‘Driver-less cars’ advancing next to Southeast Asian cities, including PH
SINGAPORE – In what are now thriving as smart cities of the world, the next trend that will be coming to the Southeast Asian region – including the Philippines -- will be the connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) or the ‘driver-less cars’ – of which ‘intelligence’ are spurred by sensors as well as safety features integrated in the car’s manufacturing buildup.
This mobility trend is currently at its test-bed in Singapore and has been showcased to Southeast Asian peers as well as global counterpart-metropolis in this month’s World Cities Summit attended by various local government units (LGUs) across continents. In the Philippines’ case, this is seen feasible on smart cities’ development terrains like Fort Bonifacio or Clark Global City.
The autonomous vehiclepropelled transformation in mobility, or what is touted to be putting the “cities in the driving seat”, needs to be integrated early on in the cities plan and design as well as in the overall blueprint of their infrastructure development – and must also keep cleaner energy solutions in mind for sustainability.
As noted by Pete Daw, Siemens AG Director of Urban Development and EnvironmentGlobal Center of Competent Cities, adopters of autonomous vehicles as component of mobility transformation in urban areas have been accelerating on a phenomenal pace – that when this was introduced initially in 2017, 60 cities were into it; but this time it had already gone up to 106 cities.
“When this was started a year ago, there had been 60 cities globally taking action; and that is now 106 -- so that has been picking up quickly,” he stressed.
While pilot-testing as well as crafting regulations or policies are mostly the phases that many early adopter-cities have been working on at this point, Daw noted that commercial rollout of AVs are so far highly anticipated in 5-10 years.
“Some are already seeing autonomous vehicles on the streets now – in the next five to 10 years, we start seeing more of them. I think the opportunities initially will be more specialized services – the early adopters will be public transportation authorities and others with autonomous infrastructure systems, rather than adoption in the streets,” he said.
Price points for autonomous vehicles are also seen going down to the level of the ‘conventionals’ - with the aid of further research and advancement in technologies.
He similarly noted that the winners in this innovation game “will be the cities which will be the early adopters and engaging in policy shifts and those that would become part into shaping this mobility transformation; while the losers are those who bury their heads in the sand and pretend that it is not happening.”
For Asian cities, including those with ‘unique dilemmas’ like the Philippines, Milag San Jose-Ballesteros, C40 Cities regional director for East, Southeast Asia and Oceania, has indicated that the business models that might be worth exploring especially in terms of project funding will be either the “municipal financing” prototype or the credit facilities that the multilateral institutions like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have been extending to city-anchored development projects.
“We worked with Siemens before on municipal financing model, so these are the things that we have been looking at… in renewable energy, there’s a lot of conversation on joint equity between private sector and the cities – so that may also be employed in this,” she said.
Singapore’s Dr. Limin Hee, director at Research Centre of Liveable Cities, enthused that “the way we do it in Singapore is a partnership with private sector, but it also needs to be supported by the government.”
On the vehicle’s cost, she emphasized that “the pricing of different services has to be carefully assessed, because the product must not be sold at a cost wherein everyone cannot afford it…it must be driven by demand and the price point must be affordable in the end.”