Among the countries in Asia, Singapore has been one of the earliest adopters of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). “As a land-scarce nation, expanding of the road network to meet the growing mobility demand has always been a major transportation challenge facing the city, and optimizing the road capacity within
Among the countries in Asia, Singapore has been one of the earliest adopters of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). “As a land-scarce nation, expanding of the road network to meet the growing mobility demand has always been a major transportation challenge facing the city, and optimizing the road capacity within the existing road network has always been a priority for the transport authority,” said Andrew Chow, President of Intelligent Transport Society of Singapore.
To address these issues, Singapore has long turned to ITS as a solution. “The early adoptions of ITS solution include the EMAS (Expressway Monitoring and Advisory System) that manages traffic along our expressways. Its primary objectives are to provide better incident response capability as well as improve safety on the expressway. The ability to better manage traffic incident on the road helps authority to mitigate possible congestion that may arise due to any traffic incidents,” he said.
“One of the major success cases of adoption of ITS technologies to manage traffic demand, and hence congestion, in the city is the deployment of the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system,” Chow added. “Advancement and maturity of technology, especially in the area of connected vehicle, communication and vehicle positioning through GPS, has enabled the city to develop the next-generation ERP system. This new system will allow the transport authority to manage traffic congestion effectively while providing the technology platform to develop useful value-added services that bring greater convenience to motorists and manage incidents on the roads. The new Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based ERP system, in development phase now, will allow for more flexibility in managing traffic congestion through distance-based road pricing, where motorists are charged according to the distance travelled on congested roads. A new on-board unit (OBU) will replace the existing in-vehicle unit (IU) and can also be used to deliver additional services to motorists. For example, transport authority will be able to disseminate traffic advisories through the OBU.”
According to Chow, today the city state faces a set of new challenges, including an ageing population and the changing commuter expectations and norms among the millennium generation. In order to meet the need of such diverse population to get to places faster and enjoy greater comfort, the country's transport authority has worked to improve the coverage and service quality of the public transport network, at the same time providing more modes of transportation. In this regard, Singapore has again turned to ITS, Chow said.
“For example, the Intelligent Bus Management System has been adopted to improve the service quality of the public bus system, as well as information sharing through mobile apps myTransport to provide real-time public transport information to enhance travel experience. Growing popularity of mobile apps/devices, ePayment, and the maturity of commercial GPS location technology has also sped up the popularity of multi-modal mobility concept such as shared car/bike and on-demand transport service such as Uber and Grab,” he said.
Finally, Chow mentions that Singapore has been actively working with research institutions and industry partners to conduct research, development and test-bedding of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, application and solution. “For example, the Singapore Autonomous Vehicle Initiative (SAVI) is a joint partnership between the transport authority and institutions to provide a technical platform for industry partners and stakeholders to conduct R&D and test-bedding of AV technology, applications and solutions,” he said.