2017 looks to be the year to make make money with transportation apps

Key Transportation Statistics

- 35% of the top 20 American airports have already deployed beacons

- 90% of global airports are undertaking either a major program or a trial project related to mobile apps

- Nearly half of airports (48%) are implementing commercial sensor deployments over the next three years

- 36% of airports are implementing a proximity pilot project. Only 16% of airports have no plans with sensor technology currently.

- Half (49%) of airports planning to directly contact passengers via their mobile phone over the next three years

- According to SITA By 2019 84% of airports plan to monetize the data collected through mobile interactions and proximity interactions within the next three years.

The mobile app often defines the success for many proximity projects. In order to reach customers through Bluetooth beacons, you need an app that is programmed to listen the Bluetooth signal. In addition, to reach a healthy amount of users, the app needs to add value to the individual. So in many cases the app is a bottleneck because marketers struggle to deliver added value and users are reluctant to install an app for every place they visit. In transportation that is not the case, as 80% of transit app users check their apps twice or more a day.

This opens the perfect window for a timely and relevant customer communication. This exploratory analysis found that the MTA could increase its annual revenue by as much as $350M when increasing the ticket price as little as 5%. Proximity solution on top of the central app, would provide immense value and further increase the satisfaction for riders by using real-time information, loyalty programs and in-door navigation. Monetization of that data presents an interesting opportunity for brands/retailers and other interested parties looking to reach everyday riders.

Despite the high usage of transportation apps, the challenge going forward is to go beyond basic usage of the sensor infrastructure. When implementing beacon infrastructure, it’s very common that there is only one specific app that is able to interact with the beacons. But if every airport / transportation company uses separate apps in each of their projects, they will have limited amount data because consumers won't download one app for each and every airport or transportation system they visit.

This represents an opportunity for app developers, as they could tap into an existing infrastructure and monetize their app inventory without having to send their users potentially intrusive push messages. So instead of taking an approach where one app equals one beacon infrastructure, many apps could be listening to the same sensors. Such an approach would give the sensor owners richer information about their users, and app owners would receive additional revenue.

Industry Findings:

Support for Google’s Eddystone beacon has risen 6 percentage points from Q2 with total 55% of the industry
Results from the first Proximity Solution Provider index (PSPi), which ranks Proxbook profiles and is automatically calculated based on whether the company is in commercial or pilot stage, number of use cases, geographic presence, number of clients, sensors deployed, and employees. The PSPi is divided by hardware and platform:

- Top 5 Hardware:

1) Estimote (US)
2) Kontakt.io (Poland)
3) Accent Systems (Spain)
4) Cisco (US)
5) Sensoro (US)

- Top 10 Platforms:

1) Proxama (UK)
2) Gimbal (US)
3) In The Pocket (Belgium)
4) OnyxBeacon (Romania)
5) Tamoco (UK)
6) Spark Compass (US)
7) inBeacon (Netherlands)
8) XtremePush (Ireland)
9) BluVision (US)
10) Liki Solution (Finland)

Some of the biggest changes to the proximity marketplace from Q2 to Q3 have been the rise in proximity advertising networks, which are up 6.2% as well as a 3.3% increase in Wi-Fi based services.