Advantages and challenges from the use of IoT of public transports

special-ized in IoT, the States, the cities and so on. So, in order to analyze the results of use of IoT to improve public transports, results of some use case will be analyzed first. Then from these results, some advantages and challenges from this case will be deducted. And in a last part, probably results of new actors and technologies some cutting-edge technol-ogies will be discussed.

3.2.1 Practical and concrete results of the use of IoT in common transports

The drastic improvement of public transport in London

IoT is at the helm of the current improvement of the public transport network in London.

In fact, since several years, the Tfl (Transport for London) use big data to improve the information gave to users and understand users (Objectsconnecte.com, 2015). For that, big data is mainly provided by a huge broad of IoT devices like smartphone, machine payment, bicycles booked, research of the users (Objectsconnecte.com, 2015). For Lau-ren Sager-Weinstein Analyst Responsible for Tfl interviewed in 2015 “data collected by IoT devices are linked to commercial operations” (Objectsconnecte.com, 2015). As a re-sult, IoT help Tfl authorities to get the more relevant information to be able to make right decisions in the most critical moments. One example identified by Lauren Sager-Wein-stein, is the ability to refer to big data when a station is going to be close. In fact, they can know where the people are mainly going and then propose them a new road.

Use of smart digital bus station and smart parking in Barcelona

Smart digital buses are plenty of opportunities for the users. They make the user’s waiting more comfortable, improving the quality of user’s experience. In fact, their attractive and eco-friendly design and the enhanced communication giving real-time information (zicla.com, 2017) are probably well seen for by citizens. Another hand, the installation of sensors around the city detecting free parking place (Madden, 2017) will probably reduce traffic congestion. Consequently, people will send less time, will probably less angry and frustrated and spend better days.

3.2.2 Advantages and challenges from the use of IoT of public transports

Advantages

From the previous examples and in general one advantage of IoT once can return first that IoT gives relevant information. In fact, the devices could be every kind of devices

like smartphones, laptops, sensors, payment machine or rent bicycle machines as it is for Tfl in London. Consequently, the authorities are closer to the right information. The sec-ond advantage once could identify is that IoT can make the communication easily by using the objects. Objects by the moment that they are “alive” can monitor something and send the information without any human interaction. It represents real saving of money on the long term and permit to human to focus more on other activities. However, behind these advantages are some challenges and difficulties

Challenges and difficulties related to IoT Practical aspects

As a new technology IoT still need sometimes to be fully integrated in the habits. For that, engineer and software developer should be more aware to this reality. Also people in general should have an understanding of what is IoT. In addition, even though there are more and more data, these one should be assessed in a rational, logical and realistic way in order to give good results. Moreover, even if the data are well-organized, the question of the safety remains. In the recent days, data is considered as “the new oil”.

Therefore, the data collected by each kind of devices for public transportation should be safe especially when these data concern the citizens. However, the problem is that cur-rently some IoT devices do not have a strong internal safe system which can protect them for hacking (ALE International, 2018). Also, by involving objects in a network, this one becomes huger and then more vulnerable to attacks (ALE International, 2018). Conse-quently, the further IoT system, should take into consideration some aspects of security like the fact that in an IoT network, there are a lot of isolated devices which should be protected to prevent attacks to one device and the propagation to the other devices.

People

With IoT, people are known “alive”. They can communicate together. But what about the people? The first element is that several jobs will be probably hugely or not impacted by IoT.

Thus, now objects are talking together: what the place could be of people and if people are going to become more passive. For the moment, the IoT in public transportation is mainly used for monitoring, people remain principal actors. However, in a long-term per-spective, the use of data gathered should be vividly controlled. In fact, everything could be done with data from good to bad. Also, people should be informed to the information collected.

New players are appearing in the game

With the progress of IoT market in general, there are more of companies which are work-ing on IoT questions related to transports transportation. Some companies like Faltcom which develops a lot of different apps for public transport in smart cities (Fältcom, n.d.)

or Connecthings (for geofencing apps) and also big players like Cisco, Alcatel and Er-cison.

Also the cities are particularly implicated because they are at the initiative and the one which can allow the implementation of captors or everything else. Then in most of the cities founded, the development of an IoT strategy is generally an official issue. In all smart cities, the role of the authorities is always very important because they are the only one which can set the tone of this new initiative. They are at the helm for different projects like the installation of captors and sensors in the street, the development of roads for bicycles and the improvement of the internet connectivity in those cities.

4. DISCUSSION

As analyzed in the previous chapters, smart cities approach at different places around the world. In this chapter, in order to prove the consideration made previously, we want to focus on what is the future impact of Internet of Things on public transportation services in a real case, comparing this technology with another one. At the end we will give a short overview about the security and the safety for smart public transport.