Mobility Industry Tech Trends for 2023: Driving Through Disruption

Every year, Collins Dictionary selects one word that best characterizes the past twelve months.

In 2022, this word was “permacrisis” — an extended period of instability and insecurity like the one we’ve all been living through.

But if we are to play a game of words, the word “crisis” in Chinese has a more interesting meaning. It consists of two characters:

• 危 (wēi), which translates as “danger, to endanger”
• 机 (jī), which roughly translates as “a crucial point, when something begins to change”

Combined, these words define a crisis as a “turning point at the face of danger” — an accurate summary of what most industries have faced so far this decade. Fuel prices are on the rise. Economic uncertainty lingers, and markets remain in a state of flux.

Yet, a turning point also means new opportunities will emerge. Despite of the challenges, the mobility industry trends are evolving in 2022.

Among the recent trends in transportation, Anglo American launched the world’s largest hydrogen fuel cell truck. Toyota and Hyundai presented hydrogen fuel cell passenger EVs. Jeep released one of the most advanced and convenient digital cockpits, Uconnect 5.

Meanwhile, European mobility startups raised $5.7 billion in funding in the first half of 2022, which is more than in any other six-month period apart from H1 2021.

Global mobility trends are maturing despite crisis, and technology plays (and will continue to play) a crucial role in the mobility sector’s growth in 2023 and onward.

Which mobility technology trends will power the mobility sector’s growth in 2023?

Mobility technology trends evolve at breakneck speed thanks to bold action from mobility industry leaders. Gartner says that one of the key mobility trends for 2023 will be a greater affinity towards moonshot technology investments:

In the mobility sector, moonshot projects are easy to come by: emerging urban air mobility solutions, hyperloops, self-driving commuter shuttles, maritime transport decarbonization. All of these are high-priced, high-risk, but also potentially high-ROI initiatives.

But let’s be real: Not every mobility player has enough cash reserves (or investor support) to aim for the moon-high mobility industry trends, especially when there are plenty of things to do on the ground.

Grounded solutions can also offer tremendous growth opportunities for mobility industry leaders. Demand for fleet management software is on the rise. Fuel management systems are in vogue. ELD software, smart parking management software, EV trip planners — plenty of gaps remain in the market.

Our team has compiled a short list of emerging mobility technology trends and trends in transportation industry that will have the greatest impact on the mobility industry in 2023 and beyond.

eMobility trends

Calls for transport sector decarbonization have been loud and clear since the adoption of net-zero targets.

In 2023, we expect more transportation players to move from contemplation to action under the cumulative pressure of regulators, consumers, and economic conditions.

Countries worldwide are setting ambitious sales targets for EVs. Europe finally approved a ban on new gasoline car sales from 2035. At the end of 2022, EVs and hybrids already accounted for 43% of new vehicle sales in the region.

Canada aims to sell 100% new zero-emission vehicles by 2040. In the US, the Biden administration wants to move the federal vehicle fleet to 100% acquisition of zero-emission vehicles by 2035, and we can expect EVs to make up 50% of all new vehicles sold in the US by 2030.

Across other transportation industry trends, consumers also show strong intent to purchase EVs in the next three years.

Purchasing intent for buying EVs across countries

Source: Deloitte — Transportation trends 2022–23

The Institute of Energy also predicts that EVs could displace two million barrels a day in oil demand as early as 2023. In the current market, this could help reduce the government’s dependency on fossil fuels.

But rising electricity prices are deterring some consumers from purchasing or regularly using EVs. This dynamic creates a new opportunity for shared eMobility players. As disposable consumer income decreases, competitive pricing can drive more users to the mobility trends.

But sufficient EV charging infrastructure still needs to be built.

The UK government plans to spend £1 billion on expanding EV charging infrastructure this year. In the US, the Department of Transportation has allocated $7.5 billion towards EV charging infrastructure and plans to install 500,000 chargers by 2030 (plus update existing ones).

The EU has committed €292.5 million in funding that will translate into 5,700 new charging points in 1,400 charging stations, plus some 57 hydrogen refueling stations within the next three years.

Optimistic forecasts say that EV charging services are expected to expand by 35% a year globally to $12 billion by 2030.

Where are the new opportunities in eMobility?

• EV charging station management infrastructure
• Advanced EV battery analytics solutions
• EV fleet management software
• EV range prediction and route optimization modules
• B2C shared eMobility and micro eMobility services

Mobility as Service (MaaS) offerings

MaaS players launched with singular offerings for ridesharing, cab-hailing, or carsharing. In many regions, demand for these core services remains high.

Oliver Wyman estimates that Asia now accounts for 60% of the total global ride-hailing market and 80% of the region’s total consumer spending. By 2030, the market will reach $230 billion, doubling in size from $103.7 billion in 2020.

European MaaS players also expect an influx of new users. Over half of Britons plan to use more sustainable transport nodes in 2023, which include shared mobility and public transport. A third say that such options are very important in the wake of rising living costs.

The on-demand micro-mobility (eBikes, scooters, e-mopeds) sector will also maintain steady growth, trending towards $6.1 billion in size by 2027.

