Tag: connected magazine; smart mobility

AI and speech recognition allow for a natural and safer interaction with our car. Advanced connectivity also enables life-long updates and continuously improving skills, both to the benefit of the driver and the fleet manager.

1. Seat Leon: speaking your language

After “Hey Mercedes” and “Hello, BMW”, you probably expected the Spanish OEM to inaugurate “Ola, Seat” as a wake-up call for the infotainment system, but in fact, you just press a button to activate the voice recognition. It should recognise natural rather than strictly structured commands, allowing you to operate your Léon safer and more conveniently. Moreover, the embedded SIM means that the new Leon can be updated and offer new digital services throughout its lifetime. The app that comes with it enables you to monitor and manage your Leon remotely.

2. Land Rover Defender: two eSIMs are better than one

At CES 2020, JLR showcased a brand-new Defender featuring the world’s very first Twin LTE modem. What it actually means, is that this Land Rover can download Software-over-the-air (SOTA) updates on the move without interruption and while streaming music and apps, so without affecting the day-to-day connectivity. In addition, customers can connect two mobile devices to the infotainment at once using Bluetooth, so the driver and passenger can enjoy hands-free functionality concurrently without the need to swap connections. Finally, the dual eSIM allows the Defender to roam across multiple networks in different regions to optimise connectivity.

3. FCA: Uconnect 5 is future-proof with Android OS

Next to Volvo and Polestar, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is also integrating Google’s Android Operating System in its infotainment unit, bringing access to a broad catalogue of applications. In planning for additional automated driving technology, the all-new Uconnect system comes with a Telematics Box Module (TBM) that assists in quickly moving large amounts of data. It’s 5G ready, too. Finally, with the available Uconnect app, which allows you to unlock and start the vehicle, FCA cars will be ready for sharing.

4. Mercedes-Benz in-car office: easy conf-calling

With the “In-Car Office” service, Mercedes drivers can access certain Office functions and important data directly in the car. For example, “In-Car Office” uses the location data in the calendar and automatically records it in the vehicle’s navigation system. In addition, the user can participate in a conference call without having to search for dial-up details. The system automatically recognises the required PIN code and uses it immediately. Drivers of an MBUX equipped Merc don’t have to lift so much as a finger: they can use the “Hey Mercedes” voice command function.

5. Android Auto comes to BMW – and its wireless People not belonging to the Apple community, rejoice: BMW has finally struck a deal with Google.

That means Android users can soon mirror their phone screens onto the central display of their Beemer and use messaging, navigation and music apps. Icing on the cake: the connection is wireless – no more fiddling with USB cables. Cherry on the icing: the phone’s data also appears in an adapted form in the instrument cluster’s info display as well as in the head-up display. Android Auto will be available from July 2020 for all vehicles with BMW Operating System 7.0.

Source: Fleet Europe – fleeteurope.com

The authors, Andreas Gissler, Andreas Quentin, André Gerhardy, Jan-Hendrik Bomke conducted a study called “Shared mobility: from ownership to on-demand” published in the paper “The Transforming Mobility Landscape” realized by Accenture in January 2020. In this study the authors explain how the consumption of mobility will change dramatically over the next 25 to 30 years and that the entire industries will be compelled to rethink their business models.

DRIVERS OF CHANGE

From how consumers expect to get around, to their perceptions of vehicles, to vehicle technology and design—everything about mobility will be dramatically different. The convergence of three key factors will be the driving force behind this change (Figure 2).

MARKET PULL

Consumers’ mindsets and behavior regarding cars are already substantially different from a decade ago and will continue to evolve over time, forcing companies to innovate to meet changing demands. In China, for example, more than 80 % of the population think that owning a car will be much less important and car sharing much more convenient. Similarly, consumers in Western countries believe that in the future, cars will no longer be seen as status symbols, and consumers will be more willing to use car sharing or even share their own car. Yet the full change to “as-a-service” business models will take time—it’s going to be an evolution rather than a revolution.

