COMMENTARY

Smart Transport System & City-Industry Integrated Development Are the Future

By Lee Jian Xing, Dr Wu Xian & Dr Zhang Qingyu

Urban life in this disruptive era is getting more dynamic, and cities are becoming denser and more complex. Effective planning can be achieved by building an integrated transport system and prioritising the link between city and industry. The first part of this commentary addresses the role of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) in gearing towards a smart city and the second describes how Singapore centres its development around its growing industry.

MOBILITY-as-a-SERVICE (MaaS) & SMART CITY

MaaS is often defined as a commuter-centric model of transportation that offers on-demand, real-time platform, which includes any combination of transport methods such as car, bike sharing and taxis; and provides everything for the commuter from travel planning to payments. It attempts to break the isolation works from government transport agencies, service providers and transport operators, and to bring them closer to customers.

A report by Deloitte stated that 66 per cent of populations will stay in urban areas by 20501. By offering commuters with different transportation modes, MaaS aims to reduce the reliance on private cars and encourage public transport; hence it reduces congestion, air pollutions and CO2 emissions2. This potentially helps to move people in a cleaner, cheaper and faster option.


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Lee Jian Xing, Principal Consultant, Smart City Solutions

Lee Jian Xing has over 10 years of experience in creating ideas and strategies for smart technologies adoption. In Surbana Jurong, he has been involved in more than 20 smart cities, solutioning and National Research Funding (NRF) R&D projects. He brings people- and business-centric perspectives to the practice and contextualises proposals for governments and other stakeholders. Lee develops smart cities solutions by partnering with different parties in the ecosystem to curate solutions and services for clients and to innovate cutting-edge technologies.


Dr Wu Xian, Senior Executive Engineer (Transport), Civil & Environmental Engineering

Dr Wu Xian is currently the technical lead of the transport planning team at Surbana Jurong. He obtained his PhD in Transportation Systems and Management from National University of Singapore. His research includes Intelligent Transport System (ITS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Transport System Modelling & Optimisation. He has been actively involved in over 50 projects including urban planning, smart city planning, traffic impact assessment, public transport studies, airport and seaport transport studies, smart mobility and big data.


Dr Zhang Qingyu, Director, Economic & Industrial Planning

With over 30 years of experience in research, engineering design and urban master planning, as well as a doctorate in philosophy from the National University of Singapore (2001), Dr Zhang Qingyu is currently a director in the master planning division at Surbana Jurong. His expertise is on these key areas: infrastructure engineering; port plan and design; regional strategic and industrial positioning studies; master plans for industrial towns; and marine hydrodynamic and pollutant transport fate modelling. Dr Zhang has held leadership positions, where he led a group of engineers, planners and architects to work on over 100 local and overseas projects, especially in China.


REFERENCES

  1. Warwick Goodall, Tiffany Dovey Fishman, Justine Bornstein and Brett Bonthron (2017). The rise of mobility as a service. Deloitte Review. Issue 20.
  2. Eoin Bannon (2018). Transport and Environment. Integrating new mobility services in urban transport
  3. Matt Cole (2018). Mobility as a Service: Putting transit front and centre of the conversation. CUBIC Transportation Systems