The future of our global trade has the cold, rational face of automation. A Singapore, the mega port of you has already moved 10 million containers with almost no human touch. A silent army of yellow vehicles moves with military precision, transporting extremely heavy loads at 25 km/h without a driver.
People? They are relegated to remote control rooms, staring at screens showing digital twins of reality. Is this the fate of our ports? Maybe. It is certainly a preview of how technology is swallowing up spaces once dedicated to human work.
A fleet that moves alone
Those expecting to see typical port scenes with busy workers and forklifts zipping between stacks of containers would be disappointed. Tuas is almost eerily silent, broken only by the hum of autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) transporting containers at impressive speeds for such a place (up to 25 km/h) without any driver on board.
The current fleet includes more than 200 of these yellow robots, which communicate with each other via RFID technology, keeping in constant contact with underground transponders.
These vehicles can operate for up to 6 hours on a 20-minute charge, and are designed to always remain connected even in the event of network failures.
Fumika Sato, a journalist for Nikkei Asia, reported on have done a tour of the automated mega-port with virtually no human contact; only machines carrying out their tasks with meticulous precision.
Tuas Automated Port, Remote Control and Invisible
Humans have not disappeared completely, as mentioned, but have moved elsewhere. In a command center near the port, human operators remotely monitor and control vehicles and cranes through large screens that display a digital twin of the entire facility.
It's a radical paradigm shift: from physical work to technological supervision. A transformation that replaces muscular fatigue with constant attention to displays and operating parameters. A transition that requires skills that are completely different from traditional ones.
PSA Singapore, the automated port operator, plans to further expand the AGV fleet with approximately 200 more vehicles as the facility nears completion. A massive investment that demonstrates confidence in this operating model.
Unbounded ambitions
It's not just about automation, it's about scalability. The port of Tuas, which has started operations in 2022 with three docks, it had already eight last February and employed 500 people. A paltry sum if we consider that the entire port city of Singapore handled 41,12 million containers in 2024.
Shanghai, currently the world's busiest port, handles a whopping 50 million containers annually. When Tuas is completed in the next few years, however, that record will be far surpassed, with a capacity of 65 million containers in a single terminal. An immense ambition that makes us reflect on the future of the world's ports.