TECHNOLOGY PUSH

The proliferation of technological advancements is transforming the vehicle itself—from connected to electric to, ultimately, autonomous. The connected revolution is nearly complete: by 2025, all new vehicles will be connected vehicles, and 40 % of them will have embedded telematics, putting software at the center of the driver’s experience. By 2030, 30 % of all new vehicles will be electric. The true game changer comes by 2045, when half of newly sold cars will be partially or fully autonomous — which will have a massive impact on current consumption patterns by turning drivers into riders. As vehicles and their accompanying technologies evolve, they will continue to disrupt mobility-related industries, making possible entirely new business models and spurring even greater inventions.

REGULATION PUSH AND PULL

By 2050, about two-thirds of the global population will live in cities, more than double the figure in 1970.

Without government action, this will mean more cars and trucks on the streets, forcing commuters to spend more time in traffic jams and generating more pollution that threatens both people’s health and the environment. Regulators need to rethink how they address traffic to fulfill their mission to make worry- free and clean, sustainable mobility available to a city’s inhabitants. We’re already seeing cities taking steps to that end, such as new regulations to meet sustainability targets, additional tolls or fees for personal vehicles, and restrictions on goods delivery by trucks in the city center. As such actions become more widespread, they will create greater incentive for people and businesses to find ways other than driving their own vehicles to get around increasingly populous cities.

THREE ERAS OF MOBILITY

As the preceding forces evolve, we’ll see a corresponding evolution in mobility itself—embodied by three distinct eras (Figure 3).

CONNECTED MOBILITY ERA

In the first, the Connected Mobility Era, consumers still place a priority on access to vehicles themselves. However, these vehicles will grow increasingly intelligent, enabling new service models. Car sharing also will continue to expand, encouraged by government regulations to limit private cars and reduce congestion on city streets, as well as the more favorable economics of vehicle usage compared with ownership.

EARLY AUTONOMOUS MOBILITY ERA

As new autonomous vehicles become viable for the masses, we’ll enter the Early Autonomous Mobility Era, when consumers prefer access to mobility-as-a-service over access to a vehicle. Cities and public institutions, in turn, will have to respond by investing in their infrastructure and putting in place the right regulations to encourage the deployment of autonomous technology that boosts access to mobility.

SYSTEM ECONOMY ERA

When fully autonomous cars become commonplace, the System Economy Era begins to take shape. Through the emergence of various forms of mobility services, mobility moves to the background. Consumers will see mobility as a utility, available on-demand without much thought about how it happens—much like they view electricity in their homes today. In this era, cities and public institutions will have to fully regulate mobility to accommodate this “invisible” utility. Furthermore, automotive OEMs will need to adapt not only their marketing and sales strategies, but also the way vehicles are designed.

THE VEHICLE MOBILITY MIX AND INFLUENCING FACTORS

What does all this mean to the mobility ecosystem’s players and how they make money? To be sure, the mobility evolution will create massive challenges for traditional OEMs and their current business models. But it also opens up tremendous new opportunities, not to mention compelling new revenue streams for any company willing to think boldly about how and where it can play as these eras unfold.

In the future, companies will generate revenue from mobility in three primary ways:

• Vehicle Sales: the traditional automotive business of designing, building, and selling cars to consumers and companies to satisfy long-term mobility needs
• Vehicle-as-a-Service: the vehicle (such as cars, bikes, or scooters) is offered as-a-service to consumers to satisfy short- and mid-term mobility needs
• Mobility-as-a-Service: mobility itself is offered as-a- service—whereby the consumer is no longer the driver, but the rider—to satisfy short- and mid-term mobility needs

When analyzing the respective development of each business model, one must consider five main influencing factors clustered around customers, the public sector, and mobility industry players (Figure 4).

From a customer perspective, three big factors will drive the choice of mobility mode: customers’ willingness to pay for mobility; the convenience they expect from the service; and other customer preferences, such as environmental values or desire for predictability. A general openness to new ways to get around also will be critical to the success of innovative new business models.

The public sector also plays a vital role in the future success of new forms of mobility. This includes delivering the required infrastructure (be it roads or 5G networks), creating the appropriate regulatory environment, and orchestrating the mobility mix in countries and cities (the last of which is also key to defining the availability and supply of mobility modes).

