Navigating a Complex World

MATSim Singapore, developed by the FCL Engaging Mobility team, is presented as a useful tool to study large-scale mobility patterns and improve policymaking in the book Navigating a Complex World.

Governments in the 21st century operate in an environment that is more complex than before, and governance requires public officers who are skilled in complexity thinking: adaptable, fluid in thought and willing to experiment before implementing a solution.

Navigating a Complex World, edited by Peter Ho and Sheila Pakir, illustrates tools and frameworks that can help public officers better navigate the complex environment. The publication by the Civil Service College focuses on Singapore, but many of these ideas may be transferable to other contexts.

In the chapter on agent-based modelling, MATSim Singapore, developed by the Engaging Mobility research team, is featured as a tool to study large-scale mobility patterns and improve policymaking. MATSim Singapore uses data to project how new developments such as a new expressway, new business district, car-sharing systems or autonomous vehicles would affect travel patterns.

“Travel patterns in Singapore will become increasingly multi-modal. It is not unusual for a commuter in Singapore to use two or even three modes of transport during the course of the day… With the government studying other modes of travel like autonomous vehicles… agent based modelling is really the only feasible tool available to help planners make sense of the city’s transportation systems”, says Dr Pieter Fourie, the project leader of the Engaging Mobility project at the Future Cities Laboratory.

New developments in MATSim Singapore

Since the development of MATSim Singapore, the Ministry of National Development has awarded the group an L2NIC grant to help inform the design of neighbourhoods for future transport modes, such as self-driving buses. The study explores whether these future modes can bring last-mile connectivity to under-served areas, balance the load across scheduled public transport services, and realise the aspiration of turning Singapore into a car-lite city.

This project is led by the Ministry of Transport, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, SMART (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology), Land Transport Authority, Urban Redevelopment Authority and Housing and Development Board.  

The study uses not one but two agent-based transport simulators (MATSim and MIT's SimMobility) to evaluate the deployment of self-driving buses. For their part, the Engaging Mobility team has developed a workflow where agent-based simulation is integrated into the urban design process. This tool, known as SketchMATSim, allows users with no background in transport or computer science to develop an understanding of how new infrastructure and mobility systems will affect the mobility and quality of life of the inhabitants of existing and future neighbourhoods.