The Straits Times reported that the Land Transport Authority (LTA) received an international award for its use of geographical data to improve the efficiency of public services.

Selected from a pool of more than 400,000 organisations worldwide, the LTA was presented the Special Achievement in Geographic Information System (GIS) award on Wednesday at the annual global Esri User Conference in San Diego, California, held by global mapping software firm Esri.

The organisation won for its data analytics programme Planning for Land Transport Network (Planet), which uses GIS technology to help planners understand commuter patterns and hence fine-tune transport policy.

For instance, the Planet system allowed planners to map and analyse hotspots of passenger-crowding on public buses during peak hours. This helped them reduce persistently-crowded bus services by sixty percent. It also helped them to reduce waiting time by three to seven minutes, despite an annual 100,000 rise in average daily bus ridership.