Singapore is Expected to Approve a Trial of Self-Driving Taxis in the City

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Curious Cat

Singapore is expected to again show that their government can be quite innovative and action oriented. Singapore plans to allow a trial of self-driving taxis on Singapore’s roads.

A Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) is a research consortium that’s applied to run the driverless taxi pilot project on the normal public roads in Singapore.

Singapore Is Already Planning for a Future of Driverless Taxis

the basic idea will be that people can book a driverless ride via a smartphone. Initially service will be limited to the “one-north” district of Singapore, a massive business park full of biomedical, digital media, and technology companies. The first round of rides will be free, he says, and might be restricted to “one-north” employees.

Frazzoli says SMART was the first applicant for the trial, and hopes to get its testing permit soon. When approval does arrive, the consortium plans to role out a modest robotaxi trial in “one-north” within about six months. But Frazzoli believes Singapore has much bigger plans for driverless cabs; he thinks officials will broaden the program to the whole city-state within about a year.

Driverless cars really seem to be expected, by those who should know, to be on the roads much sooner than I ever thought possible. It is great to see Singapore leading in this effort. This is exactly the type of thing Singapore needs to pursue to continue to succeed economically.

Taxis Vanish in Rain as Singapore Gets Congested

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Curious Cat

I have found he taxi situation in Singapore to be poor. It is tolerable if it doesn’t rain, but even without rain is it not good (it is just too hard to find a taxi and waits are too long), not up to what I would expect from Singapore. Also the subways have become very overcrowded and again not up to the standard for convenience I expect from Singapore.

The root of the transportation problems are excessive population growth without the necessary infrastructure improvement. I think it has been a mistake to grow so much, but if the rapid growth is going to be the policy then the transportation infrastructure should have been managed much better. The rapid growth has many negative impacts beyond transportation: rapidly rising costs, changing culture with huge influx of foreigners, overcrowding, etc..

Taxis Vanish in Rain as Singapore Gets Congested

At 6 a.m. one weekday morning, 64-year-old taxi driver Koh Chia Hock set out to ply Singapore’s roads when it started raining. So he turned around and went home.

“If I go and fetch a customer, it’s very risky,” said Koh, as the heavy traffic raises the chance of an accident that could leave him without earnings while the car is repaired. “I don’t have the stomach for it. I don’t want to drive when it rains.”

Cab drivers like Koh are avoiding the traffic jams that have become a hallmark of Singapore’s tropical rainstorms after a jump in the city’s population and a surge in vehicles clogged roads.
…
“There are too many cars,” said taxi driver Koh, who says it takes twice as long to get to the city center than when he started driving cabs a decade ago. “It’s not that there are too few taxis, it’s just that if they are not occupied, they are caught in jams.”
…
The government’s Land Transport Authority says the average waiting time for a taxi in the city center during peak hours in March was 4.1 minutes and average traffic speed in the central business district in 2012 was 28.6 kilometers per hour (18 miles per hour).

Paul Barter… “Averages are very misleading,” said Barter, who has lived in the city-state for 12 years. “Things are not quite as bad as some people have been saying, they’re not quite as rosy as the government has been saying.”

What is happening is not surprising if it wasn’t Singapore; for most locations government mis-managing things is common. but Singapore has done so well for so long that when an aspect of government policy is implemented in a way that is just a bit better than an average (for most governments) it is very disappointing. Basically, Singapore has set expectations that the government will manage things very well, failing to do so is disappointing even if the results are really better than most places. This failure is really about the policy decisions to grow the population so much, so quickly, in my opinion. The transportation failures are a result of that policy, without that course of action transportation likely would be in good shape.

Transportation from Singapore to Johor Bahru Malaysia

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Curious Cat

To travel from Singapore to Malaysia there are several options, nearly all use the two bridges that connect Singapore to Johor Bahru.

Taxis can be caught at Queen Street to go to Johor Bahru. The taxis cost $40 to go to the dropoff point in Johor Bahru CBD. The taxi will wait for 4 passengers (making the charge $10 each) or you can pay the full taxi fare ($40) to have your own taxi. To go to a specific location in Johor Bahru the cost will be $50, or more.

Buses are also an option (see my post about taking the bus from Johor Bahru to Singapore). You can catch buses at the same Queen Street station with the taxis or at the Kranji MRT (subway) stop. You can catch long distance buses in Singapore or Malaysia to further points in Malaysia.

Taking a car is another option.

Here is a webcam to show you the current status of any backups at the causeway bridge (in either direction) and Tuas bridge. The connections between the cities get very backup up on major holidays and (especially the causeway) during evening and morning rush hours and weekend traffic (leaving Singapore on Friday and Saturday morning and returning to Singapore Sunday night).

Singapore residents travel to Johor Bahru for many reasons. Two of the most popular reasons are to shop and eat at the excellent and cheap (compared to Singapore) restaurants.

You can also catch the train (which goes over the causeway bridge).

And finally you can catch a plane to further away points such as Penang, Kuala Lumpor or Kuching.

Singapore and Malaysia have announced a subway which may connect 5 subways stops (to be built) with the Singapore MRT by 2020.