and it allows you to pay,” says Clift-
Jennings. “That’s exactly what the
‘vehicle wallet’ will do, although
the first version of MOBI’s VID is
only dealing with the ID part.”
Another important concept to
grasp is that the VID is focused
on the creation, or ‘birth’ of the
vehicle. “You hear the phrase
‘vehicle birth certificate’ a lot, which
is a bit irritating as it takes the
anthropomorphism of vehicles a bit
far,” she says. “But it’s an important
first step because it allows the OEM
to define consistently various aspects
of the vehicle at manufacture and
then place the ‘vehicle birth
certificate’ in an immutable ledger,
or blockchain, so it can be viewed
by authorised parties for the lifetime
of the vehicle.”
The VID is just the start and a lot
of additions to the standard will be
required to create the mobility
infrastructure. “For example,
we need in-vehicle ID for subcomponents,
such as air bag modules,
and we need infrastructure ID (IID)
for charge stations,” she says. “The
VID is the first flag in the ground
rather than a panacea. But I expect
much higher momentum for future
revisions now as MOBI has a
standard to build off. What will
emerge is a ‘digital twin’ of the
vehicle, which outlasts the owner
of the vehicle and is not
controlled by the OEM.”
Filament has been invited
to join the consortium and
is considering the offer
seriously. Clift-Jennings has
a lot of respect for MOBI’s
work on the VID, which is
based on existing standards
developed by British internet pioneer
Tim Berners-Lee’s Wide Web
Consortium (W3C).
“The fact MOBI took existing
specs and built in specific needs was
important for us,” she says. “If they’d
ignored existing work and gone to a
cabin in the woods to produce it, that
would have been a big negative. They
recognised there were existing
standards they could use and that
helps everyone to build momentum
together,” she says.
Taking power back
Ballinger says the VID and the
mobility payment structures it
enables have the potential to wrest
back power from the ‘data
Now the MOBI consortium is established, a payment platform is needed
052 Traffic Technology International March/April 2020
www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com
monopolists’. He points out that
historically the big returns in any
economy went to the asset owners.
But in the last two decades power has
shifted and they have been
disintermediated by companies
sitting in the middle and harvesting
data. “We think our VID and
blockchain can challenge the quasimonopolies
of data companies and
shift the economic power back
to where it traditionally was,
in the hands of the asset
owners,” he says.
There is a lot to play for
and speed is of the
essence. The data-based
companies are already
eyeing the mobility
space. In June 2019,
Facebook announced
Libra, a virtual
currency that runs
on blockchain.
Ridesharing
companies Uber and
Lyft are among the
Vehicle Payments |
Building the community
Chris Ballinger’s latest
project is Citopia, a
company developing a new
app that will act as a platform
for mobility payments. A trial
version of the app is already
available and pilot agreements
are in place with infrastructure
providers in cities, US states, and
one small country. “The app is in
test mode, but we will eventually
put it on the app stores for free .
We will monetise it by getting
infrastructure operators and
mobility services to use our
platform,” he says.
Meanwhile, Ballinger’s team
is speaking to members of the
MOBI consortium who stand to
benefit from the development
of the app. The hope is that they
will want to invest. “They’re the
ones who can put the wallets in
cars and preload wallets for
payments,” he says.
Visa, he adds, provides
a precedent of competitors
working together towards
a common goal. “Visa and
Mastercard came about because
consortiums of competing banks
needed to make settlements
between themselves. No
individual bank was big enough
on its own, which is the same
issue as the mobility space
today,” he says.
Like the development of Visa,
however, the process of creating
the new platform will take time.
“We need the app to become
stable and, more importantly, we
need enough partners. All that
will take more than a few
months,” he says. “Bringing
the infrastructure owners and
mobility providers onto the
platform is the hardest part.
But it’s essential. Without their
services, no one will want to
adopt the platform.”
What will emerge is a ‘digital
twin’ of the vehicle, which outlasts
the owner of the vehicle and is not
controlled by the OEM
Allison Clift-Jennings, CEO, Filament
members of the Libra Association,
though some household names in
technology and finance who initially
signed up, including Mastercard,
Visa, eBay and Vodafone, have since
pulled out. Nevertheless, at the
time of going to press, Facebook
seemed determined to continue
on with the project.
“If car manufacturers don’t move
quick enough, the tech companies
will step in,” concludes Ballinger.
“The Libra Association shows they’re
all thinking about machine-tomachine
payment ecosystem.
Trillions of dollars are at stake.”
/www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com