David Crawford looks at the latest thinking about calculating the benefits associated with the environmental side of ITS schemes. The penny is dropping that some environmental costs “are being shifted outside the traditional bounds of evaluation methods” for ITS-based road transport projects, according to researchers at the UK University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies.
“Despite all the hype about hybrid and smartphone-based telematics solutions, embedded connected car systems still have a bright future,” says ABI Research telematics and navigation group director Dominique Bonte. “On the OEM side, solutions such as GM’s OnStar and Hyundai’s Blue Link offer more reliable safety and security functionality such as emergency calling. Similarly, embedded aftermarket systems for insurance telematics, road user charging, or stolen vehicle tracking offer the best performance. Fina
According to a study by Frost & Sullivan, vehicle manufacturers (VMs) in Europe and North America have stepped up their game in response to the smartphone threat. Most of them have flooded the market with free apps focusing on areas such as customer relationship management (CRM) and breakdown assistance, while others have created value-added apps such as remote start/stop.
