The IOTA Foundation has today announced its induction into a new mobility industry consortium, the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI). The group, which includes business behemoths BMW, Bosch, Ford, General Motors, Groupe Renault, and ZF, among others, will aim to jointly develop distributed ledger technology (DLT) standards, pilot projects, and open source software tools.
The objective of using DLT is to provide new capabilities that improve safety on the roads, make vehicles more affordable, and connect mobility participants in a new peer-to-peer ecosystem, as well as supporting a number of other objectives.
Such advances complement the objectives of MOBI itself, which was created in the hopes of exploring blockchain technology as a means of making transportation more economical, more widely available, and safer.
This collaboration between IOTA, and the industry, government, and non-profit partners is part of a wider goal to create a digital environment where both professional and private users are able to manage ride-share transactions, record driving data, and store vehicle identity and usage information.
In order to help them achieve this end, MOBI is actively working with a number of companies whose combined market share in terms of global vehicle production amounts to over 70 percent. It is hoped that this will aid them in the development of an ecosystem which gives businesses and consumers complete security and sovereignty over their driving data.
The processes necessary to achieve this will be underpinned by DLT, which works by sending information over a network of independent computers. Ensuring that transactions are absolutely secure and private, it is hoped that this technology will help to create an environment in which transparency reigns, trust is high, and the risk of fraud is reduced.
Speaking on their decision to join MOBI, the co-founders of the IOTA Foundation, Dominik Schiener and David Sønstebø, said:
“We are proud to be a member of MOBI and [to be] partnering with other leading global companies to drive industry standards that unlock the potential of DLT for the mobility sector, to establish a seamless, safe, and affordable mobility experience. As the world is starting to recognise the huge potential of decentralised ledger technology, it is essential to establish the key functionalities for a scalable ecosystem based on the principles of open source, collaboration, and permanent innovations that drives broad-scaled technology adoption.”
It seems that the motoring sector might just be on the brink of an innovation that could change its face forever.
