We are facing a time that Cities have changed their pulse, their pace, and reach, to become an interconnected element of the global “network society”. A network society with new forms of social, cultural, and economic life emerging. The rapid increase in the mobility sector and the prompt benefits of Smart City infrastructure and Mobility Automation are many and are directly related to everyday life.
E-Mobility, Autonomous driving, and Smart City infrastructure not only open new business opportunities but above all increase our safety and quality of life.
E-Mobility
Electric vehicles are a growing market, and their spreading share will contribute to achieving the Energy and Environmental targets of each country. Greece, like the other EU Member States, is committed to new Environmental targets such as improving energy efficiency and the share of energy from Renewable Sources. EU goals for 2050, especially in the transportation and Mobility sector, are the reduction of emissions by 60% and the exclusive use of non-conventional vehicles in the cities.
Strengthening E-mobility serves great environmental purposes, as it contributes significantly to Energy saving in Mobility and Transportation, while promotes Environmental protection adding the benefit of penetration of Renewable Energy Sources in the electric vehicles charging sector. E-mobility can also lead to new business opportunities, both in terms of vehicle availability and in terms of installing and operating charging infrastructure.
Autonomous Driving
The history of autonomous driving already counts for 15 years of development by the automotive industry. The technology already exists, and it is estimated that there will be a huge leap with the upgrading of the 5G networks. Driverless cars are already at the gates, promising economy, safety, speed, and less environmental impact. Fully autonomous test vehicles are available in approximately 50 urban centers around the world. Within the next five years, autonomous vehicles are expected to circulate almost everywhere, permanently and irreversibly changing the way we move and ultimately live.
Autonomous cars will improve the quality of life for people who cannot drive while reducing the number of deaths or injuries from road accidents while increasing the efficiency of road traffic.
Smart City infrastructure
For the forthcoming Mobility revolution already expected to thrive in 2021, cities need to create a new Smart infrastructure and a public service platform. Smart city infrastructure will lay the foundation for prosperity.
The new road infrastructure includes smart road signs, smart pedestrian crossings, electric roads and paved roads with sensors, smart parking systems, all of which will be connected to dynamic traffic management platforms. The available traffic signals and data will optimize the traffic flow of vehicles in the city, offering safety and a significant reduction in costs and time-travel.
Businesses will benefit from the innovation and progress implemented in a data-driven city. Citizens, businesses, and public services can work more efficiently based on real-time data, increasing the optimal use of the infrastructure with positive environmental impacts. While Smart City management systems (in the water system or electricity circulation) are better aligned with the power of connected data, reducing emissions, waste, and energy.
“Smart” business opportunities
Mobility as a Service is a new smart service-solution for the transport of people and goods. It is a unified service, using all available transport means, connected in the same platform. It includes the creation of personalized packages of different mobility services (car-sharing, public transport, taxi, bicycle), the cost of which is paid in one transaction for each trip or specific time period, and not separately for each transport service provider.
The Internet of Mobility will be a system that will unify all means of transport, public, public, private, buses, trams, subways, taxis, buses, trains, ships, planes, and is expected to be a Mobility revolution.
Mobility as a service will offer citizens a great reduction in the cost and time-travel. Also, it will give entrepreneurs who will develop the service (sharing of private means of transport) a perspective of market share growth. Additionally, Mobility as a service will assist public Transportation in general as it will lead to a future reduction of car use.
Hungarian innovation
Innovation in Smart City infrastructure, E-Mobility, and Autonomous driving will be areas of great development and investment, while they will open new horizons for international cooperations. ALX GREECE, the representative of the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency in Greece, presents ZalaZONE, one of the largest E-Mobility, Autonomous driving, and Smart City infrastructure projects in Europe. Its facilities are in the Hungarian city of Zalaegerszeg and include track and test laboratories, with innovative high-tech telecommunications applications that allow the testing of electric, conventional or stand-alone vehicles at multiple levels.
ZalaZONE was created with the participation and support of major companies such as Bosch, AVL, Continental, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Oracle, Siemens, Vodafone and with the support of the Technical University of Budapest and Pannonia and SzéchenyiIstvany Universities.
ZalaZONE is a “green” ambitious technological project with benchmarks on mobility and electric and autonomous vehicles and how they are being transformed into commercial solutions for the automotive industry and Smart Cities.
For more information on Smart City and Mobility Automation solutions and business opportunities contact us
