Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing: Challenges and Opportunities for Serbian Railways

Abstract

The paper presents research that proposes prototype solutions based on open innovations, the Internet of Things, and crowdsourcing, which can increase traffic safety and reduce human casualties and material damage. The paper's authors conducted the research in cooperation with the Faculty of Organizational Sciences (FON) students in Belgrade and railway experts. FON students were presented with seven typical situations on the railway in Serbia. Traffic safety is often endangered, with human casualties and significant material damage, and the cause of these negative phenomena and accidents is not the railway. Traditional technical-technological solutions to these traffic problems to increase safety are extremely expensive and functionally complex, so they cannot be comprehensive, universal, and global. After the research, prototype solutions based on crowdsourcing principles were proposed, based on open innovations and the Internet of Things, to reduce the number and consequences of such characteristic situations on the railway. The research results confirm that open innovations based on crowdsourcing and the Internet of Things can increase safety in specific segments of railway traffic.