Innovation And The Transportation Industry

With growing competition in the transportation sector, involved companies should deploy new existing technologies and extensively improve the quality of their services to remain in the business. In this article, I will talk about the current trends in the transportation industry and which upcoming winning strategies will lead the entire transport sphere in 2022.

The key to the success in the transportation business is offering the most cost-effective, flexible and efficient services. That’s why transportation companies should turn towards the most recent trends and follow the strategies that will help to out-compete the other market players.

§?Emerging Transportation Innovations

While the pandemic has impacted the transportation industry in general, the development of new technologies hasn’t slowed down at all. People have recognized that the setbacks were temporary. Some areas of transport, like medical equipment shipping, even grew due to increased needs. So, it is fair to assume that the transportation industry as a whole will continue to develop. We can see a plethora of tech innovations in the industry, right from electronic vehicles to eco-friendly fuels, from logistic systems to automation.

§?Adopting Cloud-Based Systems

One of the biggest transport industry trends for 2022 is cloud-based systems adoption, since the platforms in the cloud force a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model which opens unlimited opportunities for companies' scalability and innovative digital resources usage. It allows reaching higher profitability and exceeding the common returns of on-premise systems’ capabilities.

§?Integrating Frictionless Travel

The necessity to make travel more smooth and hassle-free is mostly manifested through the rise of mobility-as-a-service or what is being called MaaS.

However, the number of new trends in the transportation industry combined and aimed at minimal stoppages or checkpoints result in this one key drift to integrated travel and transportation. The minor tendencies are optimization of the infrastructure, creation of the mobility hubs for multimodal transportation, building platforms for ticketless travel and introduction of the innovations in micro-mobility and last-mile connections.

§?Anti-Theft GPS and Enhancing Visibility

Today E-Commerce, retail and logistic companies are getting focused on the increased visibility, thus, tracking technologies adoption and adjustment for increased traceability are among the major driving trends in the transportation industry this year. Anti-Theft GPS, for instance, is a means to receive near real-time locations for entire fleets and separate items in transit. The extra security protocols will also help avoid losses across the board.

§?Self-Driving Trucks Are Definitely The Future

The technology for self-driving trucks is still under perfecting and it has to overcome certain obstacles, such as improving driverless software to make it able to efficiently operate on urban roads with heavy traffic. However, it’s one of the transportation future trends. In the long-term perspective, transportation businesses should prepare for upcoming technology changes within the industry and start equipping their trucks with self-navigating management systems that can learn from real drivers.

Due to artificial intelligence and myriad sensors, an AI-enabled vehicle can correctly evaluate road conditions and learn from how truck drivers behave under unusual conditions on the road. Through vehicle-to-vehicle or V2V communication, trucks can share the learned information and make other vehicles smarter. Besides, the 5G technology spreading will catalyze the adoption of self-driving fleets. In the long-term, these vehicles can potentially become better drivers than human operators.

In fact, this future is even closer than it can seem. Tesla’s electric Semi truck has autopilot features which can greatly facilitate the driving process. Walmart, along with many other companies, such as Pepsi, Asko, and Loblaw confirmed having ordered Tesla Semi trucks for their commercial needs.

§?Complying With Regulations

It will be more correct to say that regulatory compliance is a must rather than one of the latest trends in transportation. Commercial transport companies should stay up-to-date on recent requirements and regulations adopted, changed or removed by any local, state or federal government. Whether they are regulations regarding electronic logbooks, overtime, or safety rules, timely monitoring regulations will always be a trend.

§?Blockchain In Logistics

Blockchain is one of those transformative technology trends in distribution and transportation that shape the mobility in 2022 and beyond. One of the perspective use cases for the blockchain technology in trucking is ensuring the accuracy of performance history records. When a truck gets sold for the second time, potential customers may have questions about how this vehicle was used. Since blockchain transactions are immutable and transparent, all parties involved in a transaction can be sure that the information about the truck is trustworthy.

Another perspective use of blockchain in transportation is capacity monitoring. The cost of transportation depends on cargo volume. The use of Internet-of-things (IoT) sensors can help determine the amount of space a particular cargo occupies. This data can be used to calculate the shipment cost. Storing this information into a blockchain-based system signed with a smart contract will allow self-executing payments on a base of the amount of space taken by the freight.

§?Address Delivery To Stay Ahead

The growth of E-commerce businesses leads to a rising demand for address deliveries. Providing better service means being more competitive. Heavy trucking businesses should consider adding a fleet of small vehicles to conquer a bigger piece of the market. Therefore, optimization of the last mile deliveries is one of the transport and logistics industry trends of 2022.

§?Our Future Through Drone Delivery

Within a last-mile delivery focus tendency among both retailers and transportation companies, some companies already deliver packages to the citizens and companies by drones. At the end of 2016, Amazon first delivered an order to its customer using a drone. This delivery was conducted in England within Amazon’s new program called Prime Air which implied that a customer could get a package in 30 minutes. After Amazon’s success, various companies started investing in drone delivery to increase the cost-effectiveness of their business and customer experience as well.

In the eon of COVID-19 contactless address delivery became the most popular and required of all the present-day transportation industry trends. It motivated even more companies to turn their eyes to this delivery option and start adopting it.

Final Thoughts

With the increase in expenses of transportation companies such as on fuel, auto parts, etc. transportation companies should apply new methods and strategies to improve their efficiency and mobility. For the same purpose, they should go with the tides of modern transport industry technology trends, look ahead, and be ready to invest in equipping their fleet with smart devices and deploying modern technologies that facilitate deliveries.