Convergence of Telematics and Self-Driving Tech Impact Fleet Safety

The convergence of Telematics and Self-Driving Tech Impact Fleet Safety

Telematics is playing a major role in the advancement of self-driving car technology, and in a not-too-distant future will revolutionize fleet safety. Sure, there are many technical, legal, business, legislative plus insurance challenges to get to that level.  But, Self-Driving Cars are here today, and the ecosystem and legislative bodies including us normal folks are starting to wrap our heads around its inevitability. More proof can be found here.

“I believe that the ecosystem is ripe today for the convergence of advanced autonomous driving and wireless technologies to further prove and advance the self-driving vehicle that brings safety and efficiency gains. With convergence, an important step is taken toward total disruption in personal and commercial transport.” – Henri Engel, a guru on Smart Mobility &  Self-Driving cars, and founder of a 5,000 person Self-Driving Car Linkedin group.

Telematics is here and has been for decades now, from the basic to the very advanced. Basic in the form of naked bare bones dot-on-a-map technology; to the bleeding edge with layers and layers of evolved solutions such as Geotab’s. Incorporating rich data that is then wirelessly transmitted to provide socioeconomic benefit that is today measured in the billions, and soon in the trillions. The companies that stay in the forefront of technology and continue to evolve their solution are the ones that are in rapid growth models today.

Geotab is one such company. Take their partnership with Mobileye as an example of the evolution of telematics. Mobileye is a NYSE listed company with a nearly $10 Billion US dollar valuation. (Watch Co-founder and Mobileye CTO show you Mobileye in this video). Mobileye is driving the future of computer vision and automated driving. Cameras, computing plus artificial intelligence and neural networks are a big component as is wireless data between vehicles (Floating Car Data) and fixed points.

This table from McKinsey illustrates the evolution in safety in the form of collision avoidance. Note how today and in the future, wireless technologies become an integral component for collision avoidance:

Geotab has brought the pillar of safety to the forefront. Many telematics companies have integrated with some form of video or camera technology on heavy duty vehicles (J1939 protocols). Geotab has expanded this to include all vehicle types. This is a very large competitive advantage, as this may only happen if the telematics device has the ability to read multiple vehicle CAN bus lines at the same time. Geotab’s GO7 device is one of, if not the only, OBD device in the world that has this capability.

Why is transmitting safety data important and what does this mean?

Many vehicles today will tell the driver when the air pressure of a tire is low, a seat belt is left unfastened, or the check engine light is on. Does a typical driver respond right away? How about when the driver is deviating from a lane, tailgating, or a pedestrian or cyclist is crossing the vehicles path? The in-vehicle alerts and data must enable drivers to become more aware in order to avoid potential collisions or mishaps, as well as provide fleet operations with the comfort that assets are being utilized both safely and efficiently. There are legal and insurance ramifications at play here.

It is estimated that human behavior counts for over ninety percent of all accidents. Even with advanced warnings and some automation, driving remains a ‘man with machine’ activity. Pragmatically speaking, Mobileye and Geotab enable advanced collision warnings to be wirelessly transmitted in a configurable way. Some of the exceptions to ensure that this data may be used to assist drivers so they become safer in our communities includes:

  1. Lane Departure Warning
  2. Urban Forward Collision Warning
  3. Forward Collision Warning
  4. Headway Warning Level
  5. Mobileye Tampering
  6. Pedestrian Collision Warning
Read the full article:

This article was condensed and summarized to illustrate the main points of the original article posted on the Geotab blog. Click here to read the original article