Features

Transportation is the lifeline of modern societies, enabling the movement of people, goods and services across communities and borders. As such, efficient and resilient transport networks play a particularly vital role for island nations such as Singapore, where seamless mobility underpins both economic activity and daily living.

“Despite its size and limited natural resources, Singapore’s strategic location, world-class infrastructure and strong trade links have positioned it as an important gateway deeply interconnected with the global economy,” said Kelvin Seah, Director of the Connectivity, Trade and Logistics Cluster of A*STAR’s Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC). “The country is not only a leading aviation hub, but also one of the world’s busiest container transhipment ports.”

“A*STAR’s research initiatives in connectivity are aligned to strategies set out by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) and Land Transport Authority (LTA) in their respective Industry Transformation Maps and innovation roadmaps,” Seah added.

Easing traffic flows

With over 7,400 weekly scheduled flights at Changi Airport, 130,000 annual vessel calls at the Port of Singapore, and 8 million daily passenger trips on public transit, even minor bottlenecks can have outsized effects. Effective traffic management solutions are essential for ensuring smooth connectivity and preventing congestion, which can lead to inefficiencies and safety risks.

To smooth out traffic issues, research groups such as the Intelligent Transportation Solutions (ITS) Division at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (A*STAR I²R) are integrating advanced technologies into transport hubs and networks, in partnership with public authorities and industry stakeholders. (see “Highlights: Intelligent traffic tools”)

“In land-scarce and manpower-constrained countries like Singapore, ITS plays a vital role in optimising the movement of people and goods,” said Jaya Shankar, A*STAR I²R ITS Division Head. “Through sensors, real-time data analytics, AI and smarter mobility services, ITS can reduce travel delays, fuel consumption and operational costs without expanding physical infrastructure.”

Collective industrial partnerships such as the Maritime AI Research Programme are also bringing ITS into port by helping companies deploy cutting-edge research. A flagship initiative of A*STAR’s Centre for Maritime Digitalisation (C4MD) funded by the Singapore Maritime Institute (SMI), the programme’s multiple R&D areas include advanced digital solutions to enhance maritime traffic safety and optimise shipping operations.

“The programme has established strong industrial and academic collaborations locally and internationally to develop maritime AI technologies that incorporate domain knowledge for a safer, more efficient and more sustainable maritime industry,” said Xiuju Fu, Programme Director and a Senior Principal Scientist at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing (A*STAR IHPC).

Highlights: Intelligent traffic tools

Aviation

TMA/Runway Practical Capacity Estimation (PCE)
A*STAR I²R, CAAS, MITRE

• Provides objective, comprehensive assessments of current usage and future capacity of Changi Airport airspace and runways.
• Uses Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) to accurately simulate Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) operations.
• Integrates models for demand-based capacity utilisation, historical demand prediction, scenario generation, air traffic controller (ATCO) workload, arrival/departure management and weather conditions.
• Deployment to CAAS experimentation platform in progress; shadow trials of decision support tools to commence late-2025.

Maritime

Near-Miss Collision Detection
A*STAR IHPC, PSA Marine

• Automatically identifies high-risk maritime traffic incidents, pioneering a shift from traditional manual reporting to a more efficient AI-driven approach.
• Uses live data streams from onboard Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) for timely risk perception and situational awareness; captures a significant number of previously unreported near-miss cases to establish a comprehensive near-miss knowledge bank and deliver near real-time insights into risk hotspots.
• Presented to the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) to promote awareness and adoption by the global maritime community.

Launch Boat Service ‘Uberisation’
A*STAR IHPC, ShipsFocus

• Intelligently merges overlapping single-trip launch boat bookings to improve fuel efficiency and reduce GHG emissions and harbour congestion.
• Integrates boat trajectory prediction and origin-destination travel time estimation into optimisation algorithms for batching and scheduling.
• Reduced travel distances by 25%, moving in trials with ShipsFocus and individual launch boat fleets; working towards sectoral-level fleet optimisation.

Land

CoopeRative and UnIfied Smart Traffic SystEm (CRUISE)
A*STAR I²R, LTA, ST Engineering, others

• Adapts land traffic light signals to dynamic traffic conditions, improving travel flow, safety and carbon footprint.
• Reduced peak travel times by 9–18% in test site trials, outperforming previous systems; reduced traffic delays by 50% and boosted average speeds by 50.3% in simulation studies.
• Live trials at seven intersections to conclude in May 2025; to be advanced to a minimal viable product for local and overseas deployment.

