According to Benhur Mesfin, Director of Wireless Broadband Asia Pacific for Motorola's Enterprise Mobility, Government and Public Safety Business; drivers in Singapore may soon be able to receive traffic updates in their car as part of the possible upgrades to the next generation of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) of the island state.
This was on the back of the opening ceremony of the 9th Intelligent Transport Systems Asia-Pacific Forum & Exhibition held this week in the country.
Current technology implemented allowed for mainly one way communication from a network of devices such as surveillance cameras, Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries and vehicle In Car units (IU). These were mostly to ensure that there was smooth flow of traffic on Singapore roads. however, Mesfin said that the technology was currently available to enable two way communication, it was only the problem of government approval and incorporating it with existing technologies that was holding up adoption.
Possible other data that can be sent and received include things like video, voice and data transmissions meaning that it might be possible to surf the Internet, watch streamed feeds and
Mesfin added that with these next generation networks, governments are looking to fulfill their needs not just in the next one to five years, but at their needs in the next five to ten years.
Part of the problem in rolling these NGNs out Mesfin explained was that there were difficulties in implementing a solution that could serve both the public need to connect to the Internet and the robust and constant availability needed by a government. 'In times of disaster etc, a government would need to have constant, available and secure access to the network; and if this is shared with the public, this might not be possible,' he added.
Singapore is also set to launch three new Intelligent Transport System initiatives to transform Singapore's land transport development. Announced by Raymond Lim, Minister for Transport and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs at the event. The main thrust of these initiatives are to ensure smooth traffic flow on major arterial roads and to enable easier payment for drivers and public transport commuters.