WiFi Hot Spot Service Business for the Automotive and Oil Industries: A Competitive Analysis

While you refuel for gas, why not refuel for information or upload vehicle data, using a cheap wireless technology as WiFi? This paper analyzes in extensive detail the user segmentation by vehicle usage, service offering, and full business models from WiFi hot spot services delivered to and from vehicles (private, professional, public) around gas stations. Are also analyzed the parties which play a role in such services: authorization, provisioning and delivery, with all the dependencies modelled by attributed digraphs. Account is made of WiFi base station technical capabilities and costs. Five year financial models (CAPEX, OPEX), and data pertain to two possible service suppliers: multi-service oil companies, and mobile service operators (or MVNOs). Model optimization on the return-on-investment (R.O.I.) is carried out for different deployment scenarios, geographical coverage assumptions, as well as tariff structures. Comparison is also being made with public GPRS and 3G data services, as precursors to HSPA/LTE, and the effect of WiFi roaming is analyzed. Regulatory implications, including those dealing with public safety, are addressed. Analysis shows that due to manpower costs and marketing costs, suitable R.O.I. will not be achieved unless externalities are accounted for and innovative tariff structures are introduced. Open issues and further research are outlined. Further work is currently carried out with automotive electronics sector, wireless systems providers, wireless terminals platform suppliers, and vehicle manufacturers. Future relevance of this work is also discussed for the emerging electrical reloading grids for electrical vehicles.WiFi, Fuel Stations, Business Models, Oil Company, Mobile Operator, WiFi Services, Regulations, Professional Vehicles