Logical logistics

Today, almost anything can be delivered to your doorstep in just hours to days. However, this also puts more pressure on companies to rapidly move goods through tightly-scheduled supply chains that often stretch across continents. A single unexpected disruption—a traffic jam, a blocked canal or a global pandemic—can incur tremendous costs.

“Demand for and customer expectations around logistics, especially last-mile delivery, have grown and will continue to do so,” said Chi Xu, Group Manager of the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (A*STAR SIMTech)’s Smart Urban Logistics Group. “However, it isn’t always viable to fill those gaps by simply adding more physical infrastructure, vehicles and drivers.”

As with traffic, digital solutions are also coming to the rescue for logistical challenges. Groups like Xu’s are developing suites of AI-driven models, simulators and other optimisation tools to help diverse industries plan, monitor and refine their logistical operations, boosting their efficiency, resilience and sustainability. (see “Highlights: A spectrum of logistics solutions”)

“Public-private partnerships like the Supply Chain 4.0 programme have generated a series of industry projects to build digital and automation solutions that are customised to each industry’s needs,” said Shanshan Yang, the programme’s Principal Investigator and Digital Supply Chain Group Manager at the A*STAR Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (A*STAR ARTC).

With increasing freight and e-commerce activity in highly urbanised Singapore, both industries and government agencies need to plan around complex and fragmented logistics operations. The placement of warehouses, distribution points and fulfilment hubs can heavily impact traffic patterns, resource allocation and environmental quality.

“To address the challenges of increasing freight and e-commerce activity, tools such as the Assessing the Effectiveness of Freight Management Strategies (AFMS) Simulator can help industry stakeholders identify the optimal locations and specifications of fulfilment hubs,” said Wee Siong Ng, A*STAR I²R Senior Principal Scientist and Head of the Spatio-temporal Intelligence and Optimisation Group. “AFMS can also help urban planners rapidly assess and predict the impact of facility locations and changing population distributions.”

Logistical solutions are more than simply about advanced technologies. Projects such as Continuous Last Mile Logistics (CLML) and Networked Virtual Watch Tower (VWT) are also building ecosystems to enable greater teamwork between the countless producers, shipping companies, distributors and other partners within supply chains.

“Many supply chains still operate in silos, meaning companies often struggle with fragmented data, inefficient coordination and unexpected delays due to disruptions,” said Xiao Feng Yin, A*STAR IHPC Principal Scientist and VWT project lead. “VWT aims to develop an innovative digital solution that improves visibility, collaboration and risk management across global supply chains through a community-driven and co-creation approach.”

Highlights: A spectrum of logistics solutions

Collaborative Continuous Last Mile Logistics (CLML)
A*STAR (SIMTech, ARTC, I²R); NUS; NTU

• An AI-powered modelling system to reduce fleet idle times and improve delivery schedule continuity by job-pooling across multiple deliveries and companies; job-matching drivers based on real-time status; and dynamically optimising delivery routes based on live traffic and resources.
• Industry partner studies show potential improvements to delivery timeliness (10%), vehicle utilisation (20%) and schedule planning (40%).

Supply Chain 4.0 (SC4.0)
A*STAR (ARTC, SIMTech, IHPC); NUS; SUTD

• Two-year IAF-PP-funded programme for translational research and co-development of digital and automation solutions with industry partners, focusing on digital value chain, data-driven optimisation and smart warehousing.
• Garnered interest from hundreds of companies via Supply Chain Control Tower (SCCT), a physical showcase of SC4.0 solutions.
• Programme concluded in 2024; ongoing work transitioned to and championed by A*STAR ARTC’s Digital Supply Chain Group.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Freight Management Strategies (AFMS)
A*STAR I²R; URA; LTA; other industry partners

• A suite of advanced tools to help companies and urban planners optimise locations and specifications for logistics facilities; assess traffic impact; and understand environmental quality and productivity improvements.
• Deployment with a leading courier services provider led to enhanced coverage, reduced transport and facility costs, and up to 37% reduction in local traffic congestion.
• Currently being refined with freight trip generation models that analyse links between logistics activities and land use to estimate the freight impact of various planning scenarios.

Virtual Watch Tower Network (VWTNet)
A*STAR IHPC; RISE Sweden; VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland; TALTECH, Estonia

• A decentralised, intelligent digital ecosystem for secure real-time data sharing between cargo owners, logistics providers and supply chain partners across international sea, air and land transport modes.
• Includes analytical services for shipping network analysis and disruption management, e.g. port resilience and performance evaluation; shipping route clustering and prediction; arrival time forecasts; and crisis simulation.
• Currently comprises over 50 community members worldwide, including industry players, academic institutions and public bodies.

