The transportation industry is associated with high maintenance costs, disasters, accidents, injuries and loss of life. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world are losing their lives to car accidents and road disasters every year. According to the National Safety Council, 38,300 people were killed and 4.4 million injured on U.S. roads alone in 2015.
The related costs — including medical expenses, wage and productivity losses and property damage — were estimated at $152 billion. And this doesn’t account for general maintenance and repairs costs of the road and highway systems, which earmark billions of dollars of public funds every year — and are still underfunded.
Hopefully, this problem can be addressed by the Internet of Things and machine learning, two technologies that are taking the world by storm and will someday become an inherent part of every aspect of our lives. With the right implementation of IoT technology, we can mitigate risks, prevent damage and reduce costs. The deployment of smart, connected sensors, combined with machine-learning-powered analytics tools, can enable us to gather information, make predictions and reach decisions that will make our roads safer.
