Driving the future of Singapore's urban mobility with open data

SELF-DRIVING vehicles may become a norm sooner than expected. This is especially so as Singapore identified the development and deployment of autonomous vehicles as one of its key focus areas for the recently launched Asean Smart Cities Network at the Asean Summit 2018.

Driverless buses are expected to shuttle commuters around Punggol, Tengah and the Jurong Innovation District by 2022. Those who can't wait till then can take the Auto Riders at Gardens by the Bay to experience what it is like to ride an autonomous vehicle. Equipped with navigation sensors, each Auto Rider can transport up to 10 passengers along a route predetermined by the operator.

The benefits to commuters are obvious: better mobility as well as safer and less congested roads as driverless vehicles are programmed to follow traffic rules and travel at optimal speed. However, those benefits can only be realised when there is enough availability of accurate data.