SINGAPORE - Mr Low usually leaves his car parked on the left side of the road outside his semi-detached house near Bukit Panjang.

But every Tuesday the 50-year-old businessman shifts his car to the opposite side so a road-sweeping vehicle, can clean the left side of the roughly 100m-long street.

Then on Thursday, residents are supposed to park on the left so the road-sweeper can return to clean the right side of the road. At least that is how the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) Alternate Roadside Parking programme is supposed to work in theory on cleaning days, in the 33 areas where it has been rolled out.

The problem here and elsewhere is that residents such as Mr Low are among the few who comply with NEA’s instructions on which side of the road to park.

These residents told The Straits Times the well-meaning initiative could be much more effective if more people complied with NEA’s instructions.

NEA launched this programme, which requires private landed estate residents to park on alternate sides on cleaning days, in 2019 and will expand it to 12 more areas this year, ST reported on Jan 5.

The agency said the programme has cut cleaning times by 50 to 80 per cent as all roads in private landed estates used to be swept manually by cleaners.

But some residents said patchy compliance has meant that leaves and debris are left on the uncleaned side of the road. And workers are deployed to blow and sweep leaves from under cars, and into the path of the mechanised road sweeper.

ST spoke to residents living in 12 locations under the programme, most of whom said most of their neighbours do not follow NEA’s advice on where to park because they find it hard to remember, troublesome or confusing.

Others said they were not aware of the programme.

Mr Low, who wanted to be known by his surname, said nearly all residents on his street still park on the left side of the road on Tuesdays, when they are supposed to park on the right.

“The irony is... I sometimes end up blocking the road even though I bothered to move to the correct side,” said Mr Low, whose family has two other cars that they park in their driveway.

“At times, I’ve had to move my car back to the left side of the road so that the sweeper truck can pass. It defeats the point of the initiative if not all ...