High-tech mobile facilities are nothing new. Innovative, vehicle-based options have been around for decades, solving novel problems and providing service in diverse locations.

High-tech mobile facilities are nothing new. Innovative, vehicle-based options have been around for decades, solving novel problems and providing service in diverse locations. What is changing is who is using them. These sorts of solutions have always been the domain of government, the military, public service, NGOs, and scientific research, with the private sector keeping itself to only a handful of applications, such as festival ticketing booths, food trucks, construction site offices and of course the ever-ubiquitous ice cream van. But now, blazing through on a wave of entrepreneurship, businesses seem set on changing things.

Sparking a new age of entrepreneurship

Driven by new technologies and innovative design solutions, start-ups and small business owners are finding some distinctive new ways to differentiate. In some cases, industries that have previously just dabbled in mobility have now adopted fully portable models. One such example is fleet maintenance. Where only emergency repair solutions were available as a mobile service previously, today fleets across the continental United States are being fully serviced, refuelled and inspected overnight, all right on the spot. By bringing maintenance to the fleet, rather than having it the other way around, driver downtime is minimised, and thus efficiency is improved, slashing costs.

Others have been privatising previously public methods of operating. NGOs and disaster response forces commonly deploy mobile clinics and other movable medical facilities, using them to serve remote or over-burdened areas. These days, however, private GPs have begun doing the same. Many towns in depopulated rural belts simply don’t have the people to sustain a full-time doctor, and so, searching for a more cost-effective alternative to maintaining multiple doctors’ rooms in multiple locations, countryside doctors have instead gone mobile, working from their own clinic on wheels.

Customisable solutions for all services

It’s surprising just how much can be done with a modern vehicle-based facility. Integrated, internet-connected, and built with lightweight but durable materials, modern mobile solutions can suit just about any sort of service need. Those services that already relied on a vehicle have seen a particular change. Locksmiths, for example, now frequently cut new keys directly on site, using an in-built key cutting machine. Salons, pet groomers and vets can come to you, providing service right there in your driveway. Wedding planners, disc jockeys and caterers do the same, combining vehicle and facility into one, making it possible to host an event anywhere.

Entrepreneurs are also making an impact in public service. In sparsely populated mountain regions, privately-operated postal service providers are using fully mobile offices to prove they can serve the public more efficiently and more cost-effectively than traditional brick and mortar solutions can. In cities, it’s been much the same with library services. A mobile library, rotated between several schools on a set schedule, presents not only a cost-saving but also a significant quality increase compared to what schools can manage by themselves.

In even the most changeless of sectors, mobility has brought new ways of doing things. The trend doesn’t seem likely to slow either. New applications for mobile solutions come to light day by day, each new development, in turn, sparking its own renewed cycle of innovation.