Two years of pitching, then breakthrough: S’pore tech firm transforms transport for elderly in Japan

In Japan’s Hakuba Village, buses do not always come on time – if they come at all. The resort town draws over 2 million tourists each year, but for its 8,500 residents, daily life can be a grind.

With an ageing population and dwindling transport options, getting to a doctor’s appointment or grocery store often means long waits at the bus stops.

Enter Swat Mobility, a Singapore tech firm that has found a foothold in one of the world’s most unlikely markets, given how established its public transport systems already are.

It uses demand responsive transport (DRT) to sustain public transport services in such communities. The approach moves away from fixed routes and timetables. Instead, it uses real-time bookings to match passengers with available vehicles.

Hakuba Village’s residents book rides through the “Night Demand Taxi” app, after which routes are planned to optimise pick-up and drop-off points for drivers.

This app is part of Swat Mobility’s broader vehicle-routing system, which coordinates bookings, route planning and driver instructions in real time.

Founded a decade ago by Mr Jarrold Ong and Mr Arthur Chua, the firm adopts an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered vehicle routing system that is used in supporting communities from Hakuba to Wakayama and Kitakyushu.

The system reduces waiting times and uncertainty for residents, so it is no wonder that demand for its services has grown rapidly. Swat Mobility now operates in 20 Japanese cities and towns, supporting public transport services across more than 70 locations. That momentum has translated into strong growth. The company recorded 56 per cent year-on-year revenue growth.

Building trust over time

Breaking into Japan was not so easy, though. The two founders spent close to two years pitching their services to the local Japanese governments before securing their first contract.

Mr Ong says: “As a foreign start-up with little track record in the country, winning that first contract was very challenging. We nearly gave up. But after hiring a Japanese general manager and continuing to deepen relationships, things started to take off.”

Along the way, Swat Mobility also tapped Enterprise Singapore’s (EnterpriseSG) overseas centres to connect with local governments, including the one running Hakuba Village.

While no single introduction led to a breakthrough, repeated exposure helped the company build trust and gain traction.

Mr Ong says EnterpriseSG played a key role, not through one-off referrals, but by consistently opening doors – a process that added credibility and kept the company on the radar of potential partners.

“When there are multiple touchpoints, people become more open to a conversation,” he says.

Turning data into efficient routes

Before its overseas expansion, Swat Mobility spent several years building its technology and customer base in Singapore. The company was founded in 2015 by Mr Ong, a software engineer, and Mr Chua, whose family runs the Goldbell Group, a commercial vehicle-leasing firm.

With ride-hailing apps like Grab and Uber on the rise, Mr Chua saw a chance to apply similar routing technology to larger-scale transport where optimising routes could make underused services more viable.

The pair began testing an on-demand private bus service in developing neighbourhoods such as Punggol, ferrying workers during peak hours where direct public transport options were limited.

A key milestone came in 2017, when the company won a contract with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to deploy DRT in lower-traffic areas such as Gardens by the Bay. The project marked the company’s first major public-sector engagement and underscored what it would take to operate at a larger scale.

“As a consumer-facing start-up, we were not really set up for a government contract,” says Mr Ong. To meet LTA’s requirements, he completed a project management course within a month, while the team put in place the insurance and compliance processes needed for public-sector work.

The experience opened doors. With a successful public-sector project under its belt, the company went on to work with government agencies and large enterprises. Among its early clients were companies such as Sembcorp Marine (now Seatrium) and Singapore Airlines Engineering, where Swat Mobility helped plan and manage worker transport to and from industrial sites.

Moving people and packages

Around 2018, Swat Mobility began working closely with EnterpriseSG as it prepared to expand beyond Singapore.

“EnterpriseSG was keen to support not just large companies, but also work with promising start-ups with potential to grow overseas,” says Mr Ong. “They also had a specific space for mobility and smart cities and that was the EnterpriseSG team that we started to work with.”

The agency helped in multiple ways. It introduced Japanese bus operators visiting Singapore and arranged business trips to China and Vietnam to explore market opportunities. EnterpriseSG also connected the team to local partners and government agencies through its overseas centres.

EnterpriseSG guided Swat Mobility on support schemes for international growth. “They shared with us the grants that we could work with for overseas expansion,” says Mr Ong.

Among those was the Market Readiness Assistance grant, which Swat Mobility used to conduct market research ahead of its entry into Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Overseas markets have since become a significant part of the business. In the financial year ended 2024, revenue was split almost evenly between Singapore and Japan, with Thailand contributing to a smaller share. This year, Mr Ong expects the mix to become more balanced across the three markets.

Alongside its overseas growth, the company is also undergoing a shift in focus. After tackling commuter transport, Swat Mobility is now applying its routing technology to logistics – a pillar that has since become the company’s fastest-growing business.

The company now works with retail and e-commerce companies to plan delivery routes, including for a major supermarket chain in Thailand that operates across multiple cities.

EnterpriseSG also played a role in growing the firm’s logistics vertical. It facilitated a partnership between Swat Mobility and MNG Kargo – now DHL eCommerce – to address last-mile deliveries in Turkey.

The courier company was looking for a data-driven way to improve route planning and delivery point selection.

Swat Mobility developed a custom AI model trained on Turkish address data, which helped to reduce route distances by 10 per cent and cut fuel consumption. Beyond routing, the system also helped drivers identify more practical pick-up and drop-off points.

“Some buildings are very large, so it’s not always clear where the best loading point is located,” says Mr Ong. “We analysed drivers’ GPS logs to identify where deliveries were actually being made.”

In the financial year ended 2025, logistics accounted for about 16 per cent of the company’s revenue. By the end of 2026, Mr Ong says that the segment is on track to contribute around 37 per cent.

“We found that the logistics market is four to five times larger than the people transportation market,” he says. “Over the next couple of years, a larger share of our investment will go into building our logistics product.”

Looking ahead, Mr Ong says the form of transport may change but the underlying challenge remains. From electrification to autonomous vehicles, he sees optimisation as a constant.

“Our vision has always been to empower the world to move more with less,” he says. “Whether it’s people or packages, someone has to solve the routing problem.”

This is part of a series showcasing how EnterpriseSG partners businesses in their defining moments of growth to achieve their dreams, by scaling, innovating, going global and building capabilities.

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