AI Data Engineer

HERE Technologies and New South Wales' Rural Fire Service enhance emergency response routing across remote fire trails. Melbourne, Australia 19 August 2026 HERE Technologies, the world's leading mapping and location data company, and New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS), the world's largest volunteer fire service with more than 68,000 volunteers, are demonstrating how advanced location intelligence can help emergency responders navigate more effectively across some of Australia's most challenging and remote landscapes. Showcased at AFAC26, Australasia's largest emergency management and first responder conference and exhibition, the initiative reveals how HERE and NSW RFS are improving emergency access across some of Australia's most challenging and remote environments by creating a more robust routable map network that includes fire trails, private roads and other critical off-road access routes. Extending emergency routing beyond public roads NSW RFS protects approximately 95% of New South Wales and responds to thousands of incidents each year, including bushfires, grass fires, storms, search-and-rescue operations and vehicle accidents. Reaching incident locations quickly and safely often requires emergency crews to travel beyond traditional public road networks. While public roads form the backbone of most navigation systems, a significant proportion of routes used by emergency responders consist of fire trails, off-road tracks and private roads that have historically been difficult to capture, maintain and integrate into navigation-ready mapping databases. To address this challenge, HERE and NSW RFS are leveraging HERE's mapping operations to combine HERE's advanced road network data with NSW RFS' extensive operational mapping data to create a unified and routable emergency response network. Turning fire trails into actionable route guidance Through the seamless integration of NSW RFS fire trail network, HERE has unlocked over 60,000km of fire trail network into operational use, covering Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Mobile Data Terminals (MDT). Such extensive mapping data is unavailable or insufficiently represented in traditional mapping systems. Combining these mapping datasets enable NSW RFS to have an extensive view of the entire NSW routable network, both on-road and off-road, for better planning, preparation, response and recovery. "Emergency response depends on having the most accurate picture of the landscape possible," said Daniel Antonello, General Manager, Oceania, HERE Technologies. "Many of the routes used by emergency services every day are not conventional roads. By combining HERE's AI-powered location technology with NSW RFS' operational intelligence, we're helping create a more complete and actionable view of the road and trail network, enabling responders to search, locate and respond with greater confidence when every second counts." Supporting faster, more informed emergency response The enhanced mapping capability supports NSW RFS' broader digital transformation initiatives, including CAD, MDT and vehicle-specific navigation for fire appliances. By incorporating fire trails, private roads and operational access routes into a routable map network, dispatchers and crews can receive more accurate and timely guidance to incident locations while accounting for the unique requirements of emergency response vehicles. "Fire trails are a critical part of how we access and manage incidents across New South Wales," said RFS A/Director, ICT and Chief Information Officer Matthew White. "By bringing together our operational knowledge with HERE's mapping technology, we're building a richer and more comprehensive representation of the access network our crews rely on every day. This helps improve situational awareness and supports more informed decision-making in the field." As emergency services continue to operate in increasingly complex environments, keeping these critical datasets current will help ensure responders have access to the most reliable route information available. At AFAC26, HERE will showcase how emergency services can use advanced mapping technologies to integrate fragmented datasets, improve network completeness and deliver more effective routing and navigation for mission-critical operations. About HERE Technologies HERE is the global leader in mapping and location technology. For over 40 years, HERE has been powering innovation for the world's most recognizable companies: from launching its first digital map in 1985, to shaping the future of software-defined vehicles today. With the industry's freshest and richest unified map and a portfolio of products, services and solutions that serve the needs of multiple industries, HERE reveals opportunities that drive progress and unlock new possibilities for every moving vehicle. Discover more at here.com. Media contacts. Vanessa lee. APAC Media Relations

Ryde taps HERE to improve ride-hailing routes and ETAs in Singapore. Ryde is upgrading its routing and dispatch systems as Singapore's ride-hailing market grows more competitive and reliability becomes harder to win 12 Aug, 2026 In a city where a five-minute delay can be the difference between keeping or losing a customer, ride-hailing is often won in the invisible layer behind the app: maps, traffic data, dispatch logic and estimated arrival times. Singapore-based Ryde is now trying to improve that layer through a strategic partnership with HERE Technologies, the mapping and location data company. The two companies said in a joint statement that Ryde has integrated HERE Location Services into its platform to improve driver matching, routing accuracy and ETA predictions across Singapore. The deal is not about adding another button to Ryde's app. It is about making the core ride-hailing experience less uncertain: assigning the right driver, choosing a more realistic route, and telling riders more accurately when their car will arrive. For Ryde, which is listed on the NYSE American under the ticker RYDE, the partnership comes as competition in Singapore's mobility market remains intense. For HERE, it is another example of how location intelligence is becoming a key infrastructure layer for transport, logistics and quick commerce platforms in Southeast Asia. Why routing still matters in a small city. At first glance, Singapore may seem like a relatively easy market for routing technology. It is geographically compact, highly mapped and supported by strong public infrastructure. But the reality for ride-hailing operators is more complicated. Traffic conditions can shift quickly around expressways, Central Business