Finland is driving ahead with smart mobility

The global market for intelligent mobility is predicted to be worth £900bn by 2025, and it is Finland leading the way, where road infrastructure and public transport already benefit from intelligent traffic solutions. In 2015, over 23 key organisations joined forces to establish the world’s first MaaS ecosystem for traffic, which is changing the face of public transport by harnessing the capacities of public and private entities and creating a seamless, demand-based and flexible travel experience for the public.

Mikko Koskue, Programme Director, Intelligent Vehicle and Traffic, at Finpro, said: “Finland is widely known as a global leader in smart mobility and we are proud to support the companies that are making this innovative technology and infrastructure a reality. From user interface software in connected cars, to payment solutions, predictive road maintenance and traffic management, the public sector can only take the industry so far - it is the creativity and innovation of our tech companies that is the driving force behind the future of smart mobility.”

Martyn Briggs, Industry Principal Mobility, Frost & Sullivan, said: “Due to a convergence of social, demographic and technology innovations, we are witnessing a shift from people using cars as the preferred or even ‘only’ choice, to using them as part of a wider system - we refer to it as ‘integrated multi-modal mobility’.”

“The new user-centric approach to mobility provides us with the information we need to make smarter choices about the way we travel, to make things more convenient, cheaper, and faster for us to get from A to B – all encouraging a trip-by-trip approach to mobility,” Briggs continued.
As the IT industry converges with the automotive sector, the digitalisation of transport and vehicles is quickly evolving. New innovations are emerging across connected cars, ITS and MaaS, with Finnish companies setting the benchmark.

Companies leading the way in the field
MaaS Finland,(global) launched in February 2016, is the first MaaS operator in the world and serves as an operator between transport services providers, users and third parties. This service platform combines existing transport services into a single mobile application on the ‘single-ticket principle’ and offers personalised transport plans for travellers and commuters.

Foreca’s road weather services go beyond traditional forecasting - helping drivers to understand the weather conditions while giving them more accurate detail on road conditions in real time. Foreca is now developing new ways to collect real time weather data from cars’ sensors with the aim of combining this data with the information collected from other sources such as weather stations, radars and satellites. This will enable them to have ‘mobile weather observation points’ on the road and provide end users with extremely precise forecasts.

Symbio’s Connected Car (SCC) (pictured above) is targeted at the global ultra-low cost Display Audio market, supporting Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Baidu Carlife. SCC combined with a Tamul Multimedia ultra-low cost chipset, enables the expansion of Connected Car services to segments currently served only with simple FM radios. SCC enables voice recognition, navigation, online music streaming services, telephony integration and third party application ecosystems, which were not available earlier to this specific segment.

Link Motion combines vehicle software and hardware solutions which are controlled through a single computer to make the future of mobility more affordable and secure. It can be used in different vehicles, from traditional cars to future mobility solutions. It reads and uses vehicle information and includes wireless internet, Bluetooth, GPS navigation, calls and messaging, back-up cameras, air conditioning controls, while offering the possibility to add third party applications.

Rightware are the creators of Kanzi, the user interface software used by car manufacturers for creating stunning digital user experiences for connected cars.

Leadin is an agency focusing on user experience design and digital service production. It turns deep customer insight into valuable client solutions. Leadin is dedicated to simplifying complex technologies for the benefit of end users and service providers. Designing intelligent transport systems and building mobility as a service solution is among the areas where it applies its expertise.