INTELLIGENTE TRANSPORT SYSTEMEN ITS EN VERKEERSVEILIGHEID

This report discusses Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This generic term is used for a broad range of information-, control- and electronic technology that can be integrated in the road infrastructure and the vehicles themselves, saving lives, time and money bymonitoring and managing traffic flows, reducing conges-tion, avoiding accidents, etc. Because this report was written in the scope of the Policy Research Centre Mobility & Public Works, track Traffic Safety, it focuses on ITS systems from the traffic safety point of view. Within the whole range of ITS systems, two categories can be distinguished: autonomous and cooperative systems. Autonomous systems are all forms of ITS which operate by itself, and do not depend on the cooperation with other vehicles or supporting infrastructure. Example applications are blind spot detection using radar, electronic stability control, dynamic traffic management using variable road signs, emergency call, etc. Cooperative systems are ITS systems based on communication and cooperation, both between vehicles as between vehicles and infrastructure. Example applications are alerting vehicles approaching a traffic jam, exchanging data regarding hazardous road conditions, extended electronic brake light, etc. In some cases, autonomous systems can evolve to autonomous cooperative systems. ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) is an example of this: the dynamic aspect as well as communication with infrastructure (eg Traffic lights, Variable Message Sign (VMS)...) can provide additional road safety. This is the clear link between the two parts of this report. The many ITS applications are an indicator of the high expectations from the government, the academic world and the industry regarding the possibilities made possible by both categories of ITS systems. Therefore, the comprehensive discussion of both of them is the core of this report. The first part of the report covering the autonomous systems treats two aspects: 1. Overview of European projects related to mobility and in particular to road safety 2. Overview for guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects. Out of the wide range of diverse (autonomous) ITS applications a selection is made; this selection is focused on E Safety Forum and PreVENT. Especially the PreVent research project is interesting because ITS-applications have led to a number of concrete demonstration vehicles that showed - in protected and unprotected surroundings- that these ITS-applications are already technically useful or could be developed into useful products. The component “guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects” outlines that the government has to have specific evaluation tools if the government has the ambition of using ITS-applications for road safety. Two projects -guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects- are examined; a third evaluation method is only mentioned because this description shows that a specific targeting of the government can be desirable : 1. TRACE describes the guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects which are useful for the evaluation of specific ITS-applications. 2. FITS contains Finnish guidelines for the evaluation of ITS project; FIS is an adaptation of methods used for evaluation of transport projects. 3. The third evaluation method for the evaluation of ITS projects is developed in an ongoing European research project, eImpact. eImpact is important because, a specific consultation of stake holders shows that the social importance of some techniques is underestimated. These preliminary results show that an appropriate guiding role for the government could be important. In the second part of this document the cooperative systems are discussed in depth. These systems enable a large number of applications with an important social relevance, both on the level of the environment, mobility and traffic safety. Cooperative systems make it possible to warn drivers in time to avoid collisions (e.g. when approaching the tail of a traffic jam, or when a ghost driver is detected). Hazardous road conditions can be automatically communicated to other drivers (e.g. after the detection of black ice or an oil trail by the ESP). Navigation systems can receive detailed real-time up-dates about the current traffic situation and can take this into account when calculating their routes. When a traffic distortion occurs, traffic centers can immediately take action and can actively influence the way that the traffic will be diverted. Drivers can be notified well in advance about approaching emergency vehicles, and can be directed to yield way in a uniform manner. This is just a small selection from the large number of applications that are made possible because of cooperative ITS systems, but it is very obvious that these systems can make a significant positive contribution to traffic safety. In literature it is estimated that the decrease of accidents with injuries of fatalities will be between 20% and 50% . It is not suprising that ITS systems receive a lot of attention for the moment. On an international level, a number of standards are being established regarding this topic. The International Telecommunications Uniont (ITU), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Association of Radio Industries and Business (ARIB) and European committee for standardization (CEN) are currently defining standards that describe different aspects of ITS systems. One of the names that is mostly mentioned in literature is the ISO TC204/WG16 Communications Architecture for Land Mobile environment (CALM) standard. It describes a framework that enables transparent (both for the application and the user) continuous communication through different communication media. Besides the innumerable standardization activities, there is a great number of active research projects. On European level, the most important are the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative, the eSafety Forum, and the COMeSafety, the CVIS, the SAFESPOT, the COOPERS and the SEVECOM project. The i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative is an European initiative with the goal to halve the number of traffic casualties by 2010. The eSafety Forum is an initiative of the European Commission, industry and other stakeholders and targets the acceleration of development and deployment of safety-related ITS systems. The COMeSafety project supports the eSafety Forum on the field of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. In the CVIS project, attention is given to both technical and non-technical issues, with the main goal to develop the first free and open reference implementation of the CALM architecture. The SAFEST project investigates which data is important for safety applications, and with which algorithmsthis data can be extracted from vehicles and infrastructure. The COOPERS project mainly targets communication between vehicles and dedicated roadside infrastructure. Finally, the SEVECOM project researches security and privacy issues. Besides the European projects, research is also conducted in the United States of America (CICAS and VII projects) and in Japan (AHSRA, VICS, Smartway, internetITS). Besides standardization bodies and governmental organizations, also the industry has a considerable interest in ITS systems. In the scope of their ITS activities, a number of companies are united in national and international organizations. On an international level, the best known names are the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium, and Ertico. The C2C CC unites the large European car manufacturers, and focuses on the development of an open standard for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications based on the already well established IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard. Ertico is an European multi-sector, public/private partnership with the intended purpose of the development and introduction of ITS systems. On a national level, FlandersDrive and The Telematics Cluster / ITS Belgium are the best known organizations. Despite the worldwide activities regarding (cooperative) ITS systems, there still is no consensus about the wireless technology to be used in such systems. This can be put down to the fact that a large number of suitable technologies exist or are under development. Each technology has its specific advantages and disadvantages, but no single technology is the ideal solution for every ITS application. However, the different candidates can be classified in three distinct categories. The first group contains solutions for Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), such as the WAVE technology. The second group is made up of several cellular communication networks providing coverage over wide areas. Examples are GPRS (data communication using the GSM network), UMTS (faster then GPRS), WiMAX (even faster then UMTS) and MBWA (similar to WiMAX). The third group consists of digital data broadcast technologies such as RDS (via the current FM radio transmissions, slow), DAB and DMB (via current digital radio transmissions, quicker) and DVB-H (via future digital television transmissions for mobiledevices, quickest). The previous makes it clear that ITS systems are a hot topic right now, and they receive a lot of attention from the academic world, the standardization bodies and the industry. Therefore, it seems like that it is just a matter of time before ITS systems will find their way into the daily live. Due to the large number of suitable technologies for the implementation of cooperative ITS systems, it is very hard to define which role the government has to play in these developments, and which are the next steps to take. These issues were addressed in reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project. Their state of the art overview revealed that until now, no country has successfully deployed a fully operational ITS system yet. Seven EU countries are the furthest and are already in the deployment phase: Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain and France. These countries are trailed by eight countries which are in the promotion phase: Denmark, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium,Norway, the Czech Republic and Poland. Finally, the last ten countries find themselves in the start-up phase: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland and Luxembourg. These European reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project have defined a few policy recommendations which are very relevant for the Belgian and Flemish government. The most important recommendations for the Flemish government are: • Support awareness: research revealed that civilians consider ITS applications useful, but they are not really willing to pay for this technology. Therefore, it is important to convince the general public of the usefulness and the importance of ITS systems. • Fill the gaps: Belgium is situated in the promotion phase. This means that it should focus at identifying the missing stakeholders, and coordinating national and regional ITS activities. Here it is important that the research activities are coordinated in a national and international context to allow transfer of knowledge from one study to the next, as well as the results to be comparable. • Develop a vision: in the scope of ITS systems policies have to be defined regarding a large number of issues. For instance there is the question if ITS users should be educated, meaning that the use of ITS systems should be the subject of the drivers license exam. How will the regulations be for the technical inspection of vehicles equipped with ITS technology? Will ITS systems be deployed on a voluntary base, or will they e.g. be obliged in every new car? Will the services be offered by private companies, by the public authorities, or by a combination of them? Which technology will be used to implement ITS systems? These are just a few of the many questions where the government will have to develop a point of view for. • Policy coordination: ITS systems are a policy subject on an international, national and regional level. It is very important that these policy organizations can collaborate in a coordinated manner. • Iterative approach to policy development: developing policies for this complex matter is not a simple task. This asks for an iterative approach, where policy decisions are continuously refined and adjusted

