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The Gopalakrishnan et al. (2015) introduction to a special issue in the journal Transport summarizes research on smart and sustainable transportation, providing us with a ‘snapshot’, at least from the mid 2010s, of some of the key areas of research and concerns about transportation technology. Part of the concerns are “the acceptability of ICT solutions and barriers to their implementation” (p. 246). What are some of your key concerns around ICT solutions to urban transportation issues, whether they are about the movement of people or the movement of goods? What are some key barriers to their implementation?

Mehak:

Information and communication technology has long aided transportation efficiency and safety in sophisticated economies (ICT).

These ICT applications, on the other hand, have tended to be high-cost, bespoke infrastructure systems. The Internet, digital mobile communication, and “big data” analysis have given rise to a new worldwide possibility for less expensive and more powerful “intelligent transportation systems” (ITS). The World Bank is assisting client transportation agencies with the implementation of these new tools, which include cloud-based services, open data standards, and smartphone apps – to increase road safety and more effectively manage transportation assets As a result, such projects have demonstrated benefits in the traveler experience and the appeal of public transportation. Furthermore, because new technologies have a larger ability to minimize congestion and travel times, the new era has increased the potential of ITS to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

However, fulfilling the potential of ITS in underdeveloped countries requires improvements in assessment procedures to determine what works best, as well as domestic institutions’ data capacities. The success of ITS depends on significant advances in these areas.

Amanpreet:

In smart cities, ICTs (information and communication technology) are proposed solutions for the challenges. ICTs are essential for transport systems as they provide travel information, access to planning tools, sharing vehicles modes opportunities, comparing different transport mode costs, and health and safety information.

from the last decade, there has been a massive development of ICT in transportation more especially, smartphones applications are also part of ICTs.

ICT helps the transport companies in providing more affordable prices deals and rising reliable services.

with the ICT solutions, trucks can complete their deliveries with security. it helps in saving the natural resources of our planet.

key barriers:
1. confidentiality of information – as at some points this technology needs our information which could be misused.

2. lacking standardization-supported policies.

3. compatibility and interoperability of ICTs.

Nancy:

Sustainability can be helpful to the environment even in the form sustainable buildings or sustainable transportation. ICT, also known as Information and communication technology, which helps the movement of people by providing advanced services. For instance, it is vital to address the demands of rapidly growing traffic volumes. ICT has proven quite helpful in terms of Autonomous driving systems. Autonomous cars can be helpful to reduce the traffic and accidents as their precision was noticed pretty accurate while an AUTOPIA program, in Spain. However, the concern that arises with this is the GPS precision. As, while passing the tunnel GPS can be hindered and thus affecting the performance of Auto-cars. The biggest barrier towards Autonomous car could be lack of advancement on the local networks, including the GPS. So, it would need significant funding for constructing the digital-physical infrastructure. Ultimately, it is important for people to trust them. Thus, those focusing on pricing and ticket integration tend to be the most beneficial ICTs.

.Amrit:

According to me, at individual level, ICT has proven to be beneficial for urban transportation. Being a student in Canada, I don’t have a car, so, most of the time I have to commute through the buses. So, using smart apps i are able to find buses running on similar routes, their time of arrival, ticket price for each of them and most importantly I am able to track the buses movement. Most of the time, in winter due to snow buses count are kept very limited, so with help of such smart transportation we are able to get to know where exactly the bus is when can we expect it be at the our stop.

But talking at a corporate level, most of the companies are still not undertaking smart transportation strategy in their business, as there are multiple concern which can have a negative impact on the company. One of the biggest fear of smart transportation is security. Protecting/ defending against physical threat is still easier but when smart vehicles are used for movement of goods there is a high risk that it may be cyber attacked. Nowadays from every part of world, more and more cases are coming that hackers have hacked banks, smart transportation carrying valuable items, companies important internal data which they use for their person benefit.

Now comes, cost factor, buying vehicle like buses is not that expensive but when the company completely want to shift their operation on smart transportation, it’s very expensive to buy and even to maintain. Let’s suppose company manage to buys 20 smart trucks/buses for business in a hope that their operation would be conducted in an efficient and effective manner, but the reality is most of their money, time and energy would be consumed for the maintenance part. Smart transportation requires a lot of sensors. Sensors being a sensitive things, if anything goes wrong sensors need to be replaced or even if they are reparable the amount of copper that would be used in the wiring would cost thousands of bucks, which eventually narrows company profit margin. Thus, it can be concluded ICT solution to urban transportation are beneficial at individual level but for corporate level, its limited.