BrazilOliver Wyman declares Singapore number one for future of mobility
Global management consultancy Oliver Wyman has ranked Singapore as the number one city for future of mobility preparedness.
Singapore has topped yet another future-focused ranking: the Urban Mobility Readiness Index released by global management consultancy Oliver Wyman. According to the firm’s analysis, Singapore leads a pack of 30 international cities in terms of how prepared each city is to incorporate the latest in mobility technologies and what they are doing to reshape urban mobility. In September, Oliver Wyman also declared Singapore the global leader for AI preparedness.
On the latest index, Singapore places ahead of fellow top-ten Asian cities Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul, along with Amsterdam in second place – reversing a similar annual autonomous driving country index compiled by KPMG, which sees the Netherlands edging out Singapore. Other cities in the global top ten for future-of-mobility preparedness include London in third, along with New York, Helsinki and Berlin, while Bangkok landed close to bottom.
Carried out in conjunction with The Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California Berkeley, the in-depth analysis assessed the existing public and private mobility networks of the selected cities, current regulation, policy, and infrastructure, and their capacity to absorb future technologies, awarding scores across five dimensions; social impact, livability, system efficiency, innovation, and market attractiveness – with Singapore a top-four in each.
With an overall score of 70.8 out of 100 – which was some way ahead of tenth-placed Berlin on 58.3, and even Amsterdam’s score of 65.4 – Singapore performed particularly well for innovation, which focused on “technology-related metrics, such as the concentration of skilled workers and start-ups, electric vehicle market share, and government investment in connected, autonomous vehicle technologies.” The city-state also scored strongly for social impact.
“Singapore recognises the importance of building ecosystems, private sector and research partnerships, and infrastructure investment,” state the authors. “It has been a pioneer in reducing traffic congestion and adopted an aggressive approach to integrating cutting-edge technology with progressive transport policies. The region leads the way in the latest mobility tools, platforms and services, as well as autonomous driving and real-time, digitised traffic management.”
The analysts note that due to variations in the make-up and development of cities – the 7 percent rate of car against other travel modes in Hong Kong for example, compared to an 89 percent rate in L.A. – there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to urban mobility, with the key being a focus on mobility ecosystems that provide a holistic framework to incorporate advanced technologies, as well working closely with academic and private sector researchers.
“Cities destined to become tomorrow’s mobility leaders are forward-thinking and user-centric. They take a data-driven approach and work with the private sector to find solutions,” says Oliver Wyman Paris-based partner Guillaume Thibault, one of the authors of the report, with the Institute of Transportation Studies’ director Professor Alexandre Bayen adding; “Cities which embrace technology and have proactive regulation will become leaders in the mobility revolution.”
