CHANGES AT A NEW FRONTIER

Di Francesco Signor, Head of corporate communication VIASAT GROUP

One of the few certainties of the pandemic was the transport field and, without a doubt, it continues to be. In fact, even in times of severe lockdown, goods continued to travel, despite the crisis affecting the entire European productive and economic framework. Nevertheless, the sector has been particularly hit by the effects of the pandemic; McKinsey -one of the largest consulting firms in the world- has estimated that the volumes of international traffic of goods will return to late 2019 levels only between 15-48 months. After all, the WTO (the World Trade Organization) predicts that the world trade will drop from 13% to 32% in 2020. Nothing to be happy about. The Coronavirus has turned the spotlight on some essential –and neglected- sectors for Europe and our country: health, research, school, logistics and freight transport. The latest two, as we all know, are essential during the emergency to ensure the supply of essential basic goods (raw materials, medicines, food) which otherwise would create social and public order problems of any kinds. It is no coincidence that this sector represents a strategic asset for Europe, whose value has been estimated at about 675 billion; 11 EU countries (including Italy at the 19th place) have been put in the world top 20 for quality, efficiency, traceability and know-how.
In this 16th edition of our of the Guida alla Sicurezza Fleet we will present new Viasat technologies, with the purpose of innovating the world of road freight transport and discuss new market trends. The needs of this market are changing and technological evolution increasingly represents a new frontier that cannot be ignored. The operators need to trace vehicles with telematic systems and exploit, in management terms, the integration between telematic and computer data. Vehicles data can be collected, processed into information -such as vehicle consumption or driving style- and made available to the fleet manager. This process allows automatic and intelligent fleet management with platforms that are capable of digitizing all shipping operations, encouraging time and costs optimization, reducing traffic congestion by a quarter (and consequently , pollution), maintaining figures, guaranteeing the overall safety and efficiency of the logistics and transport processes. A cultural revolution in the first place. Sectors such as Waste Management, circular economy and smart planning of urban hygiene services could also take advantage from such innovation. Someone said this is the 4.0 Industry of road transport for an increasingly competitive, efficient, fair and sustainable global market.
A desirable modernization effort that sees in “digital transformation” an opportunity, but also the most important challenge.
Enjoy your reading.