This article first appeared in Transport 360 magazine.
The past year of immense changes within the transportation industry has catapulted enterprises faster into the digitalisation process than they could ever have previously imagined.
With the radical shift in global demands for transportation, new opportunities and the potential for new use cases that utilise the capabilities of IoT have also opened up, writes Fernando Llobregat, the head of enterprise sales and go-to-market for IoT at BICS
The movement of people and products has steadily been improved over the years, as new technologies enabled the rapid transmission of information to make travel smarter, safer and more secure. Today though, it is the increasingly widespread use of the IoT that is having a truly transformational effect on transport management services.
COVID-prudent travel
Rail and road passenger transport operators are already using IoT connectivity in some ways, with smart ticketing and signalling, real-time displays of arrival and departure times, and in-vehicle capacity management. The pandemic has, however, highlighted the need for a much stronger focus on safety, hygiene and crowd control to give people the confidence to return to public transport.
For example, to keep passenger numbers at safe levels, IoT can be used to deliver real-time data, gathering and transmitting information on the number and location of travellers. This enables train and road public transport operators to manage passenger numbers dynamically and prevent overcrowding. Transport operators can benefit from a comprehensive view of the occupancy of their fleets, even on international routes, and can put pre-emptive capacity management measures in place.
Continue reading this feature article on page 20 inside Transport 360 magazine
