Smartphones to form basis of car sharing systems

Car sharing schemes are unfamiliar to Malaysians, but they increasingly gaining popularity overseas. It is a method of car rental whereby subscribers of the system get access to the service provider’s pool of fleet cars that are dispersed throughout the city and pay based on usage. Without the need to collect or return the car to a specific office, the usual constraints that face old fashioned car rental firms, such as office hours, no longer apply.

Yet, there are a number of problems that often hinder the smooth operation of such schemes, most of them revolving around security, tracking, and convenience. It is a given that computers are needed to manage car share operations, thereby allowing users to track the location of available cars and make their reservations, but the basic question remains, without an office to return the car to, where does the user leave the keys, and indeed, where does the next user pick them up?

Companies have adopted many elaborate and complicated ways to safeguard their car share programmes, but Continental may have found the answer – incorporating an encrypted digital key into a smartphone, and then using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to facilitate interfacing between phone and car. To the uninitiated, NFC forms the basis of our Touch n Go cards and office ‘tag in’ cards.

Upon reservation by the user, Continental’s operators will send an encrypted code to enable vehicle access to the phone. The phone stores this data in its SIM card, and by using NFC technology, the authorization is communicated to the car once within several centimetres of the vehicle’s on-board NFC reader.

“Our innovative digital key is considerably cheaper to use than previous systems, operates more securely, and is also more convenient for the user. This is why we see this as a key technology, which has the capability of making vehicle fleets and car sharing more efficient and attractive. An initial fleet test currently being carried out in Toulouse in France is demonstrating the key’s efficient operation”, explains Andreas Wolf, Head of the Continental Business Unit Body & Security.

With this set of hardware, Continental can also develop a suitable app to facilitate search and reservation of vehicles by users. It is even possible to make an on-the-spot reservation for an available car if the user comes across one. A digital key is immediately generated on the phone, and the system logs the vehicle’s usage into the computer servers for record-keeping and billing.

Continental’s new approach shifts the system’s core intelligence from being based in the car to the phone. The company claims that this approach yields multi-fold benefits, chief amongst them being cost reduction. Because all that is needed within each car now is just the NFC system, there is a reduction in hardware and thus lower installation costs per vehicle. It is also more flexible, being adaptable for use in various brands and types of vehicles in one fleet.

Continental also claims that its digital car key is immune to tampering, complying to security standards employed by banks. Because NFC works in a small radius, measured by centimetres, hacking would prove inconvenient, if not impossible. You’ll need to be right next to its user to hack into one of these. Data synchronization between phone and vehicle is direct, without going through any data centres via radio or satellite broadcast.

According to Continental, the system has been undergoing field tests in Toulouse, France, for the past two years, and has passed its initial performance test administered by employees of the city administration operating a fleet of ten vehicles. During the tests, the system has worked under a variety of situations, even when the vehicle is parked five stories underground. Although phone reception is lost at that level, the phone immediately logs the vehicle’s location to the central network once the user returns to an area with coverage.

Whilst still awaiting commercial deployment, Continental has already kept one eye trained to the future, as the system is freely scalable and designed to easily accommodate the addition of new functions such as vehicle settings personalization and various other possible modules.

KON