Integrating digital Health services : the role of the government and the challenge of cost allocation

eHealth, mHealth and eCare services are growing in numbers at a fast pace. This is mainly driven by technology and the societal challenges of an aging and more chronically burdened population while pressure on both human and financial resources increases. Though the adoption of these digital health services is challenging and experience difficulties. This work focusses on the main barriers that cause a 'gap' in the value network. Via case research following barriers are identified: 1) low willingness to pay, 2) unbalanced cost/benefit ratios of the actors or unfair cost allocation and 3) negative impacted business models. Furthermore the several roles of the government within the value network of digital health services are discussed and reflections and guidelines for digital health service developers are foreseen

Adoption of cooperative intelligent transport systems in Flemish passenger cars : a review of European Policy options

Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (CITS) enable vehicles to be aware of objects that are not in line of sight, by interacting directly with each other and the surrounding road infrastructure. C-ITS promise to reduce traffic congestion, lessen the environmental impact of transportation, and most importantly, significantly reduce the number of (lethal) traffic accidents. As C-ITS is subject to strong network effects, adoption of C-ITS is a key driver of its (societal) benefits. Therefore, this paper estimates penetration rates of C-ITS equipped cars in the car park of Flanders, Belgium. Based on the preferred policy option with mandatory adoption, as proposed in the recent new Delegated Regulation of the European Commission, full penetration of C-ITS in the Flemish car park is expected later than twenty years after the mandate enters into force. Determination of C-ITS adoption numbers is valuable for a number of stakeholders, such as national and local governments, road authorities, technology providers and network operators. Additionally, penetration numbers allow Member States to ascertain to what extent C-ITS can contribute to the goal of zero traffic mortalities by 2050, as envisioned by the European Commission

Joint-rollout of FTTH and smart city fiber networks as a way to reduce rollout cost

Making cities smarter is the future. By bringing more technology into existing city infrastructure, smart city applications can arise. Whether these applications track devices e.g. public lightning, environmental measurements e.g. temperature or air quality, or analyze video streams e.g. for people density, it is expected that these will require a (near-) real time data connection. Upcoming 5G networks will be able to handle large amounts of connections at high speeds and low latencies and will therefor outperform current technologies such as 4G and low-power wide-area networks. In order to do so, these 5G networks fall back to numerous fiber connected small cells for up & downlink to the Internet. In this publication, we are looking into the additional fiber equipment and deployment cost to connect the required smart city network infrastructure, taking into account a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network is already available or will be installed as part of the smart city network rollout. More concretely, we are proposing a methodology comparing an anticipated and incremental planning approach for a number of different extensions upon the FTTH-network: connecting all electrical cabinets, connecting public lightning, and the connection of 5G using small cells. From this, we want to learn how much the total rollout cost can be reduced using a future-oriented smart city approach taking into account all future extensions, compared to an incremental short-time planning only planning additional fiber when required. In the meantime, we want to show the additional cost of creating a smart city network is limited when it is being combined with a FTTH rollout. Results of the proposed methodology and use case will be modeled planning and design software Comsof Fiber and will be published in a future work

Deploying charging infrastructure for electric vehicles; viability analyses for municipal and private car parking facility operators

A lot of research has been done on the adoption of electric vehicles and on the deployment of the infrastructure for charging the batteries of these vehicles. Currently the total number of installed charging points keeps growing due to both public and private investments. Often charging services are offered as free service extensions. Maintaining this free business model will be difficult on the long term because of the investments needed. Therefore, the long term business viability and durability is not always clear from an investor point of view. This work presents a techno-economic model that describes the expected cost and revenue evolution resulting from different deployment strategies for a municipal or private parking facility operator. For charging service providers, charging pole exploiters and infrastructure owners for electric vehicle charging, the model allows to project the expected profitability. The main findings from this research indicate that business cases for public charging infrastructure can be viable, durable and could be competitive with the costs for charging the electric vehicle at home. Also, in a multi-actor market model all actors involved could benefit from deploying electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Although the business cases will be positive, significant investments are needed

C-ITS road-side unit deployment on highways with ITS road-side systems : a techno-economic approach

Connectivity and cooperation are considered important prerequisites to automated driving, as they are crucial elements in increasing the safety of future automated vehicles and their full integration in the overall transport system. Although many European Member States, as part of the C-Roads Platform, have implemented and are still implementing Road-side Units (RSUs) for Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) within pilot deployment projects, the platform aspires a wide extension of deployments in the coming years. Therefore, this paper investigates techno-economic aspects of C-ITS RSU deployments from a road authority viewpoint. A two-phased approach is used, in which firstly the optimal RSU locations are determined, taking into account existing road-side infrastructure. Secondly, a cost model translates the amount of RSUs into financial results. It was found that traffic density has a significant impact on required RSU density, hence impacting costs. Furthermore, major cost saving can be obtained by leveraging existing road-side infrastructure. The proposed methodology is valuable for other member states, and in general, to any other country aspiring to roll out C-ITS road infrastructure. Results can be used to estimate required investment costs based on legacy infrastructure, as well as to benchmark with the envisioned benefits from the deployed C-ITS services