Singapore Cruise Center has embarked on revolutionising the passenger experience at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and HarbourFront Ferry Terminal in Singapore’s maritime hub, enlisting SITA’S digital travel technology.
SITA is supplying its biometric-ready Smart Path and Flex as-a-service solutions as part of the agreed deal to fortify digital terminal and passenger processing infrastructure.
SITA, the global leader in travel and transport technology, will expand in Singapore’s premier maritime centre, supplying biometric-ready kiosks, self-bag drop, and gates to modernise the passenger experience and processing touchpoints at TMFT and HFFT.
SITA’s Flex as a Service enables agile and responsive passenger processing, and creates a platform for SCC to build custom passenger-facing applications.
The upgraded ferry terminals, serving as Singapore’s gateway to the Riau Islands and south-eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, are expected to manage approximately over 7 million passengers annually.
Sumesh Patel, President of Asia Pacific at SITA, said “seamless travel”, whether by air, sea, or land, will be one of the “biggest drivers of growth for the travel and transport industry”, with increasing pressures to digitalise their infrastructure to appeal to customer’s need for safety.
He said SITA delivers on the huge demands for travel hubs and airlines providing innovative solutions. Singapore Cruise Centre is a clear example of their partnerships, showing how installing their technology can make passenger processing “more efficient, secure, and enjoyable”.
The project encompasses the installation of 45 SITA Smart Path Kiosks across both terminals, also providing a platform for biometric authentication implementation in the future as part of the OneID initiative.
10 SITA Smart Path Bag Drop solutions will streamline the bag check-in process with SITA’s cutting-edge TS6 Kiosks, and 13 new Smart Path Gates will be used for efficient boarding procedures.
Singapore Cruise Centre will integrate its new cloud-based Departure Control System (Cruise and Ferry Operation System) via SITA Flex.
Lee Siew Kit, Vice President of Technology and IT at SCC, said: “We are happy to partner with SITA to bring aviation technologies to the maritime passenger industry so that we can provide similar seamless and future contactless experiences for our ferry, fly-ferry and fly-cruise passengers. The new technology will help the ecosystem streamline processes, and scale to handle more passengers through our terminals in the future.”
Julian Panter, CEO of SmartSea, added that harnessing this technology in the maritime sector is crucial to keeping up with the pace of innovation within the air transport industry in terms of digitalisation of its terminal and passenger processing infrastructure.
The partnership with Singapore Cruise Center is an important step for digitalising the maritime industry, which is currently a decade behind the air transport industry.
“At SmartSea, a SITA company, we’re embarking on a journey to bring the same technological innovation that revolutionised air travel to the maritime world.”
