INTEGRATING NEW TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGIES IN SINGAPORE'S CITY PLANNING

Abstract

Autonomous Vehicles, Electric Vehicles, Connected Vehicles, and Artificial Intelligence are some of the most significant forms of new transportation technologies that exist today. The eventual adoption of these technologies is inevitable as governments seek to build a “smart city”. Although Singapore’s transportation network ranks amongst the best in the world, it faces existing and upcoming challenges to which new transportation technologies have the potential to act as solutions. The urban environment will subsequently be reshaped because transportation is inextricably linked with city planning due to its impacts on the functionality, spatial development, social mobility, economy, and environmental sustainability of a city. This paper reviews the potential positive and negative outcomes of new transportation technologies through scenario analysis, assessing their impacts on cities in terms of traffic flow, urban structure, transportation emissions and active mobility. Quantitative studies reviewed provide numerical evidence on impacts such as emissions, while qualitative studies reviewed provide a wider overview of potential outcomes, linking them to the field of city planning. The findings are then synthesised and applied to the context of Singapore. This paper finds that Singapore is well-prepared to adopt new transportation technologies which have the potential to solve the transportation challenges that the country faces. Furthermore, the extent and degree to which the positive and negative outcomes would manifest themselves in the local context is elucidated before methods of implementation are discussed along with the accompanying measures required to manage the resultant effects.