SINGAPORE - The Land Transport Authority (LTA), SMRT and Starhub announced on Monday a research collaboration with IBM aimed at helping the authorities better respond to and manage public transport incidents.

Called Fusion AnalyticS for public Transport Emergency Response, or Faster, the two-year tie-up will see data from SMRT and Starhub combined and studied using IBM data analytics.

SMRT would provide video feeds from certain MRT stations, while Starhub would share anonymised telecommunications data.

By making commuters' travel patterns more visible to agencies, the idea is to improve their decision-making in responding to incidents such as train breakdowns, overcrowding, or other emergencies and unplanned events.

President and chief executive officer of SMRT Desmond Kuek called the collaboration "a potential game-changer" in helping the company be ready for any eventuality on its train and bus networks.

Starhub chief executive officer Tan Tong Hai called the move "very timely" in the country's transformation into an "intelligent" nation.