Bill Gates once explained how an ecosystem builds around a new technology in unforeseeable ways by using the example of a Collision Damage Waiver as a by-product of the automobile. 

The point is that whilst major new technologies often solve quite obvious problems, like mass-transportation, the economic benefits are often far wider and more nuanced than is immediately apparent. 

It seems that NTT are an early mover in building the infrastructure around connected cars, not by building the cars or the roads but the data centres and networks to enable mass adoption.