IoT Applications: Transportation
Written by: Soracom
Published: March 31, 2021
The Big Picture
It’s easy to take the benefits of an advanced transportation network for granted. Ordering packages from around the world for next-day delivery? Done. Travel safely from San Francisco to Miami without using a drop of petroleum or even touching the steering wheel? Closer than you think.
In fact, transportation has served as a crucial enabling technology for thousands of years. Canals have shaped cities. Roads have shaped empires. The famed Silk Road, which connected China to the Middle East and Europe, survived for over 2,000 years and helped to establish new economic hubs, cultural centers, educational institutions and even cities along its route.
Today, transportation is approaching a new watershed moment, driven in large part by the emergence of widespread IoT adoption.
From massive transformations in rail and shipping systems to semi-autonomous vehicles, delivery drones, and micromobility networks that benefit both everyday commuters and the global carbon footprint, transportation has emerged as a key driver of overall IoT growth.
In fact, the “IoT in Logistics” market alone is expected to grow at a 13.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach more than $100B by 2030.
Builder Spotlight
We’re honored to support the work of teams already advancing the state of the art with solutions ranging from geofencing and fleet tracking to vehicle care, EV charging, and personal mobility.
Tokachi Bus
Tokachi Bus operates various bus routes in the Tokachi, Hokkaido area. As with other bus companies, Tockachi Bus has been faced with the challenge of declining ridership.
Based on extensive customer surveys, the Tokachi Bus team identified lack of convenience, uncertain schedules, and lack of familiarity with routes and destinations as the major factors contributing to declining ridership. They realized they had to digitize their systems to ease customers’ concerns, and thus partnered with UNITRAND. The result was Mokuiku, a mobile application designed to ease scheduling concerns by providing precise location & arrival times of buses.
Read more about the technology here.
NxStop
Pennsylvania-based NxStop connects school buses to the cloud to provide real-time location tracking that saves school districts time and money, gives parents peace of mind, and helps to ensure that students never have to miss the bus again.
NxStop improves on previous generations of fleet management, which offer rough bus location based on geofencing. In NxStop’s implementation, GPS hardware updates on a second-by-second basis to offer real-time ETA, and cloud-based software connects to district databases daily to ensure that only custodial parents or guardians can access student data.
Vehicle Mind
Vehicle Mind is an IoT-powered “virtual mechanic” that integrates with a vehicle’s onboard diagnostic systems to give owners a deeper level of transparency and predictability regarding their vehicle’s current condition and future maintenance needs.
The device plugs into a car’s OBD-II port and communicates with the Vehicle Mind smartphone app using its own 4G/LTE connection, providing status and diagnostics at a glance, making maintenance more convenient for car owners, and helping older cars to operate in a more environmentally-friendly way.
Learn more about the company’s vision.
OpConnect
With large automakers firmly on board and planning for all-electric fleets as early as 2035, the greatest limit on electric car adoption is no longer availability but infrastructure.
Portland-based OpConnect is working to ensure that EV drivers can count on ready access to charging wherever they travel. EV charging stations can be found across the US, from Hawaii to upstate New York and almost everywhere in between.
These turnkey charging systems can be installed almost anywhere, from apartments and offices to car dealerships, parking garages, hotels, tourist destinations, or anywhere else that might benefit from offering charging as a service.
Learn more about OpConnect’s EV charging network here.
WHILL
WHILL’s award-winning personal EVs push the boundaries of individual mobility through design, connectivity, and ergonomics.
WHILL’s Model Ci and Model A blend stylish design with intuitive ride, exceptional comfort, and remarkable multi-terrain capability.
Whill uses Soracom Air to manage devices and start/ stop SIM data communication. In the future, they look to programmatically control communications via the API during manufacturing and shipping.
Making the most of WHILL’s functionality as a mobility device requires minimizing communication load. Soracom Beam converts UDP and TCP to HTTPS in the cloud, which they use for routing purposes. Soracom handles the secure transfer of data for WHILL in the cloud. The connection is converted to HTTPS on the cloud and sent to WHILL servers, allowing them to securely transfer data using a small packet size.
See how the WHILL personal electric vehicle rolls, here.
Looking for the best way to get your device connected to the cloud over cellular? Soracom is the world’s leading IoT platform for technology innovators.
To get started, visit the Soracom store and order our IoT SIM card now!
