November 9, 2012
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) has been worked on for some twenty years. The idea to look at traffic and transportation using a holistic approach is great and rarely disputed. And the effects when ready would be fantastic! Efficiency, safety, sustainability and convenience, all the key promises of M2M, are there. But still the development is quite slow. Of course we need to remember that a lot of these issues are infrastructure related thus complex and time-consuming to develop. And a multimodal transportation approach require integrated organizations which is yet another complex thing to change. There are also many stakeholders and a lot of legislation involved.
But still I believe there are ways to drastically speed up the process: by leveraging the rapid development in technology in combination with innovation and pragmatism we could make things happen fast. Examples of key things to leverage are
- the open data movement to allow entrepreneurs to drive innovation
- the smartphones and pads to allow users of the transportation systems to access the information they need to make qualified decisions
- crowd sourcing and other innovative ways to collect data
- entrepreneurs to drive creativity, innovation and choice
A very good example of an ITS type application which is in place and leverage all of these is
Waze. It is
the world’s fastest growing community-based traffic and navigation app and it is free. They claim 30 million users already and they even get help to edit the maps from their users. It started as an open-source mapping project in 2006 and Waze was founded 2008. The company is backed by serious investors and the business model is based on location-based advertising. The level of innovation is high and you can for example connect your Facebook account to see where your friends are.
Think about this: First came GPS devices integrated into cars for maybe 3-5K$, then came mobile GPS devices, often with better maps and features, for about 1/10 of the price and now this, for free. The power of what today’s technology and modern ways of working can do is immense. The services are continuously improved and by using one device for many things we even help save the planet.
I am focusing a lot on ITS and together with our partners and entrepreneurs we have numerous concepts and ideas (including dynamIQ parking™ which we launched at ITS World Congress) leveraging modern technology and ways of working to make drastic ITS progress. Let’s get going!
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Business Models, Inspiring example, ITS, M2M, Transportation, User Interaction | Tagged: apps, B3IT, Business model, convenience, crowd sourcing, efficiency, entrepreneurs, GPS, Internet of Things, investor, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, open api, pads, security, smartphone, sustainability, Traffic, Transportation, usability, User interaction, VC, Waze | 
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Posted by magnusmelander
November 7, 2012
Yesterday was a good day for M2M.
TeliaSonera’s M2M Symposium 2012 was a well organized full-day event in Stockholm with almost 30 exhibitors, over 300 conference delegates and a number of great speakers. Telia’s CEO Lars Nyberg stated that M2M is the third wave of mobile communication with massive impact on society and businesses. Hans Dahlberg, Head of M2M Globally at TeliaSonera dressed this in numbers and expect one billion connected devices in the Baltics and Nordics by 2020, with 100 million of them using a SIM card. He also announced that TeliaSonera signed an agreement with Ericsson to implement the Ericsson Device Connection platform (EDCP) to prepare for the market take-up.
This was a good day for M2M since it manifested continuous development of the M2M market. But several speakers said that the M2M questions now have reached the board rooms which I believe to a large degree is wishful thinking. Decision makers need to understand the potential implications of M2M to their industry and business but unfortunately few do that today. But we are working hard to evangelize them and I gave my pitch about “data being the gold of M2M” also yesterday.
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Leave a Comment » | M2M, M2M Service Enablers | Tagged: 2020, B3IT, EDCP, Ericsson, Hans Dahlberg, Internet of Things, Lars Nyberg, M2M, SIM, Telia, TeliaSonera | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) has been worked on for some twenty years. The idea to look at traffic and transportation using a holistic approach is great and rarely disputed. And the effects when ready would be fantastic! Efficiency, safety, sustainability and convenience, all the key promises of M2M, are there. But still the development is quite slow. Of course we need to remember that a lot of these issues are infrastructure related thus complex and time-consuming to develop. And a multimodal transportation approach require integrated organizations which is yet another complex thing to change. There are also many stakeholders and a lot of legislation involved.
connectcompute 