Last but not least are the mobility industry players, which will need to drive the technological progress needed to make new business models possible and to determine how to make those models profitable (which means operating cost management will be key to long-term business success).

Although each factor on its own can significantly influence mobility’s future, the interplay of all factors— as well as geographical and regional differences in customers and public sector players—will ultimately decide what tomorrow’s mobility mix actually looks like. The real game-changer will be autonomous technology. When autonomous vehicles reach Level 5—full automation—driverless cars will be able to operate on any road and in any conditions a human driver could negotiate. This will make robo-taxis technologically and, at some point, economically feasible, which could spell the end for other mobility services based on Vehicle-as-a-Service (VaaS) and Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) (Figure 4).

Let’s look in more detail at the three dominant types of business models we can expect to see in the coming years, how they’ll likely evolve, and their projected revenue trends over time (Figure 5).

VEHICLE SALES

Regardless of the era, vehicles will still be needed and a business model that includes producing vehicles for sale will remain viable. In fact, vehicle sales will still account for the largest proportion of total revenue generated by mobility players across all three eras, and global new car sales will grow by 1.6 % annually until 2050, spurred by economic and global population growth. Revenues from new car sales also will increase throughout the Connected Era, peaking during the transition to the Early Autonomous Mobility Era (2030) before entering into a slow, gradual decline back in line with today’s figures.

However, the types of vehicles made, who buys them, and the revenue generated will certainly change (Figure 6). In 2050, vehicles will mainly be sold to corporate fleets and mobility fleet operators to provide short-, medium- and long-term mobility on-demand.

Privately owned vehicles will remain the primary mode of transportation in rural and suburban areas. Because they’ll be those consumers’ primary mode of transportation and will have greater comfort features and superior technology compared with vehicles used in fleets, they’ll likely command a premium price.

VEHICLE-AS-A-SERVICE (VaaS)

As connected vehicles become increasingly autonomous, VaaS will become increasingly popular. VaaS business models will emerge to provide vehicles and the necessary infrastructure to flexibly book and share vehicles that fulfill short- and medium-term mobility needs. The most prominent of these business models will be business-to-consumer (B2C) car sharing and micro-mobility (akin to today’s electric scooters), with people-to-people (P2P) car sharing playing a minor role due to people’s reluctance to let strangers drive their vehicles.

However, despite strong growth between 2020 and 2040, VaaS will only play a minor role in the new mobility environment (accounting for less than 10 % in 2050) (Figure 7). Among the factors that will impede further growth of VaaS are asset-heavy operations within B2C car sharing, lack of trust between P2P car sharing members, high turnover needs in micro- mobility, high operations and insurance costs, overall regulation, and a general difficulty in scaling. Hence, VaaS can be characterized as a transition stage toward full-fledged mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) offerings and, importantly, a big step toward getting consumers more familiar with and confident in mobility services.

MOBILITY-AS-A-SERVICE (MaaS)

MaaS business models will disrupt and transform the way people consume mobility—becoming the option of choice for short-term mobility needs, turning drivers into riders, and effectively relegating mobility to the background by making it a passive rather than active pursuit. MaaS will come in two “options”: Individual MaaS will include initial business models such as ride hailing, which eventually will give way to the more economical “robo-taxis.” Group MaaS will be primarily focused on-demand-responsive transit, whose value proposition is effectively and efficiently organizing ride pooling and which, with effective partnering, can serve as a complement to or even replace existing public transportation networks.

