The vehicle ecosystem

Abstract

Ubiquitous computing in the vehicle industry has primarily focused on sensor data serving different ubiquitous on-board services (e.g., crash detection, antilock brake systems, or air conditioning). These services mainly address vehicle drivers while driving. However, in view of the role of vehicles in today's society, it goes without saying that vehicles relate to more than just the driver or occupants; they are part of a larger ecosystem, including traffic participants, authorities, customers and the like. To serve the ecosystem with ubiquitous services based on vehicle sensor data, there is a need for an open information infrastructure that enables service development close to the customer. This paper presents results from a research project on designing such an infrastructure at a major European vehicle manufacturer. Our empirical data shows how the vehicle manufacturer's conceptualization of services disagrees with the needs of vehicle stakeholders in a more comprehensive vehicle ecosystem. In light of this, we discuss the effect on information infrastructure design and introduce the distinction between information infrastructure as product feature and service facilitator. In a more general way, we highlight the importance of information infrastructure to contextualize the vehicle as part of a larger ecosystem and thus support open innovation. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.