascent nation.

PAGES
209 – 226
DOI
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Issues
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Agnes Horvath, Magic and the Will to Science: A Political Anthropology of Liminal Technicality
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Gibson Burrell, Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley and Friends, Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at our Universities
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Bas de Boer, How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice
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Bjørn Lomborg, False Alarm
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How does innovation arise in the bicycle sector? The users’ role and their betrayal in the case of the ‘gravel bike’
More than electronic toll booths: Singapore’s electronic road pricing innovation
Original Articles