Here is what Kyle Con­nor, Cis­co Trans­porta­tion Indus­try Prin­ci­pal, shares as top pre­dic­tions on How IoT will Trans­form Trans­porta­tion in the com­ing year, which include the emer­gence of data as the “new oil” for trans­porta­tion agen­cies, as well as the rise in Mobil­i­ty-as-a-Ser­vice (MaaS) for enhanc­ing the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.

Trans­porta­tion IoT Pre­dic­tions for 2018 … and Beyond

1. Data will be the new oil.

 Typ­i­cal­ly, the extent of cities, states and trans­porta­tion agen­cies’ involve­ment with the data col­lect­ed from con­nect­ed infra­struc­tures and vehi­cles has been stor­ing and secur­ing it. In 2018, we’ll see enti­ties tak­ing a clos­er look at the val­ue of this data and find­ing inno­v­a­tive ways to lever­age ana­lyt­ics to cre­ate rev­enue streams, improve qual­i­ty of life for cit­i­zens, and off­set costs of new tech­nolo­gies. For exam­ple, if a depart­ment of trans­porta­tion is deploy­ing road­way sen­sors that detect fog, it can poten­tial­ly sell the col­lect­ed data to weath­er insti­tu­tions or to nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems to pro­vide safer, more effi­cient trav­el.
 
2. Mobil­i­ty-as-a-Ser­vice (MaaS) will enhance the pas­sen­ger
expe­ri­ence.

 Mobil­i­ty as a Ser­vice (MaaS), also known as Trans­porta­tion-as-a-Ser­vice (TaaS), refers to the move toward mobil­i­ty solu­tions that are con­sumed as a ser­vice (such as ride-shar­ing ser­vices like Uber or Lyft), as opposed to per­son­al­ly owned modes of trans­porta­tion. In 2018, will see broad­er use of MaaS across dif­fer­ent modes of trans­porta­tion, pro­vid­ing pas­sen­gers with a seam­less trav­el expe­ri­ence – from bike­shares, to rideshares, to mass tran­sit sys­tems and every­where in between.
 
3. Trans­porta­tion agen­cies will uncov­er new rev­enue streams to recoup loss­es from few­er gas vehi­cles on the road.

 As auto­mat­ed, con­nect­ed and rideshar­ing vehi­cles increase in preva­lence, more peo­ple are mov­ing toward MaaS and the impor­tance of own­ing a per­son­al vehi­cle is dimin­ish­ing. This trend, cou­pled with the fact that more elec­tric vehi­cles are hit­ting the road­ways, means that state and local gov­ern­ments are gath­er­ing less rev­enue from gas tax­es, tolls and oth­er forms of vehi­cle-relat­ed recur­ring rev­enue that help them main­tain road­ways and infra­struc­ture. In 2018, gov­ern­ments and their trans­porta­tion agen­cies will look to recoup these loss­es and find new rev­enue streams by offer­ing new con­ve­niences and mon­e­tiz­ing the data col­lect­ed through con­nect­ed infra­struc­tures.
 
4. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) and Machine Learn­ing (ML) will solid­i­fy their roles in the con­nect­ed trans­porta­tion space. 

Just as in many oth­er indus­tries, AI and ML will become much more wide­spread in the trans­porta­tion sec­tor in 2018, enabling more auto­mat­ed, pre­dic­tive ana­lyt­ics and there­fore, bet­ter deci­sion-mak­ing. AI and ML will make it pos­si­ble to pre­dict when to deploy emer­gency response vehi­cles, tow trucks, snow plows, etc., mak­ing roads and high­ways safer and more effi­cient. For exam­ple, by aggre­gat­ing and ana­lyz­ing cur­rent and his­toric weath­er, micro­cli­mate and traf­fic data, trans­porta­tion agen­cies can pre­emp­tive­ly deploy salt trucks to road­ways that often ice over, just before they begin to freeze. Or, they can pre­dict when fog is like­ly to appear on hyper-local sec­tions of road­ways and warn dri­vers. These types of pre­dic­tive deci­sions, pow­ered by AI and ML, enable trans­porta­tion to move with few­er dis­rup­tions, keep costs down and ensure safer trav­el.
 
5. Trans­porta­tion agen­cies and gov­ern­ments will expand their part­ner ecosys­tems to dri­ve greater adop­tion of con­nect­ed tech­nol­o­gy and cre­ate new inter­nal roles

As more imple­menters of con­nect­ed trans­porta­tion tech­nolo­gies are dis­cov­er­ing, it is impos­si­ble to pur­sue a project alone. In 2018, agen­cies and depart­ments will bring in new part­ners, such as con­sul­tants, acad­e­mia, sys­tems inte­gra­tors, third-par­ty ven­dors and more to cre­ate teams capa­ble of deploy­ing tech­nolo­gies that impact road­ways and cit­i­zens’ lives. In addi­tion, we’ll see more city and state gov­ern­ments cre­ate a new role of Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer to spear­head many of these ini­tia­tives.

The Author: Kyle Con­nor, Cis­co