According to a recent report by Transport Focus, passengers listed value for money, punctuality, Wi-Fi connectivity and safety, as their main priorities. These factors are driving a rise in demand for smart transport networks around the world, creating 4G data opportunities the channel is well-placed to provide.
Smart transport networks offer significant benefits to passengers, operators and local authorities, enabling urban services to become more efficient, effective and safe. Cities from London to Singapore are already building them. Madrid is leading the way, with a central control room that receives and integrates data from 40 urban control rooms. They cover over 100 bus routes, 300 railway lines and 200,000 cameras, delivering end-to-end surveillance and security solutions.
There are many experienced providers offering end-to-end solutions to the transport industry, involving 4G routers and cameras. Trams, buses and trains are tracked, and arrival times accurately estimated and advertised, factoring in potential delays. These devices need 4G data SIMs, often with a fixed IP or delivered via a secure Private APN. On average there are seven SIMs per bus, for logging into the cameras to download relevant footage, Wi-Fi, secure card payments, passenger trackers, applications tracking hours worked, petrol levels and miles travelled.
Challenges
Service providers face a few challenges with 4G. Some networks are stronger than others in specific locations requiring relationships with multiple network providers. Secondly, they have no way of tracking data usage and if devices use more than their allocated monthly allowance, they get high data overage charges. Thirdly, they need a secure channel for transmitting financial data.
Jola’s solution
We provide cost-effective multi-network SIMs, which work on up to four networks in the UK and across all the major networks across Europe. We also provide Mobile Manager, an online ordering and management portal, which tracks data usage and allows resellers to set up usage alerts, and back-date bolt-ons. Data pools, allow data to be shared across multiple SIMs and buffer pools negate high data overage charges completely. Private APN networks offer increased levels of security, allowing encrypted data to travel across a private mobile network.
Transport Frequently Asked Questions
Jola gives partners serving bus and coach operators multi-network SIMs on flexible tariffs, novated onto the operator’s own private APN, alongside a white label portal for managing the whole fleet’s connectivity. Data can be shared across vehicles to avoid overage charges, and end users can manage their own usage directly through the portal.
A private APN keeps a vehicle’s connected systems, ticketing, Wi-Fi and CCTV among them, off the public internet and on a private, controlled route instead. This matters in transport because these systems are often handling payment data or passenger safety footage, both of which benefit from tighter control over who can access the connection.
Onboard Wi-Fi reliability comes down to the mobile connection behind it, so moving from a single-network SIM to a multi-network SIM is usually the biggest single improvement a transport operator can make. Pooling data across the fleet also helps avoid individual vehicles running out of allowance on longer routes.
Multi-network SIMs roam automatically to an available network as a vehicle moves, rather than being locked to one operator’s coverage. For buses and coaches travelling across a wide range of urban and rural routes, this matters far more than it would for a fixed-location device.
A single bus or coach often carries several connected systems at once, cashless ticketing, onboard Wi-Fi and CCTV among them, and coverage can vary considerably along a route. Using multiple SIMs, or a multi-network SIM for each system, means a vehicle is not left without connectivity just because one network has a weak spot on part of its route.