Electronic commerce cannot be understood without current interaction and modern logistics evolution and development. Big Data, artificial intelligence, or robotics have many applications in this sector, which affects, and will continue to act, how goods arrive at their destination.
Together with the new information society, the digital transformation of these sectors requires a greater volume of goods and people transport. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate new methods and functionalities for both workers and users, given that current infrastructures work to the limit.
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Big Data And Real-Time Information In The Transport Sector
The information is available to you at any time and flows constantly. In the transportation industry, you have a lot of analysis and computation power, which means more significant optimization and cost adjustment are unimaginable.
Big Data, the IoT or Internet of Things and the cloud offer you a complete vision of the value chain. In real-time, information is received on the routes or the state of transport and other information that may affect the cost (traffic, weather problems, accidents or other incidents). Thanks to it, you will be able to react at the moment.
The information can be analyzed later with its offer and factors such as the demand for services in specific geographical areas or at certain times. This will allow you to make decisions that will increase the performance and efficiency of the company, reducing costs.
Current technology offers you solutions to reactively adapt resources or routes since it can anticipate possible problems or opportunities.
Intelligent Transportation And The Internet Of Things
The rise of IoT and wearables are a revolution in the logistics industry. It is possible to interconnect goods and people with the environment and collect information in real-time. This makes it easier for structures to have an impressive level of intelligence and automation.
For example, beacons and sensors at airports aim to improve customer management by measuring their journeys, the time they spend performing specific tasks, and bottlenecks at different points in their journey.
Thanks to location technologies, freight transport has come a long way. Goods can be track from the warehouse until the customer has the package in their hands.
Smartphones are almost essential, and that has transformed society since now users are hyperconnected, which makes them very demanding. They want to know when the ensuing bus will come by and when their package will arrive. These, among others, are the data customers value most in a good transport service.
So much connectivity is an opportunity reflected in the different collaborative economy models that, of course, are also adapted to logistics and transport. These concepts are crowd parking, Car as a Service or car sharing.
Trends In The Digital Transformation Of The Transport And Logistics Sector
Despite all the changes you have experienced in recent years, the implementation of technological advances is slow. This means that you are going to witness a revolution and total transformation in the logistics and transport sector in the coming years.
– Combination of technologies
Using different technologies encourages the digitization of the transport value chain. By combining different types of advances that work together, the improvement of the service is exponential.
– Digital platforms
Disintermediation is also a trend making its way into the new way of life, and it does affect not only the service sector but also the industrial sectors.
These platforms open up a new scenario, and the collaborative economy plays a significant role because anyone can be a provider or user of a service. The most famous example is car sharing.
– The customer is the most important
The goal of digital transformation is to improve the user experience. Everything is centre around him, and different tools are use to find patterns and serve them in a personalize way to adjust to their demands.
– Multimodal mobility
This is the new paradigm of passenger transport. An extensive range of possibilities opens up where a complete service is offer, and different forms of transportation are integrated. Users are facilitated planning, management and information through applications and tools.
– From products to services
With digital transformation, products become services. One of these changes you can see in the car. Car sharing turns personal development into service, although this conflicts with traditional business models that are not based on the collaborative economy.
– Cars are the future
The tendency to purchase this product is decreasing, to the detriment of the option of renting or sharing a private car.
The evolution of the automotive sector makes models quickly obsolete, so integrating your expenses into a single service becomes very attractive.
– Autonomous vehicles
This, which seemed like science fiction, is now a reality in Spain. There are some models on the markets that drive without the need for a human to intervene.
This process is in full swing, and there are still many advances to be made in technical matters and at an ethical level, but there is no doubt that it is an unstoppable trend. The new advances in infrastructure, robotics, and computing will make it easier for this to become common on Spanish roads and those around the world.
– The digital transformation of intelligent infrastructures and smart cities
Vehicles and users are not the only ones to adapt to technological advances, and Infrastructures must also adapt to ICTs and do not escape digitization. In this way, they will be able to provide more excellent service and support to the new markets glimpsed on the horizon since they will require them efficiently and intensively.
Again, the speed at which components, standards and technologies are develop makes it difficult to apply this to infrastructures because it involves very high investment and a long execution time.
Just as a computer or a smartphone becomes obsolete in a few months, the same happens with infrastructure technologies. When it takes to study and execute an improvement, it becomes outdated.
Warehouses, stations or airports are places that are update. Relatively frequently so that users can carry out all the necessary procedures in a more straightforward way. The Internet of Things, Big Data and sensors are significant for creating intelligent structures that are at the service of employees and customers.
– New technologies
The logistics and transport sectors are close to Industry 4.0 and the intelligent tourism industry. An increasing number of new tools and technological innovations are available to them.
The trend predicts that all these advances will be incorporate into all sectors. Sensors, the Net of Things, Big Data and mobile communications are fundamental elements in the infrastructures of the future. A future that, presumably, will be increasingly connect due to the methodology of the fourth industrial revolution.
Challenges In The New Transport Paradigm
It is necessary to differentiate the different degrees of digitization and modernization. That exist in the world of transport itself and the logistics sector in general. In the former, ICT penetration is much lower.
The heterogeneity in the companies that make up this sector is probably the main problem it has to modernize. Small and medium-size family companies mixed with large multinationals and private and public companies. This slows down the adoption rate. Especially in those smaller companies that, until now, have not had to deal with excessive problems in traditional planning.
Adopting these new technologies can bring exciting benefits to a company. These benefits are non limit only to the efficacy of the service or its profitability. But too affect customer satisfaction and treatment. Incorporating profiles in the companies themselves with digital skills. And talent will be crucial to achieving the total digital transformation of the sector.
There is a significant hurdle to overcome. At the regulatory level because autonomous car technologies or business models base. On the collaborative economy are not contemplate in current regulations. This causes doubts about the possibilities of adoption and instability in some traditional business models.
In conclusion, it is essential to create a regulatory framework. That allows traditional business models to coexist with new models and adapt to technological progress in all sectors.