Data is the new fuel powering vehicles. As cars become more digitalized and connected, car manufacturers have to supercharge their vehicles with new technologies and fresh ideas. No wonder Finnish companies are already driving on this fast lane to the future.

Finland has introduced countless technologies and digital services to the world. In fact, Finns are renowned for creating user-driven solutions and sought-after technologies, in large part due to their holistic understanding of digitalization and the entire digital value chain.

Business Finland gathered the Finnish top tier mobility players into one eBook Smart Automotive and Mobility Solutions from Finland. Read the eBook here.

It’s the year 2030. Finland has the safest, smoothest and most environmentally friendly traffic in the world.

Fintraffic provides traffic information in Finland that helps companies to create new traffic and smart mobility solutions for people and goods. In the new video Fintraffic introduces their vision and how the Finnish transportation system will work seamlessly in the future.

Check out the new video:

 

 

In conjunction with the launch of Finland’s national battery strategy, Fortum announced in January 2021 the further expansion of its battery recycling operations. In February 2021, Fortum will open a new mechanical recycling processing plant located in Ikaalinen, Finland. The new plant, which is expected to employ up to 20 employees, will complement Fortum’s existing hydrometallurgical pilot facility in Harjavalta, Finland, which is already capable of operating on an industrial scale.

The world will increasingly need sustainable raw materials for EV batteries, as the electrification of cars is rapidly increasing the need for the valuable materials and chemical elements that batteries contain, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese. In addition, a recent EU directive proposal will also require improved collection targets, higher recovery rates and the increased use of recycled raw materials in new batteries.

Fortum, a leading European energy company, is committed to engage its customers and societies to decarbonise and to help them in decreasing their environmental footprints. Moving forward, CO2-neutral societies will rely on battery technology. Fortum has been developing new and increasingly efficient ways to optimise the entire lifecycle of lithium-ion batteries for several years now and aims to further expand its battery operations in the coming years. Partnering with industrial and infrastructure customers is one of Fortum’s strategic priorities.

“Our new plant in Ikaalinen will enable us to leverage our existing recycling operations in Finland and will give us the annual capacity to recycle approximately 3,000 tonnes of used batteries, corresponding to about 10,000 EV batteries,” says Tero Holländer, Head of Business Line Batteries at Fortum. “We aim to steadily increase this capacity in the coming months and years in order to bridge the raw materials gap faced by the automotive industry with the electrification of transportation. Providing recycled and sustainable raw materials for batteries will bring significant value not only to our partners and customers but also to Finland’s battery industry, which is well poised to take the lead in the supply chain for EV batteries.”

The global lithium-ion battery recycling market was worth about EUR 1.3 billion in 2019, but it is expected to boom in the coming years to more than EUR 20 billion. According to a forecast by the International Energy Agency, the number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads will increase from three million to 125 million by 2030.

Many current operators that recycle battery metals often do so by smelting, which results in lower material recovery rates and higher emissions. In order to recycle used lithium-ion batteries efficiently, safely and with the lowest possible CO2 footprint, Fortum has taken an approach that includes using both mechanical and hydrometallurgical methods for the recycling process; this approach can reach a recovery rate of up to 95% of the metals included in the valuable active materials of a battery’s black mass.

Fortum’s unique mechanical recycling process has been optimised to complement the hydrometallurgical process and has been designed to minimise emissions and dust. During the process, used EV batteries are shredded and the metals are separated to create a black mass. This black mass is then delivered to Fortum’s processing facility in Harjavalta where a hydrometallurgical process is applied to create new recycled raw materials that can be used in new battery products.

Read Fortum’s press release here.

Telia partnered with Arthur D. Little to look into the digitalization of public transport in the Nordics and Baltics – the results of the study are published in a comprehensive report now available online.

How IoT and Data Insights Are Changing the Way We Move

Public transport is a in a period of intense challenges and remarkable possibilities. In this report, Telia and Arthur D. Little look at the goals, trends and pain points identified by public transport authorities and operators across the Nordics and Baltics – and how they can be addressed by the emerging possibilities of digitalization.

