Vehicle-to-Business Communication : The Example of Claims Assistance in Motor Insurance

Due to consequent policy making and research funding in Europe, the US, and Japan, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are gaining momentum and provide mature concepts for vehicular communications enabling vehicles to communicate amongst themselves (Vehicle-to-Vehicle, V2V) and their immediate vicinity (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, V2I). Based on the proliferation of powerful Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies such as UMTS, WiMAX, or LTE, the aforementioned communication concepts are complemented by the integration of vehicles with business applications (Vehicle-to-Business, V2B). While applications that require the integration of vehicles and business systems are emerging, there is still a lack of well-defined and standardized integration platforms that allow for a reliable and scalable interconnection between vehicles and business systems. Against this background, this paper provides an analysis of the challenges and requirements for V2B communication as well as a dedicated integration platform to connect vehicles with business systems. To illustrate our approach, we present the application scenario of claims assistance after car accidents