LTA partners SUTD to set up fourth Transport Research Centre

The purpose of the centre will be to leverage advances in technology and innovation to address current and future challenges in the land transport sector.

The Transport Research Centre (TRC) will be the fourth of such bodies established by the LTA in partnership with local universities, as part of efforts to build up a strong core of research and development capabilities within Singapore’s land transport sector.

The new LTA-SUTD TRC will foster collaborative research in key areas such as cybersecurity, automation and robotics, data analytics, behavioural studies and user-centric design in transport solutions.

In particular, the TRC will focus on issues pertinent to Singapore’s context, such as its ageing population, land scarcity and rising travel demand for public transport. It will leverage SUTD’s expertise in multi-disciplinary design and technology, transportation, cybersecurity and Internet of Things to provide new dimensions to transport research.

Singapore’s Transport Research Centres

Following LTA’s establishment of TRCs with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) in November 2015, a total of 33 research projects on topics such as active mobility, autonomous and electric vehicles, and condition-based rail maintenance have been funded and carried out.

Some successes which have since been scaled up include:

• A collaborative research project between LTA and the NUS TRC to develop an innovativenoise mitigation solution for construction sites. These noise barriers are currently being used at the East Coast stretch of the Thomson-East Coast Rail Line, and will also be deployed at future construction sites.
• A project by the NTU TRC on signage design, which takes into account the evolving user experience using a quantitative approach. This project has been recognised by the International Institute for Information Design Award and accorded the Bronze award (Research Category).

At the same time, LTA is also working with the SIT TRC on ongoing projects relating to condition monitoring and rail reliability. The Transport Systems and Systems Engineering Laboratories, launched in February 2017, aim to enhance laboratory-based teaching and application-focused research in the areas of systems engineering, modelling and simulation.

“By tapping on the research expertise of our higher-learning institutions, we can deepen our research capabilities, and accelerate the development of innovative solutions for the transport challenges of today as well as tomorrow.”