That said, MaaS players who are moving industry trends are no longer staying in one lane. Most run an ecosystem of tightly connected offerings, delivered in tandem with industry partners and public transport operators. Mature MaaS companies:

• Support multiple public and shared mobility options
• Develop on-demand public transport routes
• Double as last-mile delivery providers
• Cover multi-modal urban journeys
• Handle ticketing and payment processing

In other words, they solve a wide range of user needs and generate value through partnership deals with other players in the ecosystem.

Dutch MaaS ecosystem

Source: Innopay — 5 key steps towards a scalable and inclusive digital MaaS ecosystem with the customer in control

For consumers, MaaS ecosystems enable more attractive multimodal transportation options and a seamless payment experience (pay in-app and ride across nodes).

For mobility players, MaaS ecosystems provide horizontal growth opportunities among other benefits from mobility market trends. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi feels optimistic about 2023 because the company had sticky growth in its delivery operations.

Lyft, in turn, maintains growth thanks to its partnerships with public transit agencies for late-night service, paratransit, and first-/last-mile operations. At the end of 2022, Lyft also partnered with mobility management platform Spare to create a new platform that would allow public transport managers to use ride-hailing as a solution for some of their services. This makes them even more engrained in the transportation market.

At the same time, MaaS providers are taking on new verticals like in-car commerce to chase trends in transportation and mobility. Daimler Mobility has partnered with Visa to enable seamless in-car shopping experiences for drivers and passengers.

Other MaaS providers are brokering deals with insurance providers who are interested in providing on-demand coverage to drivers. For instance, Irish mobility startup Brite teamed up with Zego, a mobility insurance provider, to get country-wide cover for its micro-mobility eFleet.

To grow stronger in 2023, MaaS players should join forces with others. Analyze the existing ecosystems in your market. Refresh your API strategy. Look for opportunities to cover more legs in user journeys by embedding offers from third parties. Generate extra revenue through your own API-based embedded offerings.

Where are the new MaaS opportunities?

• Robust and secure data processing solutions
• Multi-modal MaaS applications
• Open APIs to distributed embedded products
• In-app payment processing
• In-vehicle commerce solutions
• Integrations with urban transport management systems
• Integrations with smart parking solutions
• B2B mobility products

Road Intelligence

Road intelligence is an umbrella term for all sensing technologies aimed at improving the visibility, safety, efficiency, and sustainability of transportation networks.

On the ground, road intelligence is powered by connected physical road infrastructure — CCTV cameras, IoT road devices, and other types of sensors. In the cloud, data from this road infrastructure gets transformed into helpful insights for urban transport planning and management.

By 2030, the global traffic management market is expected to surpass $61.9 billion. That’s not surprising, given the rapid urban population growth and worsening traffic jams.

On the solutions side, we expect real-time traffic prediction systems to get more advanced and be more widely deployed. Already, transport managers can use available big data to make accurate predictions on:

• Public transport ETAs
• Traffic conditions under specific circumstances
• Daily/weekly/monthly traffic flows
• Route durations

Such predictions are becoming even more accurate thanks to increased use of floating car data, IoT clusters, and reinforcement learning.

Smart traffic signals are part of the growing trends in transportation and mobility too. The newest streetlights are internet-connected and have edge processing capabilities. With these characteristics, they can issue adaptive controls based on real-world conditions. Manchester, London, and Singapore, among other cities, are already running field tests of adaptive traffic lights on signalized junctions and pedestrian crossings.

Modern cities seek out greater connectivity to calm traffic chaos, and tech companies are in the best position to help deliver that.

Where are the new opportunities for road intelligence?

• AI-driven traffic management platforms
• Pedestrian tracking for collision prevention
• Smart traffic lights for junction management
• Traffic recognition algorithms with edge video processing
• Scalable cloud platforms for transport data analytics
• Intelligent transportation management systems

ADAS

Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) have already proven to be lifesaving. Depending on the study, ADAS can reduce accident rates by 23% to 47%. Plus, they can prevent 37% of injuries and 29% of all deaths in crashes. The efficacy will further increase when better detection systems become available for identifying other vehicles, pedestrians, and road signs.

Moving mobility technology trends forward means ADAS hardware and software will continue to improve. The EU has already made a number of ADAS components mandatory for all new vehicles from 2022. These include:

• Intelligent speed assistance, reversing detection with cameras or sensors, attention warnings for driver distraction, and event data recorders for all road vehicles
• Extra features such as lane-keeping systems and automated braking for cars and vans

At the same time, only 10% of the one billion cars on the roads had ADAS features in 2021, meaning there’s still a huge market gap.

Consumers are keen too. A AAA survey found that 77% of respondents were more interested in improved vehicle safety systems than in fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). Moreover, present-day ADAS offers fuel economy savings of 2.8% on highways — a figure that can be stretched with the right technologies.

It’s not surprising that OEMs plan to deploy new ADAS components in the next three years.

