This blog post is an excerpt from GovLoop’s recent industry perspective with Cisco, Connected Transportation: A Digital Infrastructure for the Public Sector. To download the full report, head here.
What if you could securely and reliably connect your entire transit ecosystem (vehicles, stations, stops, maintenance yards, operations centers, workers, passengers) to deliver a safe, efficient and enjoyable transportation infrastructure and experience? What if you could increase ridership and create greater loyalty among your existing customers? What if you could reduce both capital and operational expenditures? What
if you could improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion? With a digital transportation infrastructure, it’s no longer just a vision but a real possibility.
The key is that in order to implement the opportunities discussed earlier, cities must think of digitizing their transportation
like any other infrastructure that’s underpinning a community. “There’s actually a lot that needs to be done from the public perspective to insure the sort of safety, security, accountability, and cost effectiveness we expect from other infrastructure,” Maggiore said.
What’s critical to the execution and vision of this, though, is an enterprise infrastructure. “We need to think of
the network for the digitization of transportation like we think of anything else related to transportation,” Einsig said. “It’s critical infrastructure, like a bridge or tunnel, that we have to have in place in order to digitize.”
Currently, many transit operators manage their digital objectives individually through different communication systems and networks. But now, with increasing migration toward digital solutions, government no longer has to incur the costs – or work around the inefficiencies – of managing and maintaining duplicate network and communication functions. Operations, passenger safety and communications no longer need to be siloed in closed, single-purpose, proprietary systems. And that’s where Cisco transit solutions come in.
“Cisco’s network is a fundamental part of being able to connect transportation,” Einsig said. “We can securely and robustly connect cars, sensors, devices, traffic lights, ambulances – anything that’s connected to the transportation arena. And without a robust and scalable connection, the concept of connected transportation all starts to fall apart.”
Cisco architecture and validated network designs, built on open standards, let governments take advantage of commercially available products and services to lower costs while improving performance. Whether it’s a transit authority, first responder, systems integrator or a public-sector agency, they’ll be able gain the benefits of Cisco’s proven IP networking capabilities. This offers the high capacity needed to support today’s intelligent transportation applications and services with the flexibility governments need to easily adapt over time.
The digital solutions that make up Cisco’s suite of digital transportations solutions provide a single, standards- based, end-to-end network architecture that supports multiple services and applications. They also help enable vehicle- to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communications. These applications give rise to a wealth of capabilities that address the transportation industry’s greatest challenges, including improved safety and security, and reduced operating and capital expenses.
