Open cloud solution vs silo solution part 1 (3)
May 2, 2018
Overview
Both public transport operators- and authorities often suffer from low flexibility and vendor lock-in effects due to powerful monolith suppliers who shut out competition, making investment- and maintenance costs skyrocket.
When purchasing one single system, it might be OK, and even seem rational with a silo solution, to get a fast and easy off-the-shelf solution for an isolated need. Historically this has in many cases been the only choice. The problem is that soon enough you purchase additional one-time solutions. And before you know it, the vehicles are full of incompatible and silo-solution applications and systems, and the vehicle roofs look like hedgehogs, pierced by one antenna for each system in need of connection.
With a bit of planning and insight about the process, it is however not too hard to implement a remedy to the situation. What is needed to break the expensive and inflexible vendor lock-in situation is an open IT architecture that enables connection and compatibility between different systems and units from different vendors.
Open standard
With an open standard vehicle communication platform, comes improvement in efficiency, fleet economy and profitability. The benefit of a vendor independent open standard solution is that all the fleet systems will work together. New and old systems, apps as well as vehicle manufacturer systems can all be integrated. Much thanks to ITxPT (Information Technology for Public Transport), the EU-level standardization organization, things are rapidly changing for the better for vehicle fleets all over Europe.
Watch this film to get an overview of Open standard vs Silo solutions.
The ITxPT standard can in many ways be compared to Bluetooth, which enables compatibility between different units. To read more about the ITxPT standard, you can visit their website at:
Resources and References
Disclaimer: The content of this blog post is the author’s opinion and doesn’t reflect the opinion of any other person or organisation.