SPOTLIGHT / FUTURE CITIES
Writer: Serene Tng
With our cities experiencing more rapid changes and with a new normal arising from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, how can data and technologies help us to better respond to challenges?
Urban planners, researchers and innovators weigh in on this at an inaugural virtual forum by SGInnovate and URA’s Digital Planning Lab on 19 May 2020. We share brief highlights1 from the session.
How are data and technologies changing the way we plan for our cities?
Zhongwen: Technologies and data have become increasingly significant aspects in our lives. While these are not the solutions for all of our problems, strategic use of these serve as key enablers for us to boldly envision our future, find effective solutions and adapt quickly to changing needs.
Over the years, we have built up a suite of customised urban tools and developed more insightful data sets in collaboration with our public and private sector partners. We have leveraged on these to help us be more precise and targeted in the way we plan.
For example, we have refined the way we determine optimal sizes, scales and distribution of new amenities and social facilities and how to repurpose some of these over time. This is done taking into account a wider range of considerations such as changing town demographics, demand and supply indicators and how people use these spaces now and in future.
Mobility: Analytics by URA to understand different scenarios experienced in the public transport multimodal network. (L) Average travel time taken to the Central Business District, (R) Public transport share: bus versus train and mixed.
Amenities: Analytics by URA to understand the spatial coverage of amenities within target accessibility distance to determine optimal distribution. (L) Shortest public transport travel time to any facilities from any point, (R) Coverage across travel time.
Data and technologies have also enabled us to further refine our plans in other areas such as enhancing the accessibility between jobs and homes and our multi-modal transport networks.
Pras: Elaborating further on mobility, with greater accessibility to richer data and the ability to layer these, whether it is about considering incidents happening nearby, including information on braking and acceleration or understanding human behaviours, this can encourage us to go beyond the matching of demand and supply that we often do in how we approach our transport modes. We can consider more wide-ranging dimensions in helping us to better plan and adapt our mobility networks.
Peter: At Surbana Jurong, we work closely with our domain experts to drive data-driven designs. We have a team of Singapore township planners who design and plan refurbishments for upcoming and existing housing estates.
One of the interesting things that we found from using natural language processing to go through thousands of feedback was that an apartment facing the waterfront had up to two times more insect related complaints compared to apartments in the same precinct a few blocks away. Such insights help us to better understand the value and opportunity costs of waterfront developments for example and this can shape the way we design housing estates.
As we move towards more data-driven cities, what are some of the data-related challenges?
Gopal: One challenge is how to manage and make sense of the volume of data sets that are growing. What we are trying to do at Prowler is to fine tune the models of research in order to be able to handle large volumes of data and be able to explain the key attributes that affect the outcomes.
In terms of data and the technologies around it, there is a lot of research going on. If we can have a breakthrough, then we will be able to handle the volume and philosophy of data and this will determine how we want to push the boundaries in smart-city planning.
Zhongwen: As urban planners, our work is multi-faceted and we have to consider many different and diverse perspectives and angles. This requires us to assemble a wide range of information and it is often highly laborious to do so. Thus a key challenge will be to find solutions that allow us to search, connect and organise information more efficiently. This will lead to a higher quality of data and information that will enable us to make more holistic evaluations and decisions. The decisions on how we distribute and place services for example will be able to meet more of the personal needs of people and in turn improve the quality of lives.
In using data, we are also highly mindful of privacy issues. We are very careful to ensure that we aggregate the data and it is anonymous. We use data more to pick up general insights and trends. When planners are able to use some of these insights to guide follow-up interventions, it also benefits people directly.
How can technology enhance the way we operate for better sustainability?
Alvin: When we look at maintenance, we want to proactively identify issues before they occur. Thus we are looking at a more predictive enforcement and maintenance approach. All of these point towards being more prudent in the way we resource our operations. Technology can potentially change the way we operate.
How is the new Covid-19 context influencing the way we are looking at our challenges?
Myrna: It is making us recognise that some of our current city systems, modelling and forecasting need to adapt even more to things that we have never seen before. And this is even more critical now. We also recognise that a lot of things that we want in terms of a better future, we may not have the data around such things yet.
Our current context is actually opening up new opportunities for us to make real advancements and improvements. One example is the massive shift in the grid and how energy is used. There are challenges on how we can better respond to emergencies. People are also becoming their own producers and consumers of power. These are presenting interesting opportunities for us to get in front of challenges and engage with new technologies.
We need to begin to model opportunities that could happen rather than rely on data from things that are happening or have happened.
To watch the full session, go to go.gov.sg/planaiforum2
1 The sequence of the questions and the Q&A presented have been edited to present a coherent flow and for clarity and brevity.
2 The moderator and speakers were: Victor Tan, Director, Venture Investing, SGInnovate (Moderator), Huang Zhongwen, Director, Digital Planning Lab, URA, Dr Alvin Chua, Executive Data Scientist, URA, Peter Cai, Head, Applied Data Science, Surbana Jurong, Myrna, CEO and co-founder, RUNWITHIT, Synthetics, Gopal Varutharaju, Regional Director, PROWLER.io, Pras Ganesh, Programme Director, Toyota Mobility Foundation and Project Executive Vice President, Corporate Planning, Fleet Business Solutions and Regional External and Public Affairs, Toyota Daihatsu Engineering and Manufacturing.