Self Sovereign Digital Twins

The use of Self Sovereign Identities (SSI) in pay-per-mile road usage charging (RUC) means that a large number of car owners are now participating in a decentralised marketplace. There is an opportunity to extend this to allow their collective participation in a transition to sustainable, shared transport. The security provided by SSIs enables car owners to make data from the RUC app. available to AI analysis of their compatibility to use a combination of new shared services. This allows the interdependent supply and demand of multiple new services to be established, before they are provided on the ground, and without requiring transport providers to cooperate with each other.

The key objectives are for users and providers to form ‘Transport Groups’ that:

Establish supply and demand for a combination of new services, before they are provided
Co-own and govern the development of a combination of new services
Trade-in their combined cars for combined alternatives that meet the same needs

Using their Self Sovereign Digital Twins (SSDT), car owners can:

Select alternative transport modes in an RUC app. e.g. carshare, cycling, shuttle, vanpool, etc. even before new services are provided.
Assess compatibility of users via AI to identify potential for using shared services, with no central party accessing sensitive information.
Link compatible users and transport providers to form Transport Groups, without requiring direct cooperation between members.
Store identity and preferences securely within a wallet, using Digital IDs, cryptographic keys and verified digital proofs.

SSDTs allow the secure assessment of compatibility and enable transport users to participate collectively in the development of new shared services, as part of a sustainable transport ecosystem that constantly evolves.

By establishing supply and demand online, the only real-world part of the transition, shown below, is to trade-in private cars for sustainable alternatives. As with trading-in a single car, this avoids paying for both at the same time.

Use case walk through

The starting point is a car-dependent community with limited access to sustainable alternatives. Car owners already use an SSI-enabled RUC app. which is adapted so they can begin forming Transport Groups and building a digital twin representation of their transport needs. The following steps provide a simple example:

Car owners are offered a "Carshare" option to select in the RUC app.
An AI assesses the compatibility of drivers to carshare.
Initially, no compatible drivers are found.
A car commuter ticks another box to select an alternative commuting option, even though it is not yet available on the ground. Options might include cycling, rail, shuttle, vanpool, or working from home. Use of this would change the commuter’s need for a car, and their compatibility to carshare.
The AI re-evaluates the community’s compatibility for carsharing. Now, if the alternative service is provided, there are two drivers identified who would be compatible to share one car, and use the new service, instead of each owning a separate car.
This process needs to be repeated if the alternative service requires more than one user to be viable, e.g. shuttle or vanpool.
Compatible users and providers form a Transport Group, which uses a smart contract to manage variable pay-per-use rates for the new services.
By committing to the Transport Group, members effectively create a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO), enabling them to co-own and govern the new services.
The Transport Group "trades-in" its combined cars for the combined alternatives.

Silos

Transport Providers operating in silos is often cited as a problem, but Transport Users also operate in silos, lots of them, and they are the only ones who:

Know what journeys they make
Decide how they make them
Control the money required

Complexity

A shared service needs more than one user, each of whom currently owns a car, which needs more than one new service to replace it. Complexity and lack of knowledge make this impossible to manage centrally. The proposed decentralised solution will address this problem.

Linking New passenger rail with Car Free Housing in Arizona (https://www.transportgrp.com/transport-groups)

The interdependence of Passenger Rail and Car Free Housing could be realised by a Transport Group that includes 3 different blockchain tokens in housing rent:

Token 1: Distributes profits of the railway to token holders
Token 2: Sold as Voluntary Carbon Credits, using Transport Group validation of reduced car ownership
Token 3: Sold to people who remain car owners, as part of their payments for road usage charging (RUC), motivated by reducing congestion