How Transportation Sectors are Leading in Scalable XR Training
Transportation is a growing adaptor of XR services, providing valuable insights into scaling immersive learning content
29 April 2024
The XR training market is rich with investment and interest, meaning potential industry partners must understand the keys to successfully integrating an XR training programme into existing operations.
XR solutions for transportation are equally growing with new investments – the industry’s relationship with XR and simulation technology is booming.
The sector’s investment and success reflect a bigger picture, which shows a growing trend in the distribution of at-scale immersive learning solutions.
The Broader XR Training Ecosystem
Vendors, solutions providers, and customers are laying out roadmaps for various work environments to enable an immersive learning future.
Notably, Deloitte’s Tech Trends report, December 2023, noted how sectors such as healthcare experienced an increase in the adoption of training, simulations, and visualisation technologies, with the space reaching a CAGR of 44 per cent in 2023.
Moreover, as shown during NVIDIA’s Omniverse showcase at GTC last month, all forms of spatial data are becoming valuable to businesses from management to training.
Sophisticated surging XR technologies like digital twin immersive solutions are projected to experience a CAGR of 36 per cent up to 2030 – as stated in Deloitte’s Tech Trends report.
Supporting that trend is a broad scope of heavyweight companies debuting XR devices this year, most notably the Apple Vision Pro, which is driving the productivity and workplace solutions market forward.
Earlier this year, nationwide American school districts received thousands of VR headsets between two separate regional partnerships with major XR device vendors.
HTC VIVE is currently providing their devices for North Dakota Classrooms, and Meta recently gave thousands of Quests to Kentucky Schools. The partnerships are displaying an increasing interest in XR learning tools for large-scale deployment.
Many different immersive service providers meet various needs. New IDC data points to shipments in 2024 rising by 44.2 per cent, reaching 9.7 million units, and firms like LG and Samsung are also entering the market, with the XR headset space now looking to boom. Therefore, improving the reach, adoption, and value of immersive learning solutions.
The Rising Benefits and Presence of XR Training for Transport Sectors
XR training brings many benefits to the transportation market, specifically, from train lines to aviation segments. The tech has already provided positive outcomes in its early days.
Therefore, immersive training for transportation sectors is fruitful, with many companies providing an ecosystem of solutions.
Immersive L&D services can help drive enterprise scalability and adoption of new learning technologies and techniques, especially for large-scale and dispersed teams.
In the transportation sector and beyond, XR learning modules provide incredible value thanks to custom-made, repeatable, immersive learning experiences that allow workers to repeat training scenarios without disrupting busy operations.
However, XR transportation training isn’t just reserved for trainline professionals; notably, Dutch Government bodies and Changefied are scaling L&D procedures designed to help special education groups use public transport – with further goals to boost the region’s buddy programme – and the Aviation space is also packed full of XR training success such as Red 6 working to scale pilot training tools.
Driving XR Training Scalability and Adoption for Transportation Sectors
Immersive L&D tools can help to enhance employee skill gaps in areas such as vehicle maintenance, infrastructure management, platform inspection, and repair.
Speaking on his experience working with transportation clients like ScotRail, First Group, and London North Eastern Railway (LNER), Frank Furnari, the CEO and Founder of ARuVR, noted that repeatable, immersive L&D operations hold great value to clients in the sector, “especially in public transportation sectors where fully functioning operations cannot be interrupted.”
XR solutions can also help boost pre-existing training procedures, from classroom learning to simulation training.
In classroom learning environments, mentors can display crucial learning information that is usually restricted to PowerPoint presentations as engaging immersive visualisations.
Keys to Distributing XR L&D in the Workplace
While the benefits of XR training in transport and other enterprise segments are increasingly clear, the methods of successfully distributing, onboarding, and scaling these solutions are still a challenge to many.
Learner onboarding is still an issue because there exists a knowledge gap for individuals who do not understand how to use a headset, which is an intimidating factor for many current XR hardware adopters.
However, immersive L&D services can help this enterprise adoption hurdle. Accessible learning assets like 360 videos help to optimise adoption by providing an accessible route to understand how to interact with XR training. In time, mentors can roll out increasingly sophisticated MR experiences, software, and hardware to assist with scaling and user onboarding.
XR technology is also expanding greatly from the confines of headsets and enterprises should ask what an XR device is. Understanding the market also means understanding the definition of an XR device, which includes end devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Taking an interoperable approach to XR training assets allows mentors to meet learners at their stage of XR adoption, sending L&D modules directly to learners via headsets, personal smartphones, and laptops.
Moreover, with major firms like Apple, LG, and Samsung entering the XR device marketplace, the choice of dedicated XR training hardware is vast, and adopting training solutions that support various headsets allows firms to gain consistent value out of hardware without buying new headsets.
An interoperable approach is increasingly valuable in the emerging XR space, as clients wish to distribute immersive workplace solutions on various devices.
A recent report by the IDC forecasted that VR headset shipments are set to reach 24.7 million units in 2028, translating to a five-year CAGR of 29.2 per cent – the report noted that use cases, including immersive training, drive VR sales. Meaning a greater range of end-devices than ever before could land in businesses’ laps sooner than later.
Accessibility is Fundamental
“Accessibility is fundamental,” says Furnari, who added that without accessibility considerations, you can’t scale XR training solutions, “if you don’t democratise, you don’t scale.”
Moreover, firms adopting XR training solutions must also consider a financial model that can scale alongside an XR training model and IT team considerations for security and privacy.
Thanks to a careful and considerate approach, ARuVR scaled its solution for ScotRail, allowing transportation clients to improve its pre-existing L&D infrastructure.
ARuVR and ScotRail achieved scaling success by deploying an engaging and repeatable L&D module targeting low-engagement classroom-based learning and disrupting rail-line training procedures.
Following its success, ScotRail plans to scale ARuVR’s immersive L&D training into employee onboarding, engineering training and sustainability-focused rolling stock training procedures.
ARuVR also works with countless broader enterprise clients, such as Aramco, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Royal Air Force, Five Guys, NEOM, BAE Systems, Mondelez, Bloomberg, and PWC, among many other international customers who are transforming the way people learn and work by blending digital and physical worlds.
This article first appeared on XR Today
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