A New Kid on The “Blockchain”
A New Blockchain Initiative for Mobility
What Is Blockchain Technology?
Before we dive in, if you’re not familiar with blockchain technology, there is a very well written and informative article at Blockgeeks.com entitled, “What Is Blockchain Technology” and explains exactly what it is. If you’re not already familiar, please click on the aforementioned underlined website link above and it will take you directly to the article for more information.
Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative
A number of automakers as well as suppliers and others, like IBM, have joined forces to create a Blockchian Consortium for Blockchain research for mobility platforms named Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative or MOBI, headed by the former lead of Mobility at Toyota, Chris Ballinger. Their Twitter and Medium handle is @dltMOBI and their website is https://dlt.mobi.
DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) for mobility & Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) will have a profound effect on transactional activities centered around mobility platforms and the consumer landscape. In my humble opinion, this will exceed the consumer’s expectations and enhance the mobility experience. We’re talking about a serious paradigm shift in mobility as a service, but even more as a paradigm shift in direct-to-consumer sales.
It was only an inevitablitiy that such an initiative/consortium would be established and come to the forefront as it is only a matter of time before autonomous mobility and blockchain technology merge to create the continuity and seamless integration between mobility and retail services. Especially with the convergence of the IoT (Internet of Things) for all devices, which will include, of course, the connected car.
The connected-car gives rise to a myraid of privacy issues and for this reason alone, will only further enhance the capability of blockchain technology to ultimately deliver on its promise to give power and freedom back to the original owner of the data while on-the-go; as blockchain will enable a “peer-to-peer” network with the consumer dealing directly with the retailer without interference from a third-party, like banking institutions. The privacy concerns through the connected-car platform will have to be fully vetted, but blockchain works to maintain privacy regardless of the network. Of course, all of the technology is truly in its infancy stages, and further developement and advancements will be made with time.
Ultimately, blockchain technology for mobility will have tremendous capabilities and offer numerous advantages to end users of mobility services. MOBI states on its website that the group will focus primarily on the following capabilities, including but not limited to:
- Digital Identity and history
- Location in space and time
- Supply Chain
- Congestion/traffic
- Autonomous payment services/methods
- Mobility commerce as a platform
- Car and ride sharing data
with an emphasis on digital transactions during the mobility experience. As such, this can only work to enhance the passenger’s experience and further assist in perhaps even more advanced technologies, perhaps yet to be established within the framework.
My name is Patrick Salem — I am an autonomous mobility professional, engineering and project manager for self-driving cars. I’ve worked in automotive autonomous mobility platform development and strategy, including platform design, systems architecture design, requirements development, commercial aircraft electronics systems development and scope of work documentation. See my other articles on Medium at Auto Drive AI and follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