The relevance and use of information and telecommunication networks as strategic tools in the transport sector: a Dutch case study

New information and telecommunication technologies in the transport sector, often named `Advanced Transport Telematics' (ATT), play a key role in thenew European network economy, as they have the potential to offer new solutions to the emerging transport problems in Europe. However, the successfulexploitation of ATT in European transport markets depends on the technology being implemented in a way which meets the distinct needs of the differentroad user groups in order to achieve social acceptance and thereby political approval.It is therefore vitally important that decision makers (i.e. those influencing theadoption of ATT) have sufficient information on the needs of (commercial) road users and on the way they perceive ATT options in addressing those needs. The ATT market comprises a large number of actors from both the public and the private sector. At the demand side, some major potential market sectorscan be identified. In addition to private users, there are intermediate or collective users (e.g., road authorities) and commercial users (e.g., thefreight sector). In the latter case ATT may play a strategic role by facing the need of the freight sector to orient itself towards the opportunitiesoffered by theEuropean internal market, which has far-reaching impacts not only on organisations operating in intemational networks, but also on those operatingnationally.The aim of the underlying study is to investigate the potential ATT market among these main user and interest groups, where the range of telematicsapplications will be restricted to those applied to inter-urban road transport. The focus will be on collective users (road managers) and commercialusers (road freight operators). Surveys and in-depth interviews have been used to gather relevant information on the views, attitudes and expectation

Projects and innovation : the ambiguity of the literature and its implications

The strategic role of new product development and innovation makes design performance a central concern of managers. Project management therefore appears to be an adequate solution to the integration problems raised by these activities. Work such as that of Clark et Fujimoto (1991) has helped make heavyweight project management a dominant organizational model. In this article, we wish to question this tendency to equate projects and innovation. This tendency can, in fact, appear surprising inasmuch as Clark et Fujimoto indicate that their research does not take into account the question of advanced engineering or basic research. We therefore believe that it can lead to improper use of the project format to manage innovation. We feel that, in line with work on project classification a distinction should be drawn between the various design situations to which different types of projects will be suited. Qualitative research conducted at a European automobile manufacturer on Telematics services will allow us to identify the management methods suited to the most innovative projects, i.e. those for which neither technologies nor customer requirements are known at the start of the project (referred to by Atkinson et al. (2006) as “soft” projects) We will show how these situations shake up traditional project management models and will propose five management principles adapted to this new situation.innovation;Management de projet;Services;Télématique automobile

