Transport critical comms market to top $3 billion by 2021

Globally, public safety and security organisations represent the largest adopters of critical communications, accounting for approximately 38 per cent of professional mobile radio (PMR) deployments in 2017. However, in aggregated terms, business critical sectors – the ‘non public safety sectors’, including buses, trams, metros, trains, ports, airports and utilities – make up the largest combined global market for critical communications.

Within that market, transportation accounts for the largest share of deployments, and IHS Markit predicts that as the world economy continues to strengthen, business critical sectors will continue to gain prevalence in this global ecosystem.

The research highlighted geographical hotspots as the critical communications market continues to grow globally. The Asia Pacific region is forecast to experience the largest growth of critical communications technologies, followed by the Americas and Europe and the Middle East. The need to promote security, ensuring personal safety and creating business efficiencies are fuelling this market.

“The market for critical communications technologies in the transportation sector will continue to increase, with rising demand for technological enhancements in airports, railways and shipping ports,” said Ryan Darrand, IHS Markit Senior Analyst II in the Critical Communications team. “With higher company capital expenditure arising from an improved business environment in this sector, we predict that transportation will continue to be the largest business critical adopter of critical communications to 2020 and beyond.”

Robin Davis, Chairman of TCCA’s Transport Group, commented: “We have seen continued growth in the adoption of TETRA technologies in the transport market over a number of years as users transition from analogue radio systems to secure digital ones. Live information and data enables better operational decisions to be made, whether that is on vehicles or on platforms. Suppliers supporting the adoption of the transport user base are innovating with the latest technologies to provide some pretty amazing solutions to support multi modal transport networks and smart cities.”