The transportation industry is a highly collaborative system – responsible for over 6.3 billion people every day transiting across any number of local, national, and international boundaries. Significant human, economic and environmental costs are associated with commuting in urban areas, which has been contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy expenditures. India being a high populous country, has a structured and robust mass transit system established, yet there are a few issues that can be resolved through the adoption of new technologies.

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Let us explore how blockchains could help reduce these costs for global transit systems in the future.

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain, a technological breakthrough and unique decentralized database technology, could help to increase collaboration, the sharing of trusted information and efficiency, and reduce costs and risk while introducing newer business models in the mass transit space for the years to come. 

India’s mass transit sector can leverage blockchain technology to improve market transparency, efficiency, consensus, immutability, and provenance.

Transportation Sector

In order to be efficient and sustainable, societies must embrace public transit. Public transportation campaigns to minimize pollution have changed how people view public transport as outdated and overflowing buses. The future of transportation, tourism, and logistics is being powered by the blockchain. 

Blockchain allows for trustless automated accounting, eliminating risk, as well as increased monitoring of transactions and automatic validation and reconciliation. As a result, both companies and individuals can benefit from blockchain-based systems in various transportation scenarios.

Integrating blockchain technology will aid the mainstreaming of public transit in several ways. As a sample of its possible use cases, it may safeguard rental bike fleets, facilitate ridesharing, and distribute vital information.

How can blockchain change the face of transit systems?

Indian transit systems rely on various stakeholders to operate efficiently, including governments and other authorities at both local and national levels; private sector operators; infrastructure owners; service providers (e.g., bus manufacturers); riders; commuters; businesses; and so forth. Each stakeholder has its own interests that affect the transit system’s success as a whole. Blockchain technology offers new ways to improve collaboration between different actors within transportation systems in order to deliver better outcomes for travelers at a lower cost while reducing environmental impacts and other negative externalities associated with transportation systems. Here are a few use cases of blockchain integration in the transportation industry:

Fleet Maintenance & Management

The efficiency of specific fleet vehicles can be tracked using the integration of blockchain. For instance, when a company wants to purchase a used bus, the blockchain can help validate information about the vehicle’s past performance and maintenance history. A business with a sizable fleet of vehicles can also readily monitor the performance of the vehicles they already own.

Payment & Ticketing

Blockchain eases the process of ticketing and payments by utilizing crypto and smart contracts in the system. Particularly for multimodal trips involving multiple modes of transportation, the procedure of purchasing and using tickets can be incredibly fragmented, time-consuming, and highly frustrating. Commuters may now purchase transport tickets from their starting point to their destination in a much more straightforward and efficient way, thanks to the use of blockchain technologies. 

P2P Network Tracking

The rise of P2P networks is being facilitated by blockchain because it makes it simple for participants to view and share pertinent records. For example, blockchain technology could make it possible to track nearby public vehicles, access insurance plans, and manage settings on the vehicle by logging sensor data. These functions would be extremely advantageous in ridesharing scenarios. Moreover, while using public transport like buses or trains, a passenger can know where a bus or train is; and a driver can know whether to stop at a particular stop or not (whether there are any passengers or not), saving time and fuel. 

Mobility as a Service

The landscape is changing significantly in the Indian transportation sector due to the influence of connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and ridesharing. As a result, industry leaders are continually looking for ways to boost productivity, enhance security, lessen their impact on the environment, and improve the customer experience in order to remain competitive. Fortunately, blockchain has the ability to address some of the most critical issues facing the industry. The business models, when used to resolve the problems in the industry, ensuring mobility for all are known as implementing mobility as a service (MaaS). Mobility businesses are already integrating blockchain and developing innovative applications to confirm a vehicle’s history, improve supply chain tracking, automate transactions, enable smooth ridesharing, or support more equitable insurance.

Conclusion

The blockchain is a game-changer in the world of finance, business, and technology and could have impacts just as significant when applied to mass transit. The infrastructure may be different, but the general principles behind a secure, distributed ledger could provide a common platform to improve information sharing and collaboration. As the companies, government agencies, and individuals involved in transit systems begin to test the waters of blockchain implementation; there will be no going back. It will be interesting to see how blockchain evolves as it becomes more widely accepted and implemented.