Blockchain Technology in Transportation

With the advent of ride-hailing apps and multiple players in the ride-hailing market, we have more transportation options than ever before. How can we optimise coordination between mobility provider platforms while reducing fears about data privacy and security?

As an increasing number of ride-hailing companies join the market, each maintains its own database of demand and supply information. Information about both the supply and demand for transportation is locked up in various silos, making data exchange and inter-operability difficult between companies.

The advent of blockchain technology could be a way toward a shared mobility database that could optimise performance across ride-hailing companies. With the increase in consumer reliance on such online platforms, organisations such as TravelSpirit and IoMob have lobbied for the development of an international standard that will finally break down the silos between mobility provider platforms and advocate for a blockchain-enabled meta-platform for transportation.

In episode 12 of the FCL podcast, Dr Pieter Fourie introduces the concept of ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ and goes on to share his vision of how this technology will enable other emerging technologies like Mobility-as-a-Service and the machine economy for autonomous vehicles and IOT.

Dr Pieter Fourie is a Senior Researcher of the Engaging Mobility project at FCL and the ASEAN chair of the TravelSpirit foundation. Pieter has more than 10 years of experience in agent-​based transport simulation, and has been an active developer of the open source MATSim project since 2008. He wants to bring these tools into practice, and see simulation used in neighbourhood sketch-​planning. Pieter obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich while at FCL and received the ETH Medal for his PhD thesis 'Data-​driven Transit Simulation'.