Self-driving public shuttles to hit Punggol roads by fourth quarter

Autonomous buses like these could be among the self-driving shuttles that will hit the roads in Punggol by the fourth quarter of 2025. PHOTO: MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT

Kok Yufeng

UPDATED Jun 29, 2025, 06:53 PM

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GUANGZHOU – Self-driving shuttles will hit the roads in Punggol by the start of the fourth quarter of 2025, as Singapore looks to kick-start a major autonomous vehicle push.

Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow made this announcement on June 27 during a working visit to Guangzhou, China, weeks after he laid out broad plans to ramp up self-driving vehicle deployments in the next five years to strengthen Singapore’s public transport network.

Senior Minister of State for Transport Sun Xueling, who was also in Guangzhou, said a couple of initial routes in Punggol are being considered, based on feedback from residents.

“There are residents who live in Punggol West who would like to be able to more conveniently have access to amenities in Punggol East, for instance, the wet market (and) the polyclinic,” said Ms Sun, who is MP for Punggol GRC.

“At the same time, we know there are residents who live in the eastern side of Punggol who want to have more convenient access to transport hubs like the bus interchange,” she added.

The exact details about the type of vehicles that will be deployed, the routes they will ply and the charges for each ride are still being worked out.

Mr Siow said the Ministry of Transport (MOT) is in the midst of holding talks with potential operators and autonomous vehicle makers.

These include public transport operators in Singapore – some of which have partners in China – as well as US self-driving taxi firm Waymo, which Mr Siow and his colleagues will meet soon.

“We have many options, and because of the way we are doing it, I think there will be options for more than one operator to be able to come on board,” Mr Siow said.

The goal is to get the first vehicles on the road by the start of the last quarter at the latest, he added.

In the short term, the autonomous shuttles are expected to provide short, fixed-route services to various points within Housing Board estates, supplementing regular public bus services, taxis and private-hire vehicles.

In the medium term, this could be widened to include introducing services that are constrained by labour today, such as night buses, which can be run more frequently with driverless vehicles, Mr Siow said.

The Acting Minister added that the deployment of the autonomous shuttles will be done in steps, and the vehicles will not ferry any passengers until residents and road users are more comfortable with them.

“The main thing is just to get the vehicles out there and have them be part of the general landscape first, in a safe manner.

“Once people are used to seeing them on the roads, then they know how to deal with them, and they realise that actually, there is no real difference from dealing with any other private car,” he said.

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Mr Siow and Ms Sun emphasised that safety will be the priority, and the autonomous vehicles will have a safety officer on board and will be clearly identifiable by a bright colour.

The vehicle speed will also be “manageable” and not “super fast”, added Mr Siow.

The hope is that the autonomous shuttles can start taking passengers by the end of 2025.

Ms Sun said the safety officer can be removed in the third stage of the roll-out.

Mr Siow said Punggol was chosen as the launchpad as it is a relatively new estate, with “mature” travel patterns and road infrastructure.

“We want to try it in one particular place first, get really used to how the vehicles can be deployed, and understand how problems emerge and how to solve them,” he added.

If successful, the authorities will then look to deploy the vehicles in other estates at the start of 2026 , with Tengah the next location in mind.

On the size of the vehicles that will be used, Mr Siow said it depends on many factors. But he noted that the technology for autonomous cars is more developed and prevalent than that for buses.

“We may well be looking at bringing in MPVs (multi-purpose vehicles) first,” he said, adding that these vehicles are “infrastructure-agnostic” because they have doors on both sides.

Price is another consideration, and Mr Siow said the Government will see where it can provide funding in the short term to help companies bring in these vehicles, so they can eventually scale up and run them on their own dime.

As for fares, he said they will probably range between what passengers pay today for public transport at the low end, and taxi and ride-hailing fares at the top end.

“It is a trip that maybe the taxi drivers or the private-hire car drivers may not really want to do, especially during the peak hour. So I think that price range is probably fair,” he added.

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Autonomous vehicles have operated without a driver at the wheel in Singapore, but these trials have been limited mainly to non-residential areas such as the one-north business park, school campuses and integrated resort Resorts World Sentosa (RWS).

While the Land Transport Authority (LTA) plans to trial autonomous buses on selected public bus routes from mid-2026, Mr Siow said the self-driving shuttles in Punggol are being introduced in parallel, so the authorities can better understand and deploy autonomous vehicles in different settings more quickly.

Singapore media, including The Straits Times, were invited on the trip to Guangzhou with Mr Siow’s delegation, which included representatives from MOT, LTA, as well as the National Transport Workers Union, National Taxi Association and National Private Hire Vehicles Association.

The group visited several autonomous vehicle companies to understand how the technology is being rolled out in the Chinese port city.

The companies were WeRide, which has an office in Singapore and operates an autonomous shuttle bus service at RWS; Pony.ai, which has a tie-up with home-grown transport giant ComfortDelGro; and Chinese ride-hailing firm DiDi, which is developing its own self-driving taxis.

The group also had an exchange with the Guangzhou Public Transport Group, the largest public transport operator in southern China, which runs 130 self-driving taxis and 50 autonomous shuttle buses.

Mr Siow said one lesson he took away from the trip was that autonomous driving technology is mature enough for mass development and deployment.

“We are seeing it in major cities in the world, and I think Singapore should be there with all these cities,” he added.

Kok Yufeng is a transport correspondent at The Straits Times.

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