The Future of Travel — Mobility as a Service on Blockchain!
What means Mobility as a Service?
The combination of current infrastructure problems, changing values and attitudes in society (Health and Environment) and completely new technologies is the catalyst for new mobility concepts, in which the main goal is to reach a destination without thinking about the means of transporting itself. In the future, it will not matter to people who are the manufacturer of an autonomous taxi or who is the operator of a rental bike service.
„We need to remember that people
don‘t choose to ride the train or the
car, they make journeys.“
People will buy fewer cars and rather a mileage that can be used as needed, with for the respective situation most suitable mean of transport. In order to link mobility concepts (car, bike, train, bus) with each other, the individual means of transport have to become full members in processes and be able to make autonomous decisions. These future developments are called Mobility as a Service. As part of Mobility as a Service, all involved partners (sharing companies, insurance enterprises, public transport organizations and many more) are directly integrated into mobility processes and interact with each other digitally.
Shared Transportation means a shift to cleaner transport, in the form of EVs with increasing shared mobility and expanding public transportation.
Private Autonomy is reached by new vehicle technologies like self-driving cars, EVs and an increased usage of car-sharing and ride-hailing concepts.
Seamless Mobility means transportation is from door to door and on demand. Travelers have flexible ways to get from A to B and the boundaries among private, shared, and public transport are blurred. Mobility is delivered through a combination of self-driving shared vehicles, with high-quality public transit as the backbone.
Requirements for Mobility Networks of the future
The key question is: On which technical basis can MaaS concepts of the future be implemented? There are basically two options. One possibility is that, similar to the B2C trade market with Amazon, key players emerge, which occupy a dominant position, creating at the end central marketplaces. The other possibility is that various mobility providers are joining forces to create an open mobility platform based on decentralized technology. To decide which of the two options is the better one, it makes sense to look at the basic requirements of Seamless Mobility solutions.
- It must be possible to integrate machines and vehicles as fully-fledged members in mobility processes. That requires verified digital identities.
- A mobility platform of the future must offer trusted IOT connections to vehicles or machines of all kinds.
- The greatest possible data security must be ensured in order to avoid hacks and fraud and to protect the shared data.
- In order to enable new efficient business models, the majority of all processes need to be completely digital.
- Enabling trusting transactions between previously unknown parties.
- In mobility concepts of the future, everything will be connected. The operating platform of a MaaS concept must be therefore completely open to any type of different software and solution.
- It must be possible for a user to use a variety of services with his unique digital identity across different providers and solutions
- Both customers and companies want more than ever to keep their sovereignty over their own data. This means that independent third parties like platform operators have to be removed from the processes.
- To ensure the best possible customer experience, there must be equal opportunities between providers of mobility solutions. Gatekeepers must be avoided.
If you look at the requirements for mobility networks of the future, especially the last 5 ones, it quickly becomes clear that only a decentralized base technology fully meets these requirements.
Key advantages of a decentralized Mobility Network
How does a decentralized mobility platform for smart cities look like?
A neutral mobility network suitable for smart city solutions on Blockchain consists of four different main components.
1. A universal, interoperable and open Digital Twin Standard for vehicles
The basis for overarching mobility solutions that enable more user-friendly travel are digital twins. These enable vehicles to become full process members and make autonomous decisions. The digital twin of a vehicle contains all status and current availability information.
A common standard for digital twins, which is defined in advance as part of a mobility concept, gives all mobility providers the opportunity to access information in the digital twin.
2. High performant, scalable and GDPR compliant Distributed Ledger and Storage
One technology suitable for building the technical basis for neutral mobility networks is Blockchain. The optimal operating platform for a neutral mobility network is neither a private Blockchain (because it’s a central system too) nor a public Blockchain (because it’s too slow, too expensive and not GDPR compliant). The best solution for seamless mobility is a mix of the advantages of both solutions in the form of a Public Consortium Blockchain operated collectively by a wide variety of mobility companies and organizations. This is the basis for real decentralization and data sovereignty on the one hand and high performance and GDPR compliance on the other hand, making it possible to exchange data between different parties in a secure way. The openness of such neutral networks is also the basis for cross-city mobility concepts, which will determine the future of smart cities.
3. Verified Identities for Users, Service-Providers, Cities, Authorities, …
In addition to the vehicles, users, service providers, cities, insurance companies, etc. — so basically all parties involved in mobility solutions — get verified identities on the Blockchain. Verification means that identities have immutable trust based on explicit verification by authorities (like driving license) or trust from previous business relations. Verified identities can be used by all mobility services within the network to prevent fraud and misuse. These digital identities are the foundation for the trusted exchange of all data in a cross company MaaS network.
4. Individual Distributed apps from various providers in different neutral mobility networks.
A neutral mobility network of the future is defined by its absolute openness. It is up to everyone to develop decentralized applications and to independently decide for whom and in which cities they can be used. Combined with the verified identities and digital twins on the Blockchain, which any application vendor can leverage, this creates the opportunity to create a completely new multi-vendor mobility network across city borders and all over the world. Based on such a network, companies can share synergies and radically simplify traveling for users.
Seamless mobility starts today
Even seamless mobility is a visionary solution today, we believe that it is important to build the foundational infrastructure for decentralized seamless mobility starting by today. Although it is a question of building up an open infrastructure, the first service providers will gain a head start in winning attractive metropolitan areas and thus secure a strong position in an aspiring market.
From our point of view, it’s the best approach to build a decentralized digital infrastructure based on today’s sharing, rental and public transportation solutions and establish a shared, seamless mobility infrastructure step by step over the next years.
As always, we are happy when you share your thoughts with us.
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