Adam Game

THE proliferation of vehicle-mounted sensors and the enormous amount of data they are producing – and will produce in the future – could save governments billions of dollars in their bid to create intelligent transport systems, according to a leading telematics supplier.

At least, the huge volume of data could be beneficial if it was made available and was in a format that could be used to improve the safety and efficiency of Australia’s roads, according to Intelematics director of strategy Adam Game.

“The amount of data is mind-boggling,” Mr Game said in a presentation at the 23rd ITS World Congress in Melbourne.

“As we get more and different sensors from vehicles, in many ways this is in the process of subverting the business case for ongoing further instrumentation of the road network.

“Why go through all this effort of instrumenting the road network when far richer and more dynamic data is being collected by the vehicles traversing the network?”

Mr Game answered his own question when he told the gathering that the data being collected was not usable, or not available for use, because it was being gathered by a diverse range of organisations and was not, for the majority, being made available for public use.

It’s all connected: The large amounts of data being gathered but various OEM sensors could be utilised by officials to plan better intelligent transport systems.

“The data is in silos,” he said. “The challenge is no longer in collecting the data. It’s accessing it, and understanding what to keep and what to throw away.”

Then the gatherers of the information have to find a business model that justifies the cost of collecting the data, he said.

RACV App

Intelematics is a subsidiary of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) and provides apps to car club members and others. The apps provide real-time information about road conditions on a city’s network using a smart phone linked to a car’s in-dash display.

In Australia, the Connected Membership app is available to around 7 million members of the state-based motoring clubs. Through a deal with the Automobile Club of Southern California and its associated clubs in 19 other states, Intelematics can reach a potential 60 million extra customers. It also has deals in three European countries, adding another ten million club members.

Mr Game said every car on the road fitted with Intelematics’ Suna traffic app was a mobile data probe on the network, relaying back information about traffic flow, delays and incidents.

Speaking in a session titled “Challenges in capturing, securing and connecting Big Data”, Mr Game said the proliferation of data was a reflection of the move towards the ‘Internet of Things’, where so many more sources of data were connected to the internet.

“What’s exciting, I think, about where the conversation has moved is that intelligent transport systems (ITS) is no longer a closed loop of industry professionals,” he said.

“The ‘Internet of Things’ is driving a world where there is an enormous amount of data being collected by sensors, a small subset of which are vehicles on the road today.

“Big Data really is about how do you access that information, how do you merge it and how do you actually leverage that for the benefit of the ITS industry.”

Being able to connect cars to the Internet was bringing big changes to motoring.

Mr Game said the activities with the car clubs has allowed Intelematics to develop some new and unusual skills, including being able to predict within three days that a battery will fail.

“We have been collecting information about many thousands of vehicles,” he said. “We collect a whole lot of parameters, including observing the battery crank cycle and we can correlate this with data from global motoring clubs in their flat-battery callouts.

“When a member breaks down with a flat battery, not only do we receive analytics about the details of the crank curve, but when it does die, data is collected at the roadside from a thorough technical analysis of that battery failure.

“So we have been able to use that information to develop … an individual model for each vehicle which enables us to monitor and, more to the point, predict imminent failure of the battery within about 3 days.

“It’s very exciting, what you can do now. And, of course, predicting a battery failure is a much better consumer outcome than replacing a battery after it has failed.”

Another area where Intelematics was using Big Data was in the provision of usage-based insurance products. This allows the insurance company to see exactly how and how much a vehicle is being used.

“(The insurer) is monitoring the manner of usage of the vehicle, correlating that with insurance claims information and getting an understanding of what driving behaviors are actually contributing to crashes,” Mr Game said.

“In conclusion, there is an enormous amount of data being generated and the cloud of this information is being blown into the sky as we drive around the road network.

“Enormous insights can be gained from this but it does require access. Data is coming under the control of the tech companies, the OEMs (car-makers), the tolling organisations, a whole lot of independent sources.

“But the real value of this is going to be gleaned from the combination and the collaborative analysis of this information.”

The Victorian Government’s road authority, VicRoads, has proved the value of ITS before the $1.39 billion project to widen the M1 corridor in Victoria some years ago.

A trial involving the fitting of ramp monitoring traffic lights on six ramps dramatically improved traffic flow and reduced crashes. The cost/benefit analysis showed that, for every dollar spent, the community saved $24.

On the back of that trial, ITS systems worth more than $100 million were added to the $1 billion-plus project.

By Ian Porter