Sustaining the transition

Singapore’s scientific strengths and its status as a major fuel producer and shipping/aviation hub make the country an ideal global focus for sustainable transportation research. Ric Parker, A*STAR Special Adviser, notes that industrial partnerships such as the Factory of the Future—a joint effort of A*STAR, Rolls-Royce, and Singapore Aero Engine Services Private Limited—and consortia such as the Singapore Aerospace Programme, can drive forward essential research of mutual interest in this area.

“There’s more to sustainable transport than just fuels,” said Parker. “Many key technologies in this area can be taken forward in Singapore, including sustainable fuel production methods; efficient hydrogen fuel cells; carbon capture from vehicular and maritime traffic; electrification systems; and the recycling of all vehicle components.”

With the LTA aiming for nationwide transport electrification to support the Singapore Green Plan 2050, multiple A*STAR institutes are making strides in electric vehicle (EV) battery technologies. Alongside these, some groups are tackling a parallel yet equally critical aspect of mass electrification: charging networks.

“As of 2024, about 95 percent of Singapore’s 980,000 land vehicles still run on fossil fuels,” said Muhamad Azfar Ramli, Deputy Director of A*STAR IHPC’s Systems Science Department. “To convert most of them into EVs, land transport and energy urban planners face significant challenges in ensuring the country’s charging infrastructure can cost-effectively meet its transportation needs.”

In 2020, the Science and Technology Policy and Plans Office (S&TPPO) initiated the Singapore Integrated Transport and Energy Model (SITEM) project: a joint research partnership between A*STAR IHPC and TUMCREATE, a multidisciplinary research platform of the Technical University of Munich in Singapore and a part of the National Research Foundation’s Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE). (see “Highlights: Support for sustainable transport”)

“SITEM helps urban planners integrate the dynamics of transport, energy and human behaviour; simulate the full national vehicle population’s mobility and charging patterns; and optimise EV charger locations and grid infrastructure to meet mobility needs,” said Qin Zheng, Director of A*STAR IHPC’s Systems Science Department.

TUMCREATE also provided expertise and simulation tools such as the City Mobility Simulator (CityMoS) and Multi-Energy System Modelling and Optimisation (MESMO). Government agencies such as the LTA supplied modelling data and real-world scenario refinement.

“To help estimate electricity demand across Singapore, CityMoS simulates transport flows in high detail, predicts charging times and locations, then feeds the resulting data into MESMO: a power grid simulator that assesses substation utilisation and grid capacity,” said David Eckhoff, TUMCREATE Principal Scientist.

Even with rapid advances in EV technologies, combustible fuels won’t go away anytime soon due to efficiency issues, noted Luwei Chen, Director of the Carbon Conversion and Future Energy Division at the A*STAR Institute of Sustainability for Chemicals, Energy and Environment (A*STAR ISCE²).

“Aircraft, especially long-haul units, have stringent weight and space constraints,” said Chen. “As such, liquid fuels will continue to have a critical role in aviation due to their superior energy density—by both weight and volume—versus hydrogen, batteries and other emerging clean energy alternatives.”

Fuels themselves can be made greener through novel raw materials and renewable energy sources. The International Air Transport Association projects that sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) could account for 65 percent of CO₂ emission reductions needed by the aviation sector to hit net zero by 2050. As such, A*STAR ISCE² teams are working closely with industrial partners such as IHI Corporation and Exxon-Mobil to develop low-carbon fuel (LCF) technologies for SAF and other transport modes.

However, replacing old fuels isn’t always straightforward. Across ships and seaports worldwide, maritime refuelling operations—also known as ‘bunkering’—have long revolved around conventional fossil fuel-based marine fuels. While LCFs like methanol, ammonia and hydrogen offer cleaner alternatives, they’re often also highly volatile and toxic. This poses new safety risks when handling millions of litres of fuel in port and at sea: a single unnoticed leak could have devastating outcomes.

To help address the unique challenges of LCFs, Vinh-Tan Nguyen and A*STAR IHPC colleagues are leading research on risk assessment tools based on multi-fidelity digital models of LCF bunkering operations.

