OBU guide

No OBU touchscreen? What you can still see

The ERP 2.0 touchscreen is optional, and plenty of drivers skipped it. Here is exactly what you gave up, what you didn’t, and the ways to get the information back.

Last reviewed September 2026

When ERP 2.0 rolled out, the touchscreen was the component people argued about — a third box in a car interior that was not designed around it. LTA made it optional: install all three components for the full on-screen experience, or skip the display and get the key information through a compatible mobile application instead.

A lot of drivers took the second option, and a fair number have since wondered what they signed up for. Here is the honest accounting.

What still works exactly the same

Almost everything. The touchscreen is a display, not the part that does the work:

  • You are charged normally. The antenna and processing unit handle positioning and payment; the screen was never involved.
  • Your stored-value card is still read and still deducted, from the same slot in the processing unit.
  • Traffic and road messages are still received by the unit.
  • Your trip totals, payment history and card status are all still tracked.

Declining the touchscreen did not give you a lesser OBU. It gave you an OBU with nothing attached to look at.

What you actually lose

One thing, and it is worth being clear-eyed about it: the glance. Without a screen in the car, everything the OBU knows is happening silently.

  • The charge as it happens. You no longer see the amount at the moment it is taken — you find out later, if you look.
  • Your card balance. This is the one that bites. A stored-value card that quietly runs down produces a failed deduction at the worst possible time, and nothing in the car warns you first.
  • Road and traffic alerts. Speed cameras, School and Silver Zones, bus lanes, accidents and closures are all still being received by your OBU — and none of them reach you. We catalogued the full set in every alert your OBU can show you, which is a slightly uncomfortable read if you have no screen.
  • The prevailing speed limit for the road you are on, along with your speed as the OBU measures it.

Two ways to get it back

1. A compatible mobile app

This is the route LTA pointed at when it made the screen optional, and it is free. You register your phone with your OBU once at ERP Online Services — a Singpass job that takes a few minutes, walked through in register your phone with your OBU — and the app can then read what the unit reports.

It genuinely solves the record-keeping half of the problem: charges, balance and history, all reviewable. What it does not solve is the driving half. A phone in your pocket shows you nothing, and a phone mounted on the windscreen running a foreground app is its own kind of distraction. Useful after the drive; weak during it.

2. A dedicated in-car display

The other answer is to put a screen back in the car — but a small one you choose the position of, rather than the one that came in the box. That is what Gantry Display is: a round AMOLED screen powered by a single USB-C cable, paired to your phone over Bluetooth, showing what the OBU reports.

  • The charge amount as the deduction happens.
  • Your card balance, always visible or only when it matters, blinking when it drops below a threshold you set.
  • Speed and the prevailing limit.
  • Road-sign and traffic alerts, with control over which categories appear and how long each stays.

Your phone still has to be in the car — it is the bridge between the OBU and the display — but it stays in your pocket and the app runs in the background. It’s S$200, sold as an early-access product, and it’s an independent one: not an official upgrade, not affiliated with or endorsed by LTA. See what it shows.

What nothing can give you back

Worth knowing before you buy anything from anyone. The interface LTA publishes for third-party apps is read-only. Any app or display can show you what the OBU reports; none of them can send anything back to it. In practice that means:

  • You cannot enable or disable a stored-value card from an app.
  • You cannot change the OBU’s payment mode or settings from an app.
  • You cannot top up the card through an app.

Those all remain with the OBU itself and LTA’s own channels. This is a property of the interface, not a feature any product will add later — treat a claim otherwise as a red flag.

If you haven’t decided yet

Still to be installed, or holding an appointment? The trade is straightforward. Taking the touchscreen gets you the full set of on-screen functions with nothing else to buy, at the cost of a fixed unit positioned where it fits rather than where you want it. Declining it keeps your dashboard clean and leaves you free to choose how you see the information — provided you actually choose something, rather than driving blind by default.

Either way, installation is free during the roll-out programme, and every Singapore-registered vehicle needs an OBU by 1 January 2027. More context in ERP 2.0 and your OBU, explained.

Already have the touchscreen? Gantry is not only for people who skipped it — it shows the same information, at a size and position you pick, with the layout under your control. But if the stock screen is working for you where it sits, you don’t need us, and we would rather say so.

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