Connected mobility builds safety into road infrastructure

WRITTEN BY: TOM SWALLOW

PRODUCED BY: THOMAS LIVERMORE

David Brown, Head of Connected Mobility Product Portfolio at Vodafone Automotive, enlightens us on the top of connected mobility to improve road safety

Hands up, then, who saw this one coming…a leading telecommunications provider giving similar treatment to cars as it would handheld digital devices? While it would have made for a ludicrous conversation a decade or so ago, connectivity has become a staple in modern life, naturally progressing towards various applications in the automotive sector.

EV manufacturers have embarked on a journey that will mark its place in history as the most significant evolution of transport, which also comes with a lot of responsibility to protect drivers and passengers in alignment with their contributions to global sustainable change.

This can be witnessed throughout countless connectivity exploits and, as explained by David Brown, Head of Connected Mobility Product Portfolio at Vodafone Automotive, telecommunications and digital services play an integral role in the future of electrified mobility.

The services provided by Vodafone Automotive – a global service subsidiary of Vodafone – include hardware and software and Brown leads the product management team to deliver next-generation connectivity-based services to customers looking to improve road safety and vehicle security, efficiencies, and emissions reduction. Non-connected services are supplied as upgrades to on-board vehicle systems and connectivity-based services are fulfilled through multiple solutions, including vehicle-to-everything (V2X) services, which enable communications between cars and their surrounding infrastructure, driving behaviour monitoring and crash reconstruction.

In the vehicle security area the company offers professional services to locate and retrieve cars to minimise vehicle losses, as well as solutions that dynamically predict the probability of an event occurring over a certain period of time, such as notifying drivers on risky zones.

Through a passenger-vehicle lens, Vodafone Automotive’s solutions enable peace of mind that the latest electrified cars – as well as ICE vehicles in previous years – are the safest they can possibly be while also achieving greater energy usage and other benefits. Ultimately, the mission of the company is, as Brown states, “about making mobility safe, secure and accessible.”

Connected services enable a visibility approach to vehicle insurance

These three words form the pillars of innovation that Vodafone Automotive focuses on, which also carries over to fleet operations and other commercial uses. As far as safety and security goes, the goal is pretty simple: to reduce the number of stolen cars, traffic issues and accidents occurring on public roads each year. Overall, it means to help move forward a more sustainable and safe mobility.

“The first pillar is really focused on the safety side of things and the aim to reduce road deaths to zero,” says Brown.

This is where cooperative connected mobility services generate key benefits that really come into play, particularly in cities and other urban environments where infrastructure is enabled with V2X

David Brown

TITLE: HEAD OF CONNECTED MOBILITY PRODUCT PORTFOLIO

INDUSTRY: MOTOR VEHICLE PARTS MANUFACTURING

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM

David joined Vodafone in 2010 and took over product management responsibility in mobile phone devices, then in motor insurance telematics. In this role, he created a new programme function to deliver customer onboarding for complex solution deployments of insurance telematics in Northern and Central Europe. In 2019, he broadened his responsibility to lead a team of product managers and define a new product portfolio across all key verticals - Insurance, Fleet and Automotive. David holds a degree in Managerial and Administrative Studies from the University of Aston.