Transportation: the industry of moving products and people from A to B. As simple as that sounds, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Transport options, availability, and technology have blossomed since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (boy, this sounds like the start of a high school history essay). From railroad, taxi, shipping, truck, and airline, people and products are being moved through with an array of transportation options.
The increased demand for transportation, the options, and the availability of it are challenging to keep up with. Whether it’s delivery, ride-hailing, or logistics, real-time data collection, location tracking, and integration with other technologies have made location intelligence central to transportation.
This article discusses the future of transportation, and the role location intelligence plays in it.
The current state of transportation
The goal of a transportation business is to offer the most cost-effective, efficient, and adaptable service. Why? Apart from the obvious fact it’s economic common sense, transportation is constantly facing issues of traffic congestion, air pollution, outdated infrastructure, high costs, and safety concerns. On top of this, whether you are Uber or Coca-Cola, keeping up with demand, adapting to real-time changes, and navigating around policies that affect transportation logistics is crucial.
Several different trends currently dominate conversations surrounding the current state of transportation and by defacto the future from self-driving trucks to drone delivery, and location intelligence. Before detailing how location intelligence plays a role in the future of transportation, it’s important to establish what exactly it is.
What is location intelligence?
Location intelligence provides real-time data, location tracking, and data optimization tools to enhance mobility, reduce costs, and improve customer experience. It is the ability to gather, analyze, and act with location data to make informed decisions for your business. It involves combining traditional data sources with spatial data (e.g., location, distance, proximity, etc.) to gain insights into patterns, trends, and relationships that would otherwise be difficult to see.
How is the future of transportation impacted by location intelligence?
The aspects of location intelligence we’ll be focusing on are real-time location data, location tracking technology, and data optimization tools.
- Real-time location data impacts the decision-making and time efficiency of transportation companies.
- Location tracking technology provides enhanced visibility and up-to-date information.
- Data optimization tools expand the ability to collect and improve data accuracy.
Real-time location data
Real-time location data allows companies in the transportation sector to make more informed decisions and respond to changes in traffic conditions, customer demand, and other factors quickly. Fast adaptability to these unpredictable changes impacts performance. Let’s illustrate this point with an example.
Imagine a delivery company, RoamDeliversStuff (an incredible imagination, I know), that faces rising urban populations, increased delivery demands, and higher customer standards. The height these obstacles place on a RoamDeliversStuff is greatly reduced with the use of real-time data.
- Rising urban populations mean higher traffic congestion. With real-time location data, RoamDeliversStuff can search for optimized routes to avoid traffic jams, peak hours, and delivery delays. This ensures drivers can make a smooth delivery handover on time.
- For increased delivery demands, location data can be leveraged to manage their fleet and connect drivers with delivery requests based on location proximity.
- To help RoamDeliversStuff meet customer standards real-time location data helps optimize routes for pick-up and delivery determined by the number of destination points. RoamDeliversStuff can now perform same-day deliveries, boosting customer satisfaction and reducing the delivery time.
Location Tracking Technology
Transport companies can use location tracking to keep up to date with customers, employees, and shipments with complete visibility. This is handy for all types of use cases but for a particular example let’s use logistics. The logistics company, RoamShipsStuff, is looking to utilize location tracking through their new mobile app to have complete visibility of their shipment and fleet throughout the journey whilst improving the client experience.
Live tracking lets RoamShipsStuff monitor ongoing shipments and the status of vehicles to stay up to date with any changes in traffic conditions and events that could influence the expected delivery window. It also allows them to monitor employee performance and make sure they are fully informed about any ongoing changes along the shipment journey. The client experience is improved because they have access to the latest information based on location tracking. This includes changes to ETA, the journey status of a shipment, the method of transport, and who is delivering the order.
Data Optimization Tools: IoT (Internet of Things)
For the padawan learner, IoT refers to the network of physical objects that have software, sensors, and other tech to connect and exchange data with other systems and devices through the internet. We’re talking about things like sensors and cameras.
For transportation, location data can be gathered from IoT sources to improve accuracy, like cell towers and Wi-Fi modules.
The ride-hailing service RoamDrivers uses IoTs to deliver accurate data on their app and optimize their pick-up and drop-off locations. This reduces the wait times and improves the overall experience for riders, whilst also allowing RoamDrivers to match riders with drivers in real-time based on proximity and traffic conditions.
Why location intelligence is important for transportation in the future
Let’s break this section down into three sections: management, analytics, and customer experience.
Management
When it comes to managing fleets of transportation, whether trains, cars, bikes, or cargo ships, location intelligence has a significant role in the success of that management. With location intelligence, you unlock the ability to track vehicles and their status, optimize routes, contribute to traffic management and congestion reduction, and provide real-time data. By tracking and managing the location of their assets, transportation companies can identify inefficiencies and make data-driven decisions to improve operations.
Analytics
Collecting and analyzing location data already helps transportation companies in many ways. For ride-hailing and delivery employees it gives them the best routes, opens the door for understanding performance, and lets them keep track of external factors to improve safety and security. Overall, location data helps companies make informed decisions about where to allocate resources, improve service, and reduce costs. The industry would be lost without this data, and that's why it will be a prominent component for transportation in the future.
Customer Experience
One end goal for any transportation company is great customer experience. Location intelligence provides real-time information on the location status of vehicles, orders, and traffic patterns. All that info lends to a better-informed customer, and therefore a better customer experience.
On top of this, thanks to location technology, customer can plan journeys effectively, have full visibility of their delivery journey, and get to the places they want to go efficiently.
Conclusion
Keeping up with demands, adapting to real-time changes, and navigating around policies that affect logistics is challenging. All of that is made easier with location intelligence, and that’s why it plays a key role in the future of transportation. From improving management to enriched analytics and providing a better customer experience, location technology is indispensable across various transportation use cases.
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