CANALYS CHANNELS FORUM, PERTH, AUSTRALIA: The entire transportation sector is going through a revolution, with Canalys predicting fully autonomous self-driving cars will appear on the roads within three years.

‪Canalys‪ CEO Steve Brazier said there will be a race to see who launches autonomous vehicles first: “We would expect Singapore or maybe Seoul to be first, but we’ll see. It could also come in China.”

The research company expects 20 per cent of vendor channel partners to be selling or managing autonomous vehicle solutions by 2020.

While there’s obviously a lot of attention and hype, Brazier said it’s not just cars being transformed in the transportation sector.

He pointed to an aggressive push by JD.com to introduce drones.‬ The e-commerce giant is building 185 drone ports across China so it can serve rural areas of China within 24 hours. The drones fly at 100km/h and can deliver packages up to 15kg.‬

In China more than 20 airports use facial recognition to increase security, while one terminal in Singapore’s Changi Airport offers self-service check-in, and automated bag drop, immigration clearance and boarding.

The terminal also introduced 3D scanning so passengers no longer need to take their computers and tablets out of their bags when they go through security.

“That’s fantastic, to speed things up and make life easier,” Brazier said.

He noted there are already driverless boats on some of Amsterdam’s canals.