Districts, schools, malls, industrial estates and housing towns. Roadworks, peak-hour congestion, rain and event-related traffic can all distort estimated arrival times. In ride-hailing, those distortions matter because the platform has to make decisions before the trip begins. If a system assigns a driver who appears close on the map but is separated by a difficult junction, a congested slip road or a slow-moving arterial route, the rider waits longer and the driver loses time. Multiply that across thousands of trips, and small mapping errors can become operational costs. Ryde said the integration of HERE's routing engine and real-time traffic intelligence is aimed at improving dispatch decisions, ETA predictions and navigation through changing road conditions. HERE's tools use live traffic data and route optimisation algorithms to support more accurate trip planning. "At Ryde, we're constantly investing in technologies that improve every journey for both riders and drivers," said Ryde CTO Nitin Dolli. "Our partnership with HERE strengthens the intelligence behind our platform, enabling more accurate routing, smarter driver allocation and better ETA predictions." The hidden economics of better ETAs. For riders, ETA accuracy is a convenience issue. For platforms and drivers, it is also an economic one. An inaccurate ETA can lead to cancellations, lower trust and poorer driver utilisation. If a driver is sent on a longer-than-expected pickup route, the time spent reaching the passenger is time not spent completing paid trips. If riders are repeatedly told that a vehicle is arriving sooner than it realistically can, they may switch to another platform. This is why ride-hailing companies invest heavily in what may look like routine back-end upgrades. Driver supply, demand forecasting, route calculation and pricing are all linked. Better routing can help platforms reduce idle time, improve matching and make the app feel more reliable without necessarily increasing the number of vehicles on the road. In Singapore, that is particularly important because the private-hire and taxi market operates within a tightly managed transport environment. Unlike some larger regional markets where platforms can scale supply more aggressively, Singapore's vehicle population is shaped by high ownership costs, regulatory controls and strong public transport alternatives. Platforms therefore have to compete not only on price and incentives, but also on reliability. HERE's Southeast Asia and India General Manager Abhijit Sengupta said ride-hailing platforms depend on accurate location intelligence to keep people and businesses moving. He added that the partnership with Ryde is meant to improve driver utilisation, reduce uncertainty and deliver a better end-user experience. Ryde's broader mobility play. Founded in Singapore in 2014, Ryde began with carpooling and has since expanded into private-hire rides, taxis and delivery. The company describes itself as a "super mobility app", although in practice it operates in a market where the dominant players have much broader ecosystems spanning payments, food delivery, advertising and financial services. One of Ryde's key differentiators has been its 0 per cent commission model for private-hire and taxi drivers. Instead of taking a cut from every completed ride in the way many ride-hailing platforms do, the company has sought to position itself as more driver-friendly. That strategy can help attract and retain supply, but it also means Ryde has to be disciplined about other parts of its business model, including technology costs, operational efficiency and customer retention. The HERE partnership fits into that context. A smaller ride-hailing player cannot always outspend larger rivals on subsidies or marketing. But it can compete by making its service more dependable in specific markets. In Singapore, where users often compare wait times across multiple apps before booking, even marginal gains in pickup accuracy can matter. The collaboration also reflects a wider shift in Southeast Asian mobility. Ride-hailing platforms are increasingly expected to support adjacent services such as parcel delivery, food delivery and quick commerce, all of which rely on precise location data. A routing engine that works well for passenger transport can also help in dispatching couriers or optimising delivery routes, although Ryde and HERE have framed the current announcement mainly around ride-hailing performance. A crowded field. Ryde's most obvious competitor in Singapore is Grab, the region's largest ride-hailing and delivery platform, which has deep consumer reach and a broad driver network. Gojek, owned by GoTo, also remains a major mobility brand in the city, though its regional footprint has been shaped by strategic pullbacks and market-by-market competition. Local and regional alternatives include TADA, which has promoted a zero-commission approach, as well as ComfortDelGro's CDG Zig app, backed by Singapore's largest taxi operator. Globally, the broader ride-hailing sector is shaped by companies such as Uber, Lyft, Didi and Bolt, though not all operate in Singapore. For Ryde, the challenge is not simply to match those companies feature by feature. It is to carve out a durable position in a market where scale, driver liquidity, trust and app reliability are closely intertwined. Location data as infrastructure. The partnership also says something about the role of mapping companies in the current phase of mobility. In the early years of ride-hailing, much of the public attention was on consumer adoption, driver recruitment and regulatory battles. Today, more of the competition is happening inside the routing stack. Maps are no longer static reference tools. They are live systems that feed into pricing, arrival estimates, fleet allocation and delivery promises. This is especially true in Southeast Asian cities, where congestion patterns can be uneven, informal pickup points are common, and road conditions can change quickly. Singapore is a comparatively orderly market, but it is also demanding. Consumers expect accuracy, regulators scrutinise transport operators closely, and competitors are only a tap away. In that environment, the quality of the underlying location data can shape the user experience as much as the app interface itself. For Ryde, integrating HERE's technology is unlikely to transform its market position overnight. But it addresses one of the most important questions in ride-hailing: can the platform make better decisions, faster, before the rider even gets into the car? If it can, the payoff may be felt not in a flashy new feature, but in something more valuable: fewer missed expectations. Editor, e27