Singapore Cruise Centre has partnered with travel technology firm SITA to transform passenger processing at its Tanah Merah and HarbourFront ferry terminals.
The upgrade will include biometric-ready kiosks, self-bag drop facilities and automated gates across both terminals.
The terminals, which serve as gateways to Malaysia and Indonesia’s Riau Islands, handle over 7 million passengers annually.
“Seamless travel, by air, sea, or land will be one of the drivers of growth for the travel and transport industry, with transport hubs seeing a need to quickly digitalize their infrastructure to remain ahead of the curve,” SITA Asia Pacific President Sumesh Patel said.
The project involves installing 45 Smart Path kiosks, 10 bag drop points and 13 automated gates.
Singapore Cruise Centre Vice President of Technology Lee Siew Kit said the upgrade would improve the passenger experience.
“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,” Lee said.
The terminals will integrate a new cloud-based departure control system through SITA Flex.
SmartSea CEO Julian Panter said maritime passenger processing lagged behind aviation.
“The maritime sector is currently around a decade behind the air transport industry in terms of digitalization of its terminal and passenger processing infrastructure,” Panter said.
The technology will allow for future biometric authentication as part of the OneID initiative.
