Wireless Networking Best Practices in European Transportation: Will Context-Aware Services Improve the Business Case?

This IDC study provides an overview of best practices in applying IT and wireless networking technologies to achieve enhanced transportation operations by discussing the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Netherlands Railways - NS) and Stockholm Lokaltrafik (Stockholm Transport Authority - SL) business challenges and recent achievements from improved IT implementations and future directions. This research document provides valuable insights, predictions, and prescriptions for both transportation executives and IT vendors targeting the transport sector.

The following main areas are being investigated:

"Best practices at Netherlands Railways and Stockholm Transport are demonstrating that ROI for context-aware mobile implementations can be achieved in a very limited timeframe, i.e. between 6 to 12 months, mostly as a consequence of productivity improvements and customer service enhancements. In addition, IDC believes that transportation companies can leverage on mobile investments to enable new business models in the medium to long term. As a result, we find that wireless technologies are a fundamental enabler of intelligent business process automation transformational initiatives and that mobile context-aware services will contribute to the business transformation of transportation providers into full service providers," said Ivano Ortis, program manager, IDC Manufacturing Insights.