Setting up an ITS innovation environment with many stakeholders

This paper presents a business-oriented multi-stakeholder approach for setting up an open innovation environment combining aspects of different test and experimentation platforms. The resulting platform and innovation environment supports a wider range of testing activities in terms of both focus and maturity of the developed solutions. The approach is described through an example case where the implementation of such environment was started as a public-private partnership after defining a feasible form of co-operation with different types
of stakeholders. The specific case is based on using a fleet of electric buses as a concrete platform for testing, validating and promoting new technologies and services as well as involving the end users in the innovation and development process. Setting up such environments as a collaborative effort based on each party’s own business development activities has benefits in sharing the risks and focusing on core competences. While potentially reducing the need for public funding, the business-oriented approach consisting of multiple stakeholders also includes specific challenges in identifying and defining the necessary roles and suitable partners to fill in the needed spots without conflicts of interest.
The paper identifies such challenges and proposes solutions for mitigating or solving them.