As part of LTMP 2040, LTA has committed to electrify 50% of our public bus fleet by 2030. Just as we continually review safety enhancements for our traditional diesel bus fleets, we are looking to do the same for e-buses. With fire safety as an important aspect of our bus depot operations, one specific potential risk in the unlikely event of an e-bus fire is to avert the spread of fire within the multi-storey depot to prevent greater damage and loss of bus infrastructure and assets. Moreover, even when the e-bus fire is extinguished, there remains a possibility of re-ignition, which could be a result from sparks created by parts of the burnt bus being in contact with the ground / depot structures during the removal process.

To mitigate such subsequent fires, an appropriate post-fire recovery equipment would enhance the safety of the existing extraction process to relocate a burnt e-bus from a multi-storey bus depot into an isolated water containment structure. The water containment is located on the ground floor and away from the building structure. This would further enhance other existing fire mitigation measures (i.e. sprinklers to extinguish the fire and cool down the surrounding temperature, water curtains to prevent the spread to other group of buses).

LTA wishes to collaborate and consolidate ideas with the interested partners / innovators to design, build and assemble a suitable equipment for e-buses (to accommodate the full length of a double deck bus), collectively known as the “Bus Recovery Equipment”, to remove burnt e-buses out of the building premises efficiently and safely.

Please refer to the Problem Statement Brief for the Call for Solutions – Bus Recovery Equipment (PDF, 187kB) for more information and register your interest to attend a technical briefing via this submission form. The briefing will be held on 10 May 2024, 2pm – 4pm, at the Land Transport Authority (LTA) – Hampshire Office (1 Hampshire Road, Singapore 219428), Auditorium.

• The briefing will take place only if sufficient interest is received by 2 May 2024, 4pm.
• All registered attendees will receive a confirmation by 3 May 2024.

All proposals must be submitted by 29 May 2024, 4pm (SGT/GMT+8) via this submission form. LTA will contact the shortlisted solution providers separately after the call for solutions closes.

The Urban Mobility Innovation (UMI) is a Funding Initiative (FI) under the Urban Solutions and Sustainability (USS) domain of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 (RIE2025).

The UMI FI builds upon the original Urban Mobility Grand Challenge (UMGC) from 2017, that uses transformational technology to overcome challenges and grow economic opportunities in the land transport sector.

The UMI FI aims to co-create solutions and undertakes applied research on key land transport topics together with LTA’s ecosystem partners such as Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), research institutes, public transport operators and industry partners. LTA adopts an open innovation framework to tap on this ecosystem of partners to address diverse land transport challenges. Promising outputs from these collaborative projects may therefore be further developed, as follow-on projects, into deployable solutions.

UMI Grant Call – Modelling and Simulation of Electric Vehicle and Power-Assisted Bicycle Battery Fire

Ensuring the safety of electric vehicles (EV)s and battery-operated active mobility devices, such as power-assisted bicycles (PABs), is important with their growing adoption.

The use of lithium-ion battery (LIB) within EVs and PABs can potentially lead to fire risks. Overseas case studies have shown that LIB fires can be extremely difficult to extinguish and may pose challenges such as the emission of toxic gases during thermal runaway, potential reignition after the primary fire has been put out, and accelerating combustion of adjacent properties due to the release of horizontal jet flames from vehicle battery packs.

Objective

LTA is launching a grant call to seek solutions for developing a model suited to simulate EV and PAB battery fires under local conditions. The proposal should cover the approach and development of a model based on (but not limited to) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology that can simulate the impact of EV and PAB battery fires and toxic gas propagation characteristics of fire, in various vehicular segments under different local settings. These include the simulation of (but not limited to) temperature, heat flux, toxic gases, and soot concentration for both spatial and temporal evolution. With Singapore’s highly dense and built environment, agencies need to better understand the impact of battery fire across different vehicle types and environments, so that the appropriate incident response can be taken to manage EV and PAB battery fires.

Application Process and Submission

Proposals will be selected and evaluated based on the criteria below:

• Clear elaboration of model design,
• Strength of project execution, and;
• Technical competency of the team.

This call is open to all R&D organisations in Singapore including publicly-funded IHLs, not-for-profit research institutions, public sector agencies, private companies, and company-affiliated research entities.

The lead Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Lead Principal Investigator (Co-PI) are responsible for delivering the outcomes of the project and will be required to have a minimum of 9 months of residency per year in Singapore. All work should be done in Singapore, unless expressly approved by LTA.

All applications and supporting documents for the grant call must be submitted by 31 May 2024, 5pm (SGT/GMT+8) to LTA_Innovate@lta.gov.sg. Only documents in Word, Excel and PDF formats will be accepted.

LTA will conduct a briefing to provide clarifications on the grant call on 19 Apr 2024, 9.30am (SGT/GMT+8) at the Land Transport Authority (LTA). If you are interested to attend the briefing, please register by 12 Apr 2024. All registered attendees will receive a confirmation via email by 16 Apr 2024.

