Business ecosystem analysis of a vehicular road weather information system: case WiRMa: Master's thesis

This master’s thesis was conducted as a part of VTT’s assignment in Lapland University of Applied Sciences’ project called WiRMa — Industrial Internet Applications in Winter Road Maintenance. In the project Industrial Internet platform solution is developed. In this thesis the platform solution is called WiRMa system. Purpose of WiRMa system is to present vehicular data about road network’s condition in winter conditions by using different type of technologies. Data collected to the system is for example road surface temperature, slipperiness and road condition, and in addition air humidity and temperature. Data is collected by commercial vehicles that operate mainly in northern Finland. WiRMa system is planned to be exploited especially in winter road maintenance, but also for example development of weather forecasts is one of the goals. Aim of the system is to enhance traffic safety, allocate maintenance operations more timely and to create new businesses. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to support and contribute WiRMa project’s solutions to become commercial innovations in future. Thesis explores WiRMa system’s benefits to Finnish society and different stakeholders. Furthermore, business ecosystem’s actor roles and their capabilities are studied. Potential business models are identified and business ecosystem is described as value network. In the thesis literature review and empirical research are conducted. Empirical part of the thesis is qualitative case study, where focus groups and semi-structured interviews are conducted. Collected research data is analysed by using categorization method. Key result of the thesis is the analysis of system’s business ecosystem’s actor roles and capabilities. In WiRMa system actors are hardware providers, winter road maintenance enhancer, winter road maintenance procurer, owner of vehicular data, fleet provider, weather information and weather forecasts producer, and real time communications producer. WiRMa system’s business ecosystem’s value creation is described as value network. System’s societal benefits mainly consist of traffic safety improvements, possible cost reductions, and environmental benefits. In addition, there is possibility to create new businesses and increase Finland’s exports to abroad. The focus areas of the thesis were WiRMa system, business actors that are involved in the system, and winter road maintenance in Finland, so results cannot necessarily be directly extrapolated to other geographical areas, where winter road maintenance is conducted differently than in Finland. In addition, WiRMa is a research project, so commercial operating model in vehicular RWIS can be operated very differently.