Analyses
15 nov 18

A glance in the future: Singapore

Singapore’s Intelligent Transport Society and the ministry of transport or “Land Transport Authority (LTA)”, has a strategic plan towards 2030 that is being carefully executed since 2014. It will help Singapore cope with a changing and growing population and a higher demand for mobility.

Reducing the strategic plan into a couple of taglines, it’s built around the following principles:

  • Public transport is the baseline. Therefore PT needs to be a true alternative to the private vehicle: good coverage, comfortable
  • Reliance on private vehicles need to decrease
  • Big Data contributes to a positive experience
  • Vehicles are connected with other vehicles and with infrastructure
  • Vehicles are autonomous
  • Alternative power sources are used
  • The mobility ecosystem is unlocked for new suppliers, tools, platforms and investors

Motivated new players

Singapore’s collaborative vision has accelerated Private-Public Participations and start-ups, all recreating infrastructure between the touch points of a passenger’s journey. Blockchain has been identified as the tool to connect suppliers, users, vehicles and grids through smart contracts and secured workflows.

Strategic focal points

Singapore has defined 4 focal areas that lay the foundation for initiatives and programmes and that will steer the city-state towards achieving its vision. These areas are: Informative, Interactive, Assistive and Green Mobility.

  • Informative. Breakthroughs in sensor technologies enhance the quality and frequency of data collection and allows for a dynamic processing/analysing of Big Data. Well analysed data can return reliable, timely and relevant to the traveller via generic reachout (radio, digital signage, web pages) but also to individual end users. Singapore wants this information to be simple and easy to understand; users need to be able to make quick and informed decisions.
  • Interactive. Singapore is already one of the most connected countries in the world. Nevertheless, the LTA’s vision is that through enhanced connectivity, i.e. the number of “mobile sensors”, mobile devices capable of collecting and sharing data, the transport infrastructure can react better to the user’s travel preferences without human intervention. An interesting tool is data crowd surfing; the user shares data, collects points and converts these points into coins that can be used to commute.
  • Assistive. Connected transportation overcomes the limitations from isolated data. This is particularly helpful in transport safety management. Users can be warned in early stage of potential dangers (proactive and reactive), traffic can be diverted to less congested roads and, in case of a train breakdown, alternative transport can be organised in a split second. Another key area of Assistive is the integration of autonomous vehicles, which Singapore is embracing.
  • Green Mobility. Although Singapore is already discouraging cars via high taxation, it is destined to continue its efforts to reduce traffic generated air pollution. Public transport needs to become even more comfortable and a preferred mode of traveling. In general, the ICE needs to be avoided and replaced by, at least hybrid. Vehicles however are not the only items that need power. Traffic infrastructure, sensors, data centres also absorb a lot of energy. Singapore is looking into alternative power sources here as well: solar, renewable energy is one solution, building energy efficient data centres is another.

A tripartite collaboration

Singapore has opened up its 2030 strategy to public agencies, industry players and academic/research institutions. All contributions are welcomed and anyone is invited to participate in the many tenders that Singapore has included in its strategy. The end goal is to access as many skill sets as possible and achieve the goals as soon as possible.

Obviously, Singapore is not the only country with a vision and a mobility plan. Nevertheless, Singapore is not like other countries. It’s managed with extreme diligence, enterprise-level governance and by highly trained and motivated people. Working in the public sector in Singapore pays just as well as the private sector, if not better. This creates a unique context in which strategic plans, such as this one, will be executed to perfection.

Authored by: Yves Helven