GoF4R hopes to induce a snow-ball effect of market uptake for the IF components, as retailers and transport undertakings realise that “membership” will allow unlocking and exploitation of a much larger consumer demand than was previously possible.
By supporting full semantic interoperability of interchangeable and loosely coupled tools, data and services within a distributed “web of transportation”, multiple concurrent implementations can be developed independently by specialist suppliers and co-exist competitively.
Thanks to the connection between the preferences and the geo-localisation of the person, many innovative IT solutions can be developed covering all aspects of social life (culture, merchandising, etc.).
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is perhaps the most successful model for governance that has radically improved the way people around the world develop new web technologies and innovation.
Drawing upon this model, GoF4R embraces such important principles such as neutrality, multi-stakeholder and balanced participation, open and due process, and consensus-based decisions that will eventually unlock the value of demand-side flexibility by ensuring that consumers and market participants have the necessary information and tools to effectively engage in the market.
By applying similar governance principles, GoF4R defined a set of recommendations to instil confidence amongst vendors and users of the IF components, thereby encouraging voluntarily adoption and market uptake.
The market of transport services (shopping, ticketing but also services related to guidance) will be opened thanks to the IF. The heterogeneity of the transport market will be masked by the IF technology, decreasing the investment costs for advanced IT solutions, and opening up a new competitive market of both mobility services and specialist technology providers.
The main benefits of the IF components that will encourage market uptake are:
• Enabling a complete transformation of the European transport system into a global services and data market place;
• Freeing stakeholders from technological barriers, so new actors and business models will be able to emerge and prosper for the benefit of European travellers;
• Promoting the development of a large, competitive market of independent and autonomous suppliers of business services, applications, devices and systems to the travel and transport industry by dramatically reducing the overhead, business and financial costs associated with making such services and applications interoperable;
• Promoting the development of a large, competitive market of independent and autonomous suppliers of interoperability products and services to developers of travel and transportation devices, applications and systems, thus submitting the cost of interoperability to downwards market pressure.