As MaaS becomes more prevalent, the revenue it generates will grow accordingly—increasing more than fortyfold between 2020 and 2050 (Figure 7), when it will comprise 40 % of the mobility industry’s total revenues. The MaaS market will be characterized by a high degree of development and be highly dependent on technology advancements and regulation. For instance, fully autonomous driving will be key to driving down MaaS’s marginal costs, enabling cost and price leaders to dominate the market.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The future mobility ecosystem and value chain will reshuffle the deck for everyone involved, as disruptive new players enter the market and mobility service providers, cities, and other stakeholders will shift the balance of power and key strategic control points across the ecosystem. In that context alliances and strategic partnerships are necessary, to generate critical mass to scale mobility services in a very short time.
2. Until now the mobility ecosystem has mostly failed to generate sustainable profits because of customers’ unwillingness to pay and high operational and financial costs. As a result, a clear “separation of duties” is necessary among vehicle manufacturers (which should run their mobility efforts apart from their traditional car-making business); suppliers (such as fleet operators); and the mobility providers themselves to build the right set of capabilities and resources to given the severe competition. Doing so will be critical to reducing marginal costs, optimizing asset utilization, building the right product offering, and generating sustainable profits.
3. When it comes to scaling mobility offerings, the mobility ecosystem not only faces operational and regulatory barriers, but also highly differentiated and diverse customer demands. Customer expectations for how they actually will consume mobility differs significantly across continents, countries, and regions, which leads to significant offering and operational complexity. Therefore, the mobility ecosystem must, first and foremost, take a regional or local approach to be able to deliver the services customers want.
4. While scaling businesses to minimize costs and reach a critical mass is central to all mobility providers, regulators will be called on to regulate and orchestrate mobility offerings across cities to create an environment in which mobility can grow sustainably. Determining and supporting the right mixture of mobility offerings will be key to giving residents access to new forms of mobility, managing competition, and learning how to best organize new forms of transportation.
5. Last but not least, the mobility revolution is only possible if all stakeholders can build the necessary infrastructure that, for example, enables the use of connected and autonomous vehicles at scale and efficient mobility operations. This, in turn, hinges on regional orchestration and collaboration, as well as significant public investments.

After a period of new market launches and expansion, several carsharing services are downsizing or even discontinuing their operations altogether. What will the carsharing industry of the future look like?

At the end of 2019, Share Now announced it was withdrawing from the North American market and cutting back its operations in Europe. Share Now was created from the merger of the mobility services offered by BMW and Daimler.

Earlier, GM ended Maven, a carsharing service in North America. Book by Cadillac was suspended at the end of 2018 with a new programme set to launch in early 2020.

Deep pockets

Yves Helven, Global Fleet expert, believes Cadillac was not helped by its traditional customer base, which is older and more conservative.

Building a successful carsharing service is no easy feat, he said. “First of all, you need a very customer-friendly, easy to use platform. Secondly, you need good buy-back deals with carmakers. And you need backers with deep pockets, because it’s very hard to make money in this industry.”

Philippe Bismut, Fleet Europe expert and formerly CEO at Arval, agrees. “I don’t know of one carsharing company that is making money, even more so if it’s a free-floating business. To me, the carsharing solutions that are successful are the ones that are based on existing corporate fleets or within a dealership, where some of the costs are already being absorbed elsewhere.”

Peer-to-peer

Pascal Serres, Fleet Europe expert and formerly deputy CEO at ALD, also sees potential in peer-to-peer platforms. “A peer-to-peer business in less expensive in terms of capital as they don’t need to fund the vehicles. Other businesses are much more difficult although programmes backed by OEMs also have their place in the market.”

Mr Helven agrees there is a place in the market for peer-to-peer carsharing, adding we should keep an eye out on what Tesla’s planning to do. “In early 2019, Tesla launched an over-the-air update to prepare all Teslas for carsharing. This feature hasn’t been activated yet but once it is, all Tesla owners will have the option to offer their vehicle on a peer-to-peer carsharing platform. I believe Tesla could attract the right customers for such a service and Tesla could make it work.”

Shared Teslas?

“At a later stage, Tesla could set up its own carsharing service built on this peer-to-peer experience. They might even build a dedicated small city car for this service, in which they could reuse batteries of old Teslas, enabling them to build a true closed ecosytem.”

All three experts agree carsharing is here to stay. Don’t remove it from your MaaS menu yet, but be prepared to change suppliers. “There will be a high turnover in the sector,” concluded Mr Bismut.

Source: Fleet Europe – fleeteurope.com

Researchers Sanja Surdonja, and Aleksandra Deluka-Tibljas, from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia and Tullio Giuffre from Università degli Studi di Enna “Kore”,Cittadella Universitaria, Enna, Italy, presented an article at the  International Congress on Transport Infrastructure and Systems in a changing world (Rome, September 2019), regarding Smart Mobility Solutions.

