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Government GIS

Moving towards a spatially enabled and liveable Singapore

By Clarice Africa | 25 March 2011

In an interview with Peter Quek, Director of Corporate Development, Information Systems at the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, he tells futureGov Asia Pacific why GIS plays a significant role in making Singapore one of the most liveable cities in Asia.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is Singapore’s national land use planning and conservation authority and has helped to successfully transform Singapore into one of the most liveable cities in Asia through judicious land use planning and good urban design.

According to Peter Quek, Director of Corporate Development, Information Systems at the Urban Redevelopment Authority, given Singapore’s land constraints, there will always be competing demands for land to support housing, businesses, commerce, recreation, utilities, and transportation.

“In order to make informed decisions on land use and trade-offs involved, URA planners require current and accurate information on land and buildings to be readily available, and I believe this is where GIS comes in” Quek said.

“In this regard, we adopt a long term and comprehensive planning approach in formulating strategic plans such as the Concept Plan and the Master Plan, to guide the physical development of Singapore in a sustainable manner. Our plans and policies are focused and aligned in achieving a balance between economic growth and an environment that would permit quality living”.

Leveraging GIS for urban planning

“One important tool we leverage to tackle the challenges of land use planning is InfoComm Technologies (ICT) and specifically the use of URA’s enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) known as the Integrated Planning and Land Use System (iPLAN)”.

Quek added that the URA has been using GIS for land use planning since 1995 when the agency implemented a proprietary GIS system called the Integrated Land Use System (ILUS), the country’s first integrated GIS system.

In 2006, URA migrated to iPLAN which runs on ESRI GIS software platform. iPLAN is among the world’s first nationwide enterprise GIS systems for urban planning and it contains comprehensive land, building, planning and approval information which is readily available to URA’s planners. It is used to help carry out a whole spectrum of planning work from strategic planning, land safeguarding, processing of development applications, to land use consultations.

“iPLAN has allowed our planners to provide innovative solutions to land use planning by leveraging on the latest technology in enterprise GIS, 3D modeling and simulation, aerial photograph imaging, web services, and enterprise content management system” Quek said.

Singapore’s Land-use Master Plan

iPLAN was also used as a geographic knowledge system to assist in the preparation of the Master Plan 2008 (MP2008), support public engagement, and facilitate faster decision making by integrating GIS technology with electronic document management and workflow systems.

The Master Plan is the statutory land use plan which guides Singapore’s development in the medium term over the next 10 to 15 years. It is reviewed every five years and translates the broad strategies of the longer-term Concept Plan into detailed plans to guide development. The Master Plan shows the permissible land use and density for developments in Singapore.

iPLAN was used to digitise and prepare the electronic versions of the Master Plan, as well as Special and Detailed Controls Plans.The digitised Master Plan was later published via the iPLAN Internet Map System (IMS) as part of the public consultation exercise and about 200,000 viewers accessed the IMS during the launch.

“The iPLAN IMS and MP2008 project have enabled URA to reach out to the whole nation, allowing the public to view and provide feedback on the MP2008. We were able to engage a much bigger audience, including those who may not have visited the Master Plan 2008 exhibition at the URA Centre” Quek said.

Challenges involved in the utilisation of geospatial technology in urban planning

As with any IT systems and especially in geospatial applications, it is crucial to ensure there is strong business-IT alignment and highly accurate information. Since the 1990s, URA has captured key information in GIS and established key business processes to ensure data accuracy and completeness. As such, there is strong knowledge management of planning information that enables complex analysis and critical decision support.

“A key challenge is to cater to requirements from multiple user groups which comprises technical staff, architects and planners. Hence, we have to employ the right GIS tools of varying sophistication to meet different users’ work requirements in order to achieve outcomes based on common goals” Quek said.

The full article on how the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore uses GIS in urban planning will appear in the April edition of FutureGov Asia Pacific.

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