Smart Cameras and the Transport Sector

January, 2021

1. What is the biggest challenge in the transport sector right now and how can smart cameras help overcome this challenge/challenge?

The world of transport is today an uncoordinated sum of devices, communications, and interactions, without inadequate attention to the experience of the user. 

The future of transport is represented by Mobility as an Integrated Service (MaaS), which focuses on the user and the user experience. “User experience” means simple actions that manage data, places, people and actions, and hiding them in a simple way. 

Everything that contributes to MaaS (promotion, choice of medium, medium, payment, social sharing, big data) will be strategic. 

The devices that will be able to interpret this change, and move towards the service, will benefit from a scenario of easier and faster integration and will beat the competition.

Everything that contributes to MaaS (promotion, choice of medium, medium, payment, social sharing, big data) will be strategic.

Intelligent cameras are set to become a combination of sensors and applications and will play an important role in this digital transformation. The “data fusion” between various sensors will help generate big data and feed platforms designed to improve the user experience with objectives such as reduction of pollution, reduction of costs, increase in passenger comfort, and enhancement of user safety. 

The proposal for new sensors and applications will be rewarded if it starts from the analysis of new Customer Journey and Digital Use Case (b2c or b2b). 

The new objectives of products and services will no longer be “functionality” but, more likely, the ability to generate data and show it as analytics and dashboards, to anticipate trends and movements, suggest and automate decisions.

2. What other uses do smart cameras have in relation to transportation?

Tattile, as a manufacturer of advanced traffic technologies, strongly believes that the camera can be a multi-purpose device in the MaaS ecosystem (Mobility as a Service). The ALPR camera will be the engine, generating data that will feed applications related to:

• How I move: traffic, traffic jam, violations, behavior, mood, habits, exceptions, fraud

• What is happening around me: weather, timetables, road signs and panels, other people, other vehicles, other devices

“Who” and “Where” will be questions with complete answers with instant snapshot, trends and KPI alarms. In the past, the cameras were only “eyes”. 

In the future, the cameras will become “intelligent units” with acquisition and decision in real time and understanding and interaction with the environment. 

Tattile is embracing this challenge, starting from new applications and designing new ALPR products able to use artificial intelligence and to generate big data.

3. What do you foresee for the future of smart cameras?

Communication backbone and V2X will be the place to share all this data and feed new applications. The ALPR camera system will be integrated into this ecosystem and will communicate and report events, images, video to suggest decisions or send an alert. 

The cameras can also play a key role as virtual sensors, replacing other sensors and using artificial intelligence to provide understanding, interpretation, suggestions for the city manager, the police mission planner, the toll companies. 

All these “actors” will request an application with specific profile (dynamic and selective toll, local police team for enforcement, national security, smart city environment).

The toll company may propose fees based on your green policies and safe behavior and estimate exactly the pollution and asphalt consumption that you produce while using its infrastructure.

The police could arrange activity and apply manpower only when and where necessary, basing decisions on information coming from networks of cameras.

The city manager will witness the communication between the devices, where the traffic light will see pedestrians and queues and regulate traffic; the weather conditions (light, temperature) will suggest the speed behavior and the change the way of transport.

Lia Gonzini is a marketing assistant at Tattile. She can be reached at L.Gonzini@tattile.com