The new report covers following areas:

• Nordic & Baltic overview
• Impact of Covid-19
• Local trends
• Understanding crowds
• Pain Point 1: Attracting passengers
• Pain Point 2: Passenger satisfaction
• Pain Point 3: Modernization pressure
• Pain Point 4: Competetive advantage
• Digitalization in action
• What will 5G drive
• Cases from the real world
• The road ahead

Analysts from Arthur D. Little interviewed public transport decision makers from across the Nordics and Baltics to understand their pains. Combining these findings with other local and global reports, we looked at how the emerging possibilities of digitalization can help to address them.

Read the full report here.

Stockton, CA & New York, NY 20th November 2020

The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) and Masabi, the company bringing Fare Payments-as-a-Service (FPaaS) to public transit, announced November 20th 2020 the launch of EZHub, a cashless mobile ticketing and fare payment system, available in the Vamos Mobility App from Kyyti, that will make using public transit safer and easier to access and pay for throughout San Joaquin County.

Once downloaded, transit riders can use the Vamos Mobility app to plan their journeys and, thanks to the addition of EZHub, purchase tickets for any of the seven participating transit systems. The app is available from both the App Store and Google Play by searching for “Vamos Mobility” or “EZHub”, connecting residents of California’s Central Valley with affordable and clean local transit.

From 20 November 2020, riders on services provided by San Joaquin RTD, Manteca Transit, Tracer, eTrans, Altamont Corridor Express (ACE Rail), GrapeLine and City of Ripon can use EZHub to purchase tickets via the Vamos Mobility app wherever, whenever and ride across the agencies networks. This will cover the regional bus and rail transit services throughout San Joaquin County and local bus transit service in the cities of Stockton, Lodi, Manteca, Ripon, Tracy, and Escalon. Talks are ongoing to expand the app’s functionality beyond San Joaquin County, and to add further mobility partners.

Vamos is integrating EZHub using Masabi’s Justride SDK, enabling transit ticketing from within the Vamos Mobility app. This ground-breaking innovation will help open up ticketing across the region, giving people the freedom and flexibility to open a single app to plan a trip, get real-time information, and purchase a ticket in just a few taps.

Thanks to Masabi’s cloud-native and multi-tenant Fare Payments-as-a-Service platform, Justride, which powers EZHub, transport agencies no longer need to purchase their own design-and-build bespoke ticketing systems, which are expensive, slow and risky to deploy, and do not update regularly with new features and functionality unless significant amounts of money are invested. Instead, using a Fare Payments-as-a-Service approach, they can benefit from the latest innovations delivered quickly and cost-effectively, with regular feature updates everyone on the platform benefits from.

“The launch of EZHub represents the dawn of a new era for transit riders in San Joaquin County,” said Diane Nguyen, Deputy Director at SJCOG. “From now on, not only will people be able to buy their tickets at any time, anywhere, but that ticket will take them wherever they want to go in San Joaquin County, saving the hassle of keeping track of multiple tickets, schedules and services across different agencies. Masabi presented us with a compelling proposition, with a world-renowned product that will help streamline transit for people and communities, and we are delighted to have such an esteemed partner on board as we get to work making journeys smarter.”

“At Masabi, our Fare-Payments-as-a-Service approach to fare collection has brought time and cost-saving innovation to all sizes of transit agency across the world. Now, more than ever, when passenger safety is paramount, the reassurance of a fully contactless rider experience combined with an easier way to reach destinations throughout the region means that journeys can be undertaken safely and conveniently,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. “We’re excited about the launch of this ground-breaking regional project and pleased to bring the benefits of cashless technology to riders of all the agencies involved via a single solution.”

“SJCOG’s new regional fare payments system, EZHub, is a highly advanced solution to a technically complex problem. It seamlessly combines services from seven  transit agencies. We are very happy to be the end user app provider for this project,” said Kyyti Group CEO Pekka Möttö. “We believe in making everyday commuting more convenient and more sustainable. Working with Masabi allows us to seamlessly combine passenger information with mobile ticketing over many operators, all within one app”, Möttö says.

Read the full story on Kyyti Group’s press release.

