The future of mobility is coming

What:

Mobility can be defined as follows:

Technologies and services that enable people and goods to move around more freely

With this in mind, notice that mobility concerns both services and goods, it is what helps those go from point A to point B. Mobility, as opposed to transports, however, focuses more on people.

The next decade is set to see a range of technologies that should propel the industry to new highs. As consumer needs are changing, the industry also needs to adapt. The most popular trend is the move from ownership toward a Mobility-as-a-Service or MaaS access model, which we’ll detail further in the article.

Understanding the industry helps to see where investments are going. The sectors receiving most of the funding from the mobility industry are E-hailing, Semiconductors, sensors, and connectivity.

It seems obvious with these facts that the industry is now moving towards the implementation of even more technology in our vehicles. Fully autonomous vehicles are also a promising sector, where the industry is catching up and moving closer to the final goal of having a fully functional autonomous vehicle, basically functioning as a taxi.

Why:

This implementation of technology isn’t new, and helps the industry develop on its 3 main goals that have remained unchanged. Let’s take a closer look at each one of them.

• Safety

As there are more vehicles on the road each year, as they become faster and embark more people, safety has always been a primary concern. Technology implements various systems such as sensors, and cameras that help the vehicle predict a crash or remind the driver to hold the steering wheel.

Such systems can also help the driver stay focused with relevant warnings, his speed, the next exit to take, and navigation information.

Technology and safety aren’t just limited to automobiles as airplanes probably benefit the most from safety features. Every single action taken by the pilot is monitored and stored for analysis and to understand what happens if the plane crashes.

• Convenience

As most of the mobility industry is designed for customers that bought their cars or vehicles. Convenience and ease of use is of major importance to the industry.

Technology helps the user by automating a lot of processes, either by making the doors of your vehicle unlock automatically when the key approaches the car, or by automatically turning the turn signal on. Climate controls, the air conditioner, electric windows, windshield wipers, heated seats, … The list is long but the number of comfort technologies that a car packs is huge.

• Efficiency

To future-proof our vehicles, technology also tries to make them consume a lot fewer resources. This means finding new designs, new materials, new oils, and new architectures that allow our vehicles and transport systems to use a lot fewer resources and achieve the same results if not even better results.

Technology also helps achieve efficiency by allowing us to transport more people at the same time, this means building bigger boats, ships, trains, and such that might consume more power but help transport a lot more individuals which results in a more efficient process as a whole.

How:

Now that we understand why technology is relevant to the mobility industry, let’s look at some of the latest technology that is put in place to achieve these goals.

• Electrification

A major ongoing trend is the development of electric vehicles, mainly cars, but also planes. Most trains today are electric.

While we’re not entirely sure electric vehicles are better for the environment because of the materials in use for their batteries, this trend sure emits fewer components in the atmosphere in the long term.

This trend aims for convenience and efficiency as electric vehicles become more widespread and charging stations become easier to find.

• Autonomous-Driving

Riding the wave of convenience is the arrival of autonomous vehicles, by carefully examining their surroundings with cameras and sensors, machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence allows vehicles to drive by themselves.

The final vision for this technology is to create a taxi-like vehicle that could transport you wherever you wanted and transport others when you’re not using it.

A world filled with autonomous vehicles would also probably be safer as vehicles could talk to one another and prevent crashes or malfunctions while making sure roads aren’t congested.

• Mobility-as-a-service

Mobility-as-a-Service or MaaS is the latest trend in mobility. As we’ve seen the rise of Software-as-a-service and other services of distribution. MaaS allows users to rent out a car when needed.

This means that users wouldn’t own their vehicle and only rent it when necessary.

As most people now live in large cities where public transport is developed, cars aren’t as necessary, particularly among newer generations that rely on other means of transport.

This would ensure that all vehicles are constantly in use, making the service cheaper and more developed as the owner of the business has no problem finding customers.

As the world’s population is growing, the mobility industry is also expected to develop even further. As it has since its creation, the industry is focusing on safety, convenience, and efficiency. Technology has served the industry and is present in most modern systems of our vehicles. Guiding the industry is the rise of Mobility-as-a-Service, Autonomous-Driving, and Electrification.