1. Smart mobility

Sustainable management of urban areas has become, during the last decades, one of the most important challenges of the 21st century that resulted in the concept of “smart city”. Smart City includes different aspects of city management: building, energy, environment, government, living, education and mobility.

Smart Mobility is often highlighted as a key system without which the Smart City could not be sustainable. A number of smart solutions have been analyzed and implemented in the context of smart mobility/movement in the cities and beyond. Many of these solutions are based on IT and they include a vehicle navigation system, e-parking, e-ticket, info-mobility signalization, demand-responsive transport, car sharing, bike sharing, public transport live tracking but also some innovative solutions are not necessarily related to IT (walking bus).

From the other hand, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) were already introduced in the cities as a solution to mitigate traffic congestion and to reduce pollution by enhancing smart mobility, fuel efficiency, accessibility, and safety. ITS can produce benefits related to traffic congestion and air quality without foreseeing the construction of additional roads or transport infrastructures.

They are variegated and include several different technologies and software solutions such as advanced traffic management systems (e.g., freeway and incident management systems, electronic toll collection), advanced traveler information systems (e.g., dynamic message signs, in-car real-time traffic information and navigation systems), advanced public transportation systems, commercial vehicle operations and so on.

According to Debnath, in order to consider that the mobility system of a city is smart, it is necessary that it is self-operating and self-correcting and requiring little or no human intervention. The main aspect of smart mobility is connectivity; thanks to connectivity and big and open data, users can transmit all the traffic information in real-time, and public administrators can simultaneously conduct dynamic management.

Data related to mobility may change constantly (e.g., data on available parking spaces, traffic conditions, accidents, train or bus delays), and may be communicated immediately to the mobile app users, to ensure a smart, easy, and smooth trip.

The introduction of new transport systems and services, on the one hand, leads to an evolution in the demand for transportation, and on the other hand, it is also able to change user’s behavior. For this reason, it is important to develop advanced tools and methods for investigating the characteristics of mobility demand.

2. Smart mobility survey

The researchers explain that the Smart Mobility Survey has been conducted in Croatia, in 2017, with the aim to establish users opinion on a number of the different, mostly ICT supported, solutions that have been lately used in the world (and Croatia) for enhancement of mobility in the cities.

The survey has examined the familiarity with such solutions, the current level of their use, and future expectations of using existing and new smart solutions (e.g. autonomous cars) in everyday life. Almost a third of the sample stated that real-time information about public transportation, e-parking, and e-ticketing for transportation services are the most impactful solutions for their city ́s daily life.

However, in the case of impact on the future daily life, in Croatian survey, respondents highlighted just a few of the smart mobility solutions as significant: in-vehicle navigation tools, driverless car, and public transport live tracking.

3. Driverless cars – a near future mobility solution

The authors also highlight that recent studies display a positive picture of the public opinion on fully automated driving. Nevertheless, a non-negligible level of the reluctance of the potential users is also partly present. A research done by Schoettle & Sivak investigated the public opinion about automated and self-driving vehicles in the US, the UK, and Australia.

Although 57% of the respondents had an overall positive the results showed concern about riding in completely self-driving vehicles.

Conclusions

Smart mobility as an important part of the Smart City concept includes different smart mobility solutions of which some are already present in our cities (e.g. e-ticketing, e-parking, live-tracking, etc.) and some are in a testing phase like driverless cars.

The survey has shown that mobility solutions, already in use, are expected to have the highest impact on their everyday life in the future. Unexpectedly, young responders (20-30y) represent a major part of the “skeptic” among the population included in the survey.

The researchers stress that it is important to have a more public debate (presentations, surveys, education…) of future mobility solutions and their benefits so that they become more acceptable to the wider population.

According to the authors the next goal should be to stay ahead of the gradient of change valuing some practical implications of the new approach. Indeed, it should be needed an advanced and detailed technical framework in order to shape the mobility demand and its behavior referring to future transportation solutions.