Porsche NEXT OI Competition: ARRIVAL
We’ve just passed our first feedback point in the Porsche NEXT OI Competition 2019 which means we are approximately one month into the challenge. Following on from last week’s post about the DRIVING scenario, today’s post will be focusing on the third scenario: ARRIVAL.
These three posts about the competition scenarios are designed to give you a quick rundown of each theme, guide your development and offer some inspiration for you and your team when thinking about applications to build for connected Porsche sports cars. We will also try to recommend APIs that would work well with the suggested application ideas, so you’ll have a good idea of which APIs you’ll need when building your app or service.
ARRIVAL
The third scenario we’d like teams taking part in the Porsche NEXT OI competition to consider while they are building their innovative and experience-enhancing app is ARRIVAL.
Although this is generally the end point to a user’s trip, it can also be that the arrival is the beginning of another stage of the journey, perhaps the user wants to change to another mode of transport like an aeroplane or a friend’s car. It also isn’t necessary for the arrival point to be the user’s home: it could be a holiday destination, the office, the train station, a car-hire shop or any other destination you can think of.
To align with the ARRIVAL scenario perhaps you and your team are already thinking about exploring options related to parking, assisting the driver as they transition between different modes of transport, assisting the car owner in catching a plane or checking in at the airport, finding a hotel, or perhaps offering useful information about the local area. There are a whole host of possibilities with this scenario! Whatever your idea may be, it should aim to solve a problem or enhance an experience in some way.
Keep reading to find out about some of the key APIs you might like to use to build your Porsche sportscar application. Any questions? Just pop them in the comments below the article and we’ll get back to you ASAP!
Parking apps
Some of the ways parking apps speed up finding and securing a parking space is by providing users with real-time information on parking space availability, accepting mobile payments for a space, sending notifications to the car owner when the allocated time slot is coming to an end and offering users the option of extending their time slot without the user needing to physically return to the vehicle.
If you’re thinking about building an application that assists the user while they park, you’ll probably want to check out the following APIs.
Vehicle Location API
The Vehicle Location API lets you know the exact location of the car. This information is crucial to a parking application as this data can identify the parking opportunities/availability in the direct vicinity of the car, as well as guide the user back to their car if they can’t find it once they return to collect it.
Engine Ignition State and Speed State APIs
The Engine Ignition State API, in conjunction with the Speed State API, proves useful for parking applications as it reveals whether the car engine is on or off at any specific time. This can reveal information like how long the car is parked for, which then feeds into pricing and parking space availability data. Data on speed from the Speed State API can help parking application companies understand how long a car is ‘cruising’ for a space before finding one, as this usually happens at a much lower speed than regular driving. This also feeds into data about fuel consumption and environmental/pollution concerns, both of which affect the parking industry and what it is allowed to offer and where in major cities worldwide.
Other useful APIs for the ARRIVAL scenario:
Odometer API
An odometer is used to measure the distance that a vehicle has travelled — useful for the everyday driver who wishes to know how much ground he or she is covering, or a car rental company who wants to track average distances travelled by their customers. Within a fleet management company for example, this information would be useful on the side of the operators for calculating and budgeting for average fuel costs and booking routine vehicle maintenance. If a vehicle is regularly travelling extremely long distances it will need to have more regular safety checks than a vehicle which only travels short distances. On the side of the driver it would be useful for proving distance covered when working shifts as well as to provide supporting evidence (if needed) of the number of hours worked or locations visited.
Door Locks API
The Door Locks API is a useful tool for numerous types of apps or services which require access to the vehicle, or applications which simply want to allow the driver the ability to lock or unlock the doors when away from the car. In a fleet management context this API might be used with a connected car so that numerous people can access the vehicle to retrieve goods using an app, without needing to hand around physical keys.
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We hope you’ve found this short rundown of ideas and APIs for the Porsche NEXT OI Competition useful for your own brainstorming, testing and building. We’ve come to the end of this short series covering the three scenarios, but we’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments below!