The digitalisation of public transport helps to achieve the set service and emissions targets

Finland needs a digital travel information market that motivates different information providers to produce travel data needed for high-standard digital services to be shared by all service providers. Travel information contains data related to the operation of public transport, such as route, stop and timetable data, as well as disruption information and real-time data.

In collaboration with key public transport operators, the Finnish state owned research institute VTT studied the current situation of the digital travel information infrastructure, development needs, organisational models and measures for achieving the target state. The aim is to make public and shared transport a genuine alternative to private motoring to reduce emissions and generate business-driven growth. The key measure to increase attractiveness is the provision of comprehensive, high-quality digital travel data and services based on it.

Challenges of the current state and future goals

The operating environment of public transport has gone through many changes. Emissions targets, customer requirements and changes in legislation require increasing attention from service providers. Furthermore, new forms of mobility and flexible demand-driven and shared services increase the requirements for digital services. The implementation of smooth multimodal travel chains requires taking account of the needs of various actors and standard solutions to ensure interoperability. At the national level, the development of digital public transport services has come to a halt or been siloed into limited service packages, despite the efforts of the authorities to establish nationwide integration of travel data and a journey planner based on it.

“The current systems are beginning to be outdated, and they no longer support all needs and new forms of mobility services. All actors will need to renew their systems in the near future, which provides an opportunity for developing common and compatible solutions,” says Hannu Heikkinen from the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL).

The need for the reorganisation of the providers of travel information services arises largely from the need to provide interoperable services in a cost-effective manner. Another major change in the current situation is the restructuring of the maintenance and service provision of the Digitransit system, which serves as the foundation of, for example, matka.fi and the journey planners of HSL and TVV Lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä Oy.

In addition to services targeted to consumers, transport operators and other travel information providers need a clear integration environment, standards, guidelines and tools for producing high-quality travel information for all parties involved.

“Comprehensive travel information is needed by all, not only customers but also authorities for such tasks as planning and monitoring,” says Pipsa Eklund from the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom.

Measures and operating models for achieving the objectives

The VTT report describes different alternatives for potential organisational models for the travel information ecosystem, including the roles, necessary measures and technical solutions. The aim is to find a model that uses the work and business of different actors while taking account of the needs of the public sector. Tentatively, the hybrid model based on cooperation between the public and the private sector is considered the best option.

“The challenge with closed systems is whether they allow providing consumers with a service that is good enough to make them switch from private cars to public transport,” says Jari Paasikivi from TVV lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä Oy.

Towards an advanced national solution together with the key operators in the sector

“As a small market area, it is not resource-wise for Finland to have different parties doing the same overlapping things that, at their worst, are not even compatible. A common ecosystem and trust network between the actors would give better opportunities for cost-effective action that, at best, could extend beyond national borders,” says Olli Pihlajamaa, Senior Scientist at VTT.

HSL, Matkahuolto, TVV Lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä, Traficom and VTT have decided to make an initiative on a travel information group, which will set off to specify the required measures together and ultimately decide on the organisation of the collection and integration of travel data. The aim is to bring Finnish actors together to join concrete cooperation, which would result in building a joint solution that serves all actors.

“To generate good services the project should engage a broad range of actors and service providers from both the private and public sectors in producing and utilising information. Genuine collaboration will benefit all the parties involved and enable the provision of better services to consumers,” says Mika Rajanen from Oy Matkahuolto Ab.

Further information:

VTT Technical Research Center of Finland
Olli Pihlajamaa
Senior Scientist
+358 40 5069153
olli.pihlajamaa@vtt.fi

Read the original article in Finnish on VTT’s webpage.

Safety Challenges of Autonomous Mobile Systems in Dynamic Unstructured Environments: Situational awareness, decision-making, autonomous navigation, & human-machine interface

RAAS Research Alliance for Autonomous Systems released their White Paper in November 2020 about safety challenges of autonomous mobile systems in dynamic unstructured environments.

