Singapore City, Singapore

Singapore is a smart city because in the UMB smart future list for smart cities in Asia/Pacific it is the only city to achieve a top 5 ranking for all the components on the Smart City Wheel. Besides the fact that it is a clean and organised city it has the finest transportation networks of any city of its high density and other cities around the world can benefit from its experience according to a study “The Mobility Opportunity”.

It is a sophisticated Intelligent Transport System as there are many incentives that discourage people from using their own cars, like advanced the world’s first Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system that is essentially a mechanism that is an electronic road toll collection system that varies according to the traffic flow, when implemented was to replace their original Singapore Area Licensing Scheme. The benefits of the ERP system is that is optimises usage of the road network, there is no human error, minimises traffic volumes, provides a fair price for motorists, and there are no monthly or daily licences needed. Besides the ERP system being an incentive they have implemented a free public transportation in pre-morning peak hours. Separately from that they have extremely high permit and sales tax rate for new vehicles.

Singapore is the first smart city to develop a working driverless car that is unlike other driverless cars relies on low-cost LIDAR sensors which allow it to drive uncontrolled, and independent of GPS. Singapore collects a wide range of information or data about transport systems; they go as far as knowing where a vehicle is travelling, through the use of in-car devise.

Singapore has already implemented urban mobility solutions to improve train infrastructure, including replacing sleepers on train tracks island wide, and upgrading the signalling systems on train lines such as sensors on rail tracks, can predict when, and on which wheel, maintenance is required, ensuring train reliability.

With such an efficient transit system there aims to become the first Smart Nation by combining technology, people and policy to better their industry, governance, infrastructure and talent are attainable.

Author: Lamangwe Vezi

Editor: Zinhle Tshabalala

References:

Karlgaard, R. (2015) Smart-City Champions [Online] Forbes. Available from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2015/05/06/smart-city-champions/2/ [Accessed 04th April 2015]

Hatch, D. (2013) Singapore Strives to Become 'The Smartest City' [Online] Governing. Available from: http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/gov-singapore-smartest-city.html [Accessed 05th April 2015]

Sanserverino, ER., Sanserverino, RR., Vaccaro, V., Zizzo, G. (2014) Smart Rules For Smart Cities [Online] Springer International Publications. Available from: https://books.google.co.za/books?id=hM0lBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&dq=smart+city,+transport+singapore+article&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mfpSVZz-Jsvd7Qav7oMo&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=smart%20city%2C%20transport%20singapore%20article&f=false [Accessed 29th April 2015]