Documents for submission

1. Annex C Budget Template (XLSX, 47kB)
2. Annex D Project Milestones and Deliverables (DOCX, 32kB)
3. Annex E Offline Application Package (XLSX, 28kB)

Documents for information

1. Full Proposal Guidelines (PDF, 215kB)
2. List of Non-Fundable Direct Costs (PDF, 102kB)
3. Grant Call Factsheet (PDF, 309kB)
4. Guidelines for the Management of Research Grants (Version 2.0 (with effect from 1 Jan 2020)) (PDF, 99kB)
5. Research Grant Terms & Conditions (PDF, 146kB)

For further enquiries on this grant call, please email LTA_Innovate@lta.gov.sg.

By leveraging technologies, we adopt new and viable concepts with our industry partners to deliver a safe, reliable, inclusive, cost efficient and environmentally-sustainable land transport system to serve the public. These innovative concepts are brought to life through a collaborative approach with our industry and research partners, and turned into real applications that benefit our commuters.

One such example is how we paved our roads sustainably using waste plastics to upcycle our waste in our infrastructure, in collaboration with partners from Samwoh Innovation Centre, Singapore Polytechnic, and Contec Fiber AG.

Read the article - "Paving the Way for Eco-Friendly Roads" to find out more about this initiative.

Enhancement of Roadworks Application Process using Artificial Intelligence

• Industry Partner: NCS Pte. Ltd.
• LTA User: Road Works Regulation and Licensing Division (RWRL)

Agencies or private contractors who intend to carry out works on public streets are required to obtain a permit via roadwork applications submission on LTA’s Permit for Road Occupation Management Portal (LTA.PROMPT) online portal. These roadwork applications are typically for lane closure to facilitate installation and/or upgrading of utilities such as water, sewer, drainage, power, telecommunication networks etc. On the average, there are between 200 to 300 roadworks daily.

Innovation as a Means to Improve Efficiency

In order to improve the efficiency in the submission and processing of roadwork applications at the LTA.PROMPT portal, LTA has explored innovative technologies to provide the following enhanced features to simplify the submission of road work applications:

1. Automatic generation of Traffic Control Plans (TCP) with little inputs needed from the applicants.
2. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to check and validate that documents in scanned copies are correctly submitted. Applicants are alerted if there is any missing document before submission.
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) to aid in review of applications and provide recommendation for quicker processing.

A Simpler and Shorter Process

With these enhanced features, the process to submit roadwork applications, with simpler road configuration, are much more streamlined for applicants – reducing the overall time and cost needed.

Generation of TCPs via AI/ML enhancement system

Going Forward

Plans are currently being explored to enhance the LTA.PROMPT to handle more complex traffic layouts and road infrastructures, catering to different road configurations and traffic volume.

Viaduct Bearing Inspection with Drones

• Research Partner: Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
• LTA User: Asset Engineering (Infrastructure) Division (AEINF)

There are over 17,000 viaduct bearings along the North-South-East-West Line (NSEWL). In accordance to LTA’s Code of Practice, these must be inspected every 5 years - a process which is currently performed manually. Besides checking the viaduct bearings’ general condition, we also inspect key parameters such as longitudinal displacement and bearing rotations.

The challenges we face:

• Accessibility: Bearings are not easy to reach. They are typically elevated at a height of six metres or more, and found within small cavity spaces or above water bodies.
• Technology limitations: Current commercial-off-the-shelf drones are too large to fly close to the bearings and cannot capture close-up images in low-light. Instead, we would need to use scaffolds, cherry-pickers, and other specialised equipment to reach the bearings.
• Human error: The work is manually done by people. This can result in parallax errors and inconsistency.

Helping Viaduct Bearing Inspection Take Flight

We approached Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) to develop a drone to meet our inspection needs.

They designed a lightweight mini-drone not exceeding 230mm in length, that can connects to a ground power unit via a tethered-line. Components are encased within the drone’s body so the pilot can fly it to different heights and access small cavity spaces. This eliminates the need for elaborate setups for workers to manually inspect each bearing.

Automatic and Accurate Measurements

At each location, the drone will take high-definition images covering the entire width of the bearing and a 3D image will be generated. An automatic AI-enabled displacement extraction framework will be run to extract critical infrastructure measurements. This ensures accuracy of the inspection.

Reaching New Heights

The drone system will be used at viaduct bearing inspections for the NSEWL. It seeks to:

1. Reduce the time taken to inspect each bearing from one hour to fifteen minutes
2. Eliminate work-at-height risks and cumbersome logistical setups
3. Allow for inspections to be done both during the day and night
4. Improve accuracy and consistency of required measurements
5. Overcome accessibility issues

We are exploring if the same drone system can be used in other areas such as ceiling inspections at MRT stations and road bridges.