Evolution of Internet of Vehicles (IoT):

Internet of Vehicles | Mobility as a Service | Smart Transportation

With the IoT (Internet of Things) gaining significant traction, it has lead to a natural evolution in the development of smart transportation, an inevitable convergence of the mobile internet and Internet of Things – the “Internet of Vehicles”.  Let’s see how IoV has been shaping up from 3 different perspectives.

Market Perspective:

The growing interest between the public and private transportation providers, has led to development of unified gateway that creates and manages journeys, which users can pay for with a single account. This sharing economy with Mobility as a Service (Maas) defines a shift away from personally owned modes of transportations towards mobility solutions. That are consumed as a service. The IoV technologies can effectively increase the usage hours of vehicles from the current level of 2-3 hours or less. For instance, the users can log idle times of vehicles on the platform thereby reducing. The paid parking in the parking lots at the same time generating an income stream from the vehicle.

With proper real-time communication, in the event of an accident, the IoV technology could automatically send vital details to emergency services such as time of collision, GPS location, vehicle description, vehicle licence number and registered owner. The real-time communication can be the difference between life and death.

Technology Perspective:

The electrification, digitalisation, and automation are the 3 primary developments in the realisation of IoV. Though the electric vehicles on the road are increasing, there is a relatively less number of electric vehicles that are being embedded with digital controllers or active systems. From the automation standpoint, the unmanned vehicles have already migrated from the R&D phase to actual operation, however there is still a long way to go. The vehicles have evolved to contain a complex network of as many as 100 independent computers, or electronic control units (ECUs). These ECUs rely on over 20 million lines of code, particularly in today’s luxury cars. With 5G technology offering less than 10ms latency, we can have proper real-time communication with cars.

Industry Perspective:

The industry will have to experience revolutionary changes in production, technology, and products, as the cars will no longer be just a mode of transportation but a mobile office that helps drivers to connect to the world outside. Many manufacturers have indicated that the production of gasoline or diesel vehicles will end after 2025. At least eight countries have set sales targets for electric cars and several countries that want to ditch gas and diesel cars in favor of cleaner vehicles. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has hinted that it’s only a matter of time before the country that invented the modern car sets an expiration date of its own.