SINGAPORE - The Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced on Wednesday (Jan 3) that it is calling for researchers and developers to work with it to improve the land transport system.

It launched two research grant calls for innovative and practical solutions to meet Singapore's current transport challenges.

They will focus on four areas: reducing transport journey time, optimising public transport services, reducing and reclaiming road spaces, as well as improving the accuracy of measuring bulk excavations of soil.

In the first area, researchers are invited to use data analytics to identify bottlenecks and propose new solutions such as new ticketing technologies to reduce time required to board and alight from buses, or dynamic lane markings to provide buses with priority.

In the second area, researchers will look to develop new ways to meet public transport demand - particularly during peak hours - by either using or reducing existing resources, to make sure public transport is affordable and preferred.

Possible solutions could include modelling and simulation studies to optimise bus operations.

The third area hopes to identify challenges or considerations for various urban typologies, suggest possibilities for how road space can be better used, and highlight how the solutions can be implemented.

These three areas will be the focus of one of the two grants. Proposals submitted can focus on any one of the three areas.

The second grant will work to improve the accuracy of measuring bulk excavations for volumetric analysis, and to provide a fast and reliable 3D model of sites for record and data analysis.

Bulk excavation of soil is carried out before the construction of underground depots can commence. The volume of bulk excavation has to be tracked accurately to monitor the excavation rate and factors, such as volume of good earth and soft clay.

The grant calls are open to all research and development organisations in Singapore, including publicly funded institutes of higher learning, non-profit research institutions, public-sector agencies, companies and company-affiliated research entities.

For more details on the scope and application process, interested applicants can visit https://researchgrant.gov.sg/Pages/index.aspx or http://www.lta.gov.sg/content/ltaweb/en/industry-matters.html

The closing date for all submissions is Feb 21.