Future autonomous mobile machines will be capable of operating in often unstructured and dynamic environment in a safe and meaningful manner and simultaneously work towards given mission objectives without being extensively controlled by human operators. In order to do that an autonomous machine has not only to monitor its internal state but also sense, perceive, classify and model what is currently happening around it and even predict what will most likely happen in the near future. The requirement is the same be it a modern highly automated mobile working or transportation machine, an intelligent field and service robot or a next-generation oceangoing vessel. The current wide range of high-quality sensor systems available commercially-off-the-shelf together with well-matured multi-sensor fusion algorithms provide a solid foundation for that task. In addition, the machine should be connected to any available supportive infrastructure (e.g., localization services, dynamic maps, etc.) and have tight interactions with other autonomous mobile machines sharing the same operation space. Furthermore, the autonomous mobile machine should, at all times, in any condition, be fully aware of any human presence – intended or unintended. The safety of humans must be ensured at any cost.

This white paper discusses the challenges, state-of-the-art solutions and future directions on four horizontals; situational awareness, decision-making, autonomous navigation and human-machine interface and over four domains; road transport, machinery, UAV, and maritime. The paper gathers the work done in RAAS and presents views from the state-of-the art scientific and policy literature, and industry reports. The paper will give the reader a comprehensive understanding of the relevant techniques and their shortcoming and will thereby serve as a starting point for development that will take the sector forward.

Read the white paper on RAAS’s webpage.

Autonomous systems bring up new opportunities to industries and supply chains. At the same time, they demand new business models, and challenge industries, and society, to change.

Digitalization means a step-by-step change from products to intelligent solutions and toward autonomous systems via remote diagnostics, remote control, and optimization. An ideal autonomous system is by definition autonomous, but it is tightly linked to other systems, organisations, and people. To achieve the intended benefits of autonomous systems; increased efficiency, quality, safety, sustainability and reliability; we need to better understand requirements of the systemic change from the perspective of firms and business networks

In our essay, we rationalize why and how research on autonomous systems need to address the implications for firms’ and their business networks’ activities as well as the institutional implications for society at large. As a conclusion, we present six research themes and related research questions that increasing autonomy of systems raises.

Reseach themes

Research theme 1. Managing systemic change in development, integration, implementation of autonomous system. How to renew value creation and capture so that autonomous systems implementation and utilization is profitable? What kind of requirements are there for systemic change, and what are the phases toward profitable business?

Research theme 2. Ecosystem building, orchestration and synchronized change for autonomous systems, including business model transformation in firms. The ecosystems for autonomous systems challenge firm- and product- oriented business practises and requires new kinds of collaboration, competence and value sharing. What kind of new links between firms are needed, who is the “right” orchestrator and how to fairly share the benefits? How to synchronize the change in and between firms?

Research theme 3. Autonomous systems operational and technology platforms, their standardization locally, in Europe, and globally, and in different sectors of industry. The potential of digital marketplaces and shared technology platforms is understood but implementation is in its infancy in B2B sector. Standards are needed, but how to create and define them with competitors? When is a local approach best and where is global collaboration needed?

Research theme 4. Adoption and diffusion of autonomous systems technology, digital services and complex solutions between in business relationships; the capabilities and readiness of customers. To achieve the benefits of the new technology, it is often required that also customers and other ecosystem actors accept and adapt the new technology. How to make the new technology attractive for customers? How can the innovators – first movers – accelerate the change of late adaptors?

Research theme 5. Radical innovations in business strategy and execution of strategic change programs in ecosystems. Development and utilization of autonomous systems call for bold and strategic decision-making and abandoning old path-dependencies. Building a strong change-oriented mind-set, investment in innovation and keeping the current business profitable at the same time creates discrepancies. How to implement a strategy that contains disruptive elements? How to stand, or even exploit the uncertainty related to radical innovations?

Research theme 6. Decision-making and resilience; changes in organizations and in ways of working. Increasing autonomy challenges the prevailing mental models of management and forces to update decision-making criteria and practices to better fit the new systemic world. The nature of work, tasks and competencies required can change, and the readiness and willingness to change, i.e. resilience, become as prerequisite in all kinds of work. What kind of actions are needed to get the changes accepted and under way? How can firms share their best practises to foster ecosystem resilience?

The original RAAS white paper in Finnish can be read here.