SINGAPORE: Fewer parking spots but a lot more electric vehicle (EV) chargers and bicycle parking lots will be found at the upcoming Punggol Digital District, touted to be Singapore’s first smart and sustainable business park.

The 50-hectare district – roughly the size of 70 football fields – will have 96 EV chargers in its first phase of opening. The plan is to ramp that up to 151 eventually, making it the location with the most EV chargers in Singapore, said national industrial estate developer JTC on Thursday (May 16).

To support environmentally friendly transport, the “car-lite” district in Punggol North will have 1,500 bicycle parking lots and facilities such as lockers and shower rooms.

Correspondingly, there will be fewer vehicle parking lots – at around 1,200, which is 50 per cent less than the requirements of a regular industrial estate, said JTC’s group director for new estates Nelson Liew.

Besides greener transport, the new business park will have infrastructure and technology to optimise land use and energy. This will also lower its carbon footprint, with a 35 per cent reduction in operational carbon emissions annually – equivalent to taking 4,000 cars off the road, said JTC.