WLAN Hot Spot services for the automotive and oil industries :a business analysis Or : "Refuel the car with petrol and information, both ways at the gas station"

While you refuel for gas ,why not refuel for information or download vehicle data ? This paper analyzes in extensive detail the user segmentation by vehicle usage , service offering , and full business models from WLAN hot spot services delivered to vehicles (private, professional , public) around gas stations . Are also analyzed the parties which play a role in such service authorization, provisioning and delivery , with all the dependencies modelled by attributed digraphs . Sevice planning is included as to WLAN base station capabilities . Five year financial models (CAPEX,OPEX) , and data pertain to two possible service suppliers : multi-service oil companies, and mobile service operators (or MVNO) . Model optimization on the return-on-investment (ROI) is carried out for different deployment scenarios ,geographical coverage assumptions, as well as tariff structures . Comparison is also being made with public GPRS data services ,as precursors for 3G services,and the effect of WLAN roaming is analyzed .Analysis shows that due to manpower costs and marketing costs , suitable ROI will not be achieved unless externalities are accounted for and innovative tariff structures are introduced . Open issues and further research are outlined . Further work is carried out,also with automotive electronics sector , wireless systems providers , wireless terminals platform suppliers , and vehicle manufacturers .WLAN services;WLAN;business models;fuel stations;mobile operator;oil company;professional vehicles

WLAN Hot Spot services for the automotive and oil industries :a business analysis Or : "Refuel the car with petrol and information, both ways at the gas station"

While you refuel for gas ,why not refuel for information or download vehicle data ? This paper analyzes in extensive detail the user segmentation by vehicle usage , service offering , and full business models from WLAN hot spot services delivered to vehicles (private, professional , public) around gas stations . Are also analyzed the parties which play a role in such service authorization, provisioning and delivery , with all the dependencies modelled by attributed digraphs . Sevice planning is included as to WLAN base station capabilities . Five year financial models (CAPEX,OPEX) , and data pertain to two possible service suppliers : multi-service oil companies, and mobile service operators (or MVNO) . Model optimization on the return-on-investment (ROI) is carried out for different deployment scenarios ,geographical coverage assumptions, as well as tariff structures . Comparison is also being made with public GPRS data services ,as precursors for 3G services,and the effect of WLAN roaming is analyzed .Analysis shows that due to manpower costs and marketing costs , suitable ROI will not be achieved unless externalities are accounted for and innovative tariff structures are introduced . Open issues and further research are outlined . Further work is carried out,also with automotive electronics sector , wireless systems providers , wireless terminals platform suppliers , and vehicle manufacturers

MOSAIC vision and scenarios for mobile collaborative work related to health and wellbeing

The main objective of the MOSAIC project is to accelerate innovation in Mobile Worker Support Environments by shaping future research and innovation activities in Europe. The modus operandi of MOSAIC is to develop visions and illustrative scenarios for future collaborative workspaces involving mobile and location-aware working. Analysis of the scenarios is input to the process of road mapping with the purpose of developing strategies for R&D leading to deployment of innovative mobile work technologies and applications across different domains. This paper relates to one specific domain, that of Health and Wellbeing. The focus is therefore is on mobile working environments which enable mobile collaborative working related to the domain of healthcare and wellbeing services for citizens. This paper reports the work of MOSAIC T2.2 on the vision and scenarios for mobile collaborative work related to this domain. This work was also an input to the activity of developing the MOSAIC roadmap for future research and development targeted at realization of the future Health and Wellbeing vision. The MOSAIC validation process for the Health and Wellbeing scenarios is described and one scenario – the Major Incident Scenario - is presented in detail