Thinking of Urban mobility… Isn’t driving or travelling from work to home to shop, something millions of us do every day? The driving experience directly renders us to countless problems in the mobility sector including congestion, pollution, inefficiency, and lack of trust. Pheww! This is just a whole plethora of issues… Isn’t it? Well, the future of urban public transportation is going to be increasingly complex, fragmented, and crowded as the importance of shared mobility services like Uber and Lyft grows.

Beyond the problems with the Blockchain solutions for Urban Mobility

According to Markets & Markets, more than 60 percent of the world\’s population is expected to live in cities by 2020 which directly leads to the evolution of more and more mobility

service offerings. With all these new digital-born, VC-backed TNCs and other disruptive entrants competing with incumbents for a piece of an appetizing cake worth more than $1 trillion for Mobility as a Service (MaaS) globally, the urban mobility sector is going to be much more chaotic. Blockchain solutions for Urban Mobility and Electric Vehicle hold the potential to take the sector by storm and make a paradigm shift in redefining customer needs in terms of service, rather than the mode of transport.

Leveraging the True Potential of Blockchain

Currently, the attitude of consumers is the driving force for revenue streams and ownership models in the urban mobility sector. It would be interesting to see how embracing Blockchain Solutions for Urban Mobility and Electric Vehicles with the collaboration of innovations like ride-sharing, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things (IoT), and smart contracts hold the potential to solve the most pressing problems of mobility.

Various Blockchain Solutions for Urban Mobility

• Empowering Shared Mobility

The 21st century is the age of the shared economy. With the implementation of blockchain, car/bike/moped-sharing, ride-sharing, car-pooling, and ride-hailing could run as demand-responsive transit services on a decentralized platform. The blockchain-powered platform would be customer-oriented, i.e. it will establish marketplaces where users’ behaviour can be incentivized through tokens which hold an intrinsic value within the context of mobility service.

• Safety of Riders

Blockchain can be used to ensure the safety of riders, especially women, in the ridesharing ecosystem as it creates a framework where the stakeholders can access and share relevant records with ease. For instance, on a blockchain-enabled ride-sharing platform any stakeholder can easily check whether a driver has gone through police verification, has pending challans in his name or the vehicle has all necessary documents at a single tap.

• Seamless Electric Mobility:

Blockchain Solutions for Electric Vehicles can be a stepping stone in spearheading the EV revolution to revolutionize the landscape of mobility that we see today. A decentralized EV ecosystem would help us make the best use of the current EV charging ecosystem with minimum investment. This will also minimize range anxiety, i.e. non-reliability of EVs to cover long distances due to battery discharge and the non-availability of charging stations.

• Undisputed Payment:

It is very disturbing to see that every day, there is $140 billion tied up in disputes for payments in the transportation industry. The world is not unknown to the applications of blockchain in reducing the cost of financial transactions across sectors. The adoption of blockchain greatly reduces the cost per transaction as there are no intermediaries involved in the payment system, thus making small transactions digitally feasible. An integrated blockchain-enabled vehicle wallet that deploys smart contracts for payment would entitle shareholders to place fast, secure and automated payments for anything related to their mobility needs, including  EV-Charging, Tolling & Road Charging, Repair & Maintenance, etc.

• Synchronized Auto Supply chain:

The mainstream adoption of Blockchain in the Mobility Sector can make the entire auto supply chain organized, transparent, and efficient. Blockchain solution for Electric vehicles would enable us to monitor the entire lifetime of an EV from manufacturing the vehicle in a production plant to disassembling the vehicle in a waste management plant (at the end of the vehicle’s lifespan).

• Insurance Claim and Tax Payment:

There is no doubt that claiming insurance upon theft and accident has been one of the major concerns for Vehicle owners. Blockchain and IoT can provide auto owners with real-time insurance claim and tax payment ability with their inherent features of immutability and traceability.

Emerging technologies have always been a centre of attention for innovations. Today, Blockchain solutions for Urban Mobility hold the potential to finally empower Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Overall, it will encourage building a transparent mobility ecosystem and executing transactions at a minimal cost. Moreover, Blockchain solutions for Electric Vehicles would take the urban mobility industry to a whole new level.