Published At: August 4, 2018
The human mobility marketplace is changing rapidly. Large public operators and private corporations as well as a wide range of new entrants are at the forefront of these developments. Together they demonstrate the huge disruptive potential to transform the way people move.
Although diverse in its nature, it is also very clear that the future of mobility is characterized by less ownership and more ‘as a service’ modes of transport. In this article, we share 5 possible new innovations that are a direct consequence of using a blockchain-powered platform and will have a significant impact on how mobility is currently organized.
An obvious downside front-end payment integrators are that mobility companies lose the relationship with their clients, all well as giving valuable (often very private) data to a third party. Using a shared and open software-based solution for smart payments means that mobility companies work on a shared ledger, accepting the same travel token.
This would give mobility companies and developers the freedom to build unique applications, delivering a great experience, and building smart solutions. For people, it would mean that they can use one application to use anywhere in the world for all their mobility needs.
Transactions in a software-based solution mean that smart cities can have direct access to distribute incentives to have a real-time influence on how people (and goods) move around a city. Using real-time traffic data, cities can build self-learning algorithms that would distribute these incentives in an increasingly effective way.
For example: in the case to prevent or provide a real-time solution to a traffic jam, cities could distribute incentives in the form of travel tokens to reward people to take a shared bike or public transport.
There are numerous players active in the current mobility economy. Because of the lack of a shared platform, there is also a lack of trust and cooperation. Implementing contractual agreements using “smart contracts”, would mean a fraud and cheat the protected system to collaborate.
For example; if a large mobility company would like to work with subcontractors, they do not have to send invoices and wait for payments anymore. Instead, they have the guarantee of a direct payment.
At this moment, big mobility companies generate revenue using public infrastructures. The collected data is used primarily to optimize their own services and profits, while the costs of using these infrastructures are externalized to society.
Although this data is indeed very valuable, we believe there is more to gain when this data is shared on an open ledger. It would create a level playing field for mobility companies and facilitate innovation.
Last but not least. One of the consequences of online validation of transactions is that there is no need anymore for complex offline transaction validators. In the very near future, payment cards will become obsolete.
This will not only be a dramatic cost reduction for mobility companies. It also means that there would be no need to rebuild old access gates to allow digital payments. Using online validation would in some cases (especially metro stations) mean that only a unique QR code on a gate is sufficient.