Estimated percent of registered vehicle by ADAS features (2020 and 2026)

Source: National Safety Council — Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

That said, challenges remain. ADAS requires low-latency and secure connectivity for more advanced features such as object or person detection as well as autonomous driving. To deploy such solutions, companies will need to further invest in 5G connectivity, edge processing, and computer vision.

To address this problem, Ericsson, Deutsche Telekom, BMW, Valeo, and Qualcomm recently introduced a proof-of-concept solution for 5G network slicing. The system helps maintain consistent automated driving functionality even with congested network conditions.

Bosch plans to present a new Off-zone Crash Detection system during CES 2023. The system relies on various sensor data points and new software algorithms to identify previously uncaptured crash scenarios. These mostly happen during lane changes, merging, and intersection crossings. In case of an accident, these new algorithms will enable a detection system to ensure faster deployment of airbags and safety restraints.

Where are the new opportunities for ADAS?

• ADAS solutions for electric vehicles
• ADAS for (semi-)autonomous driving
• Data-driven driver assistance protocols
• Improved sensor fusion and perception software solutions
• Low-latency positioning software

Fleet telematics

Fleet telematics is hardly a new mobility trend, but it remains a crucial element for mobility systems of the future. On-board telematics hardware, paired with a software analytics platform, enables better asset visibility, fuel economy, and real-time fleet management. Today, the majority of the market remains with aftermarket telematics service providers. But by 2030, OEM-based fleet telematics subscriptions will reach 150 million. In other words, OEMs will progressively take over the fleet management turf.

At the same time, telematics is moving away from basic asset tracking to more in-depth analysis of asset utilization. Telematics data is the core component of predictive vehicle maintenance software — another latest trend in mobility.

The latest video telematics systems also allow managers to better understand and moderate driver behavior. When augmented with AI algorithms, such in-cabin solutions serve as real-time driver coaches.

Extra training never hurts. Motive (formerly KeepTruckin) found that fleets using AI-powered dashcams for driver coaching have:

• 69% fewer unsafe driving behaviors
• 40% fewer FMCSA-reported unsafe driving violations
• 22% fewer accidents
• 31% fewer speeding events

Apart from driver coaching, dashcams can also minimize asset theft or misuse. Drivers can log in via face scan technology, which is both convenient and improves vehicle security.

Where are the new opportunities in fleet telematics?

• ESG data collection for measuring carbon footprints
• Telematics software solutions for EVs
• Advanced fuel management systems
• AI-powered driver coaching solutions
• Automatic VIN decoding software

Smarter logistics

Global supply chains remain disrupted by the ongoing pandemic and new geopolitical events.

In 2022, Shanghai’s and China’s Containerized Freight Indices fell by 50% and 19% respectively due to haphazard lockdown policies. Access to critical raw materials such as aluminum, palladium, nickel, potash, and vanadium has been constrained due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

On the upside, 50% of ongoing sea congestion was resolved by August 2022. On the flip side, another 50% remains.

That said, the current crisis may actually yield some positive otcomes. Reuters analysts suggest that slower growth in the freight and manufacturing sectors can ease the pressure on supply chains.

This cooldown period presents a great opportunity to carry on supply chain digitization and enter the new growth cycle in a better position.

Since 2019, Intellias has been helping one of our clients, a Fortune 500 manufacturer for the world’s leading operators of commercial truck service and tire retreading centers, bring its supply chain in better shape. We developed a new microservices-based architecture that allowed the company to:

• Obtain online access to warehouses in every corner of the world
• Improve consumers’ online shopping experience for parts ordering
• Offer easy tire service appointment scheduling at the nearest center
• Ship goods from the closest inventory location to increase customer satisfaction

Maintaining strong last-mile logistics capability will be crucial for 2023.

Despite a temporary slowdown in global trade, local operations continue to surge. The US ecommerce sector grew by a further 10.8% in Q3 2022. APAC continues to hold a 40% share of the global last-mile delivery market.

Yet, connectivity remains spotty in last-mile logistics. According to a Bringg survey, 44% of logistics companies cite “lack of visibility into outsourced delivery partners” as a pressing challenge. Another 41% struggle with effective carrier/driver management.

Blockers to greater last-mile profitability

Source: Bringg — 2020 State of Last Mile Logistics

For tech companies, these hurdles present profitable product development opportunities: real-time order delivery planning; route optimization by time, fuel consumption, or CO2 emission levels; and intelligent order batching, among others.

Where are the new opportunities in logistics?

• Multimodal freight journeys
• Digital freight marketplaces
• Real-time asset tracking
• Supply chain forecasting solutions
• Delivery route optimization software
• Smart shipment container tracking
• Autonomous last-mile deliveries

Whizzing past disruption towards growth

Crises come and go, and so do the opportunities they create. Transportation companies (and their technology partners) face two choices: wait out the crisis to survive or act to thrive by chasing latest mobility trends.

Massive advances in tech and data availability open up new profit pools and make moves into new market verticals easier than ever. To act upon these opportunities with confidence, you should apply product thinking. Take a good look at changes in customer behaviors. Investigate the why behind them. Dig into root causes to better understand where the mobility trends are heading. Then apply your observations to your product.

Let’s talk about how technology can make a difference for your company.