“By providing more realistic representations of how emissions disperse in real-world environments, our team aims to advance science-based safe practices and response plans for maritime operations,” said Chang Wei Kang, Director of A*STAR IHPC’s Computational Sustainability Division. “We will further develop advanced digital risk assessment tools for handling future fuels on ships and other platforms so that these clean, carbon-cutting energy options are safer and more practical.”

New fuels also call for new international fuel standards, as vessels need reliably consistent supplies at their ports of call. With an estimated US$33 billion worth of bunker transacted annually, the Port of Singapore is currently the world’s top bunkering hub, bunkering one-sixth of all marine fuel oil traded globally in 2024. As such, the A*STAR National Metrology Centre (A*STAR NMC) is supporting MPA as they develop bunkering standards for the world, and working with industry players as they propagate those standards.

“As the custodian of Singapore’s national measurement standards, A*STAR NMC supports the MPA’s goal of becoming a global multi-fuel hub by ensuring the quality, quantity and safety assurance of LCFs for maritime bunkering, emissions control and eventual power generation, in addition to providing LCF source attribution assurance,” said Gregory Goh, A*STAR NMC Executive Director. “In future, once the global standards that Singapore has set for bunkering have been widely adopted worldwide, A*STAR NMC’s national standards will help Singapore-based companies expand their businesses overseas.”

Highlights: Support for sustainable transport

Singapore Integrated Transport and Energy Model (SITEM)
A*STAR IHPC; TUMCREATE; LTA

• Advanced, national-scale simulation model to aid planning and deployment of EV chargers, and evaluate grid upgrades for added electricity demand.
• Comprises modules for transport and charging simulation, electrical grid simulation, human travel behaviour modelling and geospatial analysis for EV charger planning.
• Early phases focused on private vehicles, taxis, private hire vehicles and public transport; recent works include commercial fleets of light and heavy goods vehicles.
• Carried into spinoff projects with MPA and CAAS for Maritime Electrification of Singapore Harbourcrafts (MESH) and Airside SITEM (AirSITEM) for airside operations vehicles.

Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF)
A*STAR ISCE²; IHI Corporation

• LCF technologies that enable single-step direct conversion of CO₂ into liquid hydrocarbons using green hydrogen, streamlining SAF synthesis operations and boosting energy efficiency.
• Joint agreement in 2024 to accelerate tech toward commercialisation across Asia-Pacific region; bench-scale test rig with 100 kg/day CO₂ capacity launched in early 2025.

Dispersion Analysis and Simulations for Handling (DASH) of Future Fuels
A*STAR IHPC; MPA; SMI; NUS; NTU; GovTech; various agencies

• Computational modelling to predict gas plume dispersion from potential leak locations during methanol and ammonia bunkering operations.
• Accounts for variability in environmental conditions (e.g. wind, temperature and humidity), geometric structures, complex interactions and other critical factors.
• Used in landmark bunkering trials in the Port of Singapore including the world’s first successful bio-methanol ship-to-container ship bunkering operation (July 2023) and first trial of ammonia-diesel combination marine bunker (March 2024).

National LCF Standards Development and Assurance
A*STAR NMC; MPA; Singapore Standards Council

• Various initiatives to develop local and global industry standards for LCFs, as well as ensure LCF operations meet those standards.
• Updated Singapore’s SS648 Code of Practice for Bunker Mass Flow Metering, strengthening alignment with global ISO 22192 standards (2021); introduced digital bunkering for enhanced data accuracy, integrity and transparency. Currently providing data quality assurance for LCF safety sensor networks.
• Secured SMI grant for data integrity verification in digital bunkering in 2021; projected to save the bunkering industry 40,000 man-days per year through digital bunkering.

Driving connectivity onward

Many of A*STAR’s efforts in transportation networks span beyond the aforementioned areas. They include predictive maintenance tools to flag when components are likely to fail, reducing aircraft and vessel downtime; automatic speech recognition systems that enhance critical voice communications in air traffic control and rail operations; as well as life cycle cost assessments of Singapore’s upcoming Tuas Port.

“As transport challenges are ever-evolving, innovation efforts must be likewise,” said Seah. “Our priorities are programmes that effectively translate research into impact to add value to businesses, drive economic growth via larger traffic volumes, strengthen supply chain resiliency and advance net zero goals.”

Seah added that the agency will continue to contribute to connectivity research with air, sea and land transport stakeholders, and explore new opportunities in intermodal connectivity. By building on capabilities across its research institutes and staying focused on mission-oriented research, A*STAR will remain well-positioned as a translational node to turn project outcomes into practical and deployable transportation solutions.