Jens Ohlsson

Smartphone-Based Measurement Systems for Road Vehicle Traffic Monitoring and Usage-Based Insurance

A framework is presented to deploy a smartphone-based measurement system for road vehicle traffic monitoring and usage-based insurance (UBI). Through the aid of a hierarchical model to modularize the description, the functionality is described as spanning from sensor-level functionality and technical specification to the topmost business model. The designer of a complex measurement system has to consider the full picture from low-level sensing, actuating, and wireless data transfer to the topmost level, including enticements for the individual smartphone owners, i.e., the end users who are the actual measurement probes. The measurement system provides two data streams: a primary stream to support road vehicle traffic monitoring and a secondary stream to support the UBI program. The former activity has a clear value for a society and its inhabitants, as it may reduce congestion and environmental impacts. The latter data stream drives the business model and parts of the revenue streams, which ensure the funding of the total measurement system and create value for the end users, the service provider, and the insurance company. In addition to the presented framework, outcome from a measurement campaign is presented, including road vehicle traffic monitoring (primary data stream) and a commercial pilot of UBI based on the driver profiles (secondary data stream). The measurement system is believed to be sustainable due to the incitements offered to the individual end users, in terms of favorable pricing for the insurance premium. The measurement campaign itself is believed to have an interest in its own right, as it includes smartphone probing of road traffic with a number of probes in the vicinity of the current state of the art, given by the Berkeley Mobile Millennium Project. During the ten-month run of the project, some 4500 driving h/250 000 km of road vehicle traffic data were collected.

Insurance Telematics: Opportunities and Challenges with the Smartphone Solution

Smartphone-based insurance telematics or usage based insurance is a disruptive technology which relies on insurance premiums that reflect the risk profile of the driver; measured via smartphones with appropriate installed software. A survey of smartphone-based insurance telematics is presented, including definitions; Figure-of-Merits (FoMs), describing the behavior of the driver and the characteristics of the trip; and risk profiling of the driver based on different sets of FoMs. The data quality provided by the smartphone is characterized in terms of Accuracy, Integrity, Availability, and Continuity of Service. The quality of the smartphone data is further compared with the quality of data from traditional in-car mounted devices for insurance telematics, revealing the obstacles that have to be combated for a successful smartphone-based installation, which are the poor integrity and low availability. Simply speaking, the reliability is lacking considering the smartphone measurements. Integrity enhancement of smartphone data is illustrated by both second-by-second lowlevel signal processing to combat outliers and perform integrity monitoring, and by trip-based map-matching for robustification of the recorded trip data. A plurality of FoMs are described, analyzed and categorized, including events and properties like harsh braking, speeding, and location. The categorization of the FoMs in terms of Observability, Stationarity, Driver influence, and Actuarial relevance are tools for robust risk profiling of the driver and the trip. Proper driver feedback is briefly discussed, and rule-of-thumbs for feedback design are included. The work is supported by experimental validation, statistical analysis, and experiences from a recent insurance telematics pilot run in Sweden.

Prioritizing business processes improvement initiatives : the seco tools case

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) face great challenges in prioritizing business process improvement initiatives due to limited resources and politics in decision making. We developed a prioritization and categorization method (PCM) for supporting CIOs’ decision-making process. The method is designed in a collaborative research process engaging CIOs, process experts and researchers. In this experience paper, we firstly present the PCM, and then we describe the lessons learned when demonstrating the PCM prototype at a big international company, Seco Tools. The results show that the PCM can produce a holistic analysis of processes by eliciting the “collective intelligence” from process stakeholders and managers. The PCM activities create a top-down social process of process management. By using the PCM the company managed to prioritize business process improvement initiatives in a novel way. This paper contributes to theories/know how on business process management, as well as propose a novel method that can be used by CIOs of large corporations in prioritizing process initiatives.

Adaptive Case Management as a Process of Construction of and Movement in a State Space

Despite having a number of years of experience, adaptive case management (ACM) still does not have a theory that would differentiate it from other paradigms of business process management and support. The known attempts to formalize Case Management do not seem to help much in creating an approach that could be useful in practice. This paper suggests an approach to building such a theory based on generalization of what is used in practice on one hand and the state-oriented view on business processes on the other. In practice, ACM systems use a number of ready-made templates that are picked up and filled as necessary for the case. State-oriented view considers a process instance/case as a point moving in a specially constructed state space. This paper suggests considering a case template as a definition of a sub-space and piking different template on the fly as constructing the state space along with moving in it when filling the template. The result is similar to what in control-flow based theories are considered as a state space with variable numbers of dimensions. Beside suggestions to building a theory, the paper demonstrates the usage of the theory on an example.

Challenges in smartphone-driven usage based insurance

Usage Based Insurance (UBI) programs for car insurance is becoming mainstream using tailored vehicle mounted hardware, where the commercial initiatives can be traced back to the mid-nineties [1]. The smartphone has been identified as an enabler for future UBI, replacing the vehicle (after-) mounted dedicated hardware with a ubiquitous device with a plurality of sensors, means for data processing and wireless communication. This presentation addresses some signal processing challenges in smartphone-driven UBI.

Process Innovation with Disruptive Technology in Auto Insurance: Lessons Learned from a Smartphone-Based Insurance Telematics Initiative

Insurance telematics or usage-based insurance (UBI) is a potential game-changer for the insurance industry, especially for innovating auto-insurance. In order to achieve and sustain UBI for auto insurance, insurers are called upon to innovate the marketing and sales processes of the UBI product, as well as related processes such as risk assessment and price calculation. In this chapter, we demonstrate the insurer’s process innovation with smartphone-based insurance telematics, using the example of the “If SafeDrive” campaign which was commercially conducted by the insurer If P & C in Sweden. The results show that although disruptive technology can trigger process innovation, such innovation cannot succeed and be sustained without fundamental changes in a company’s structure, business model and business strategy. We further propose a capability layer model for understanding the insurer’s process innovation behaviour. This chapter provokes the critical thinking with regard to the exploration and exploitation of disruptive technology into process innovation. Further, the chapter contributes new knowledge to the research of process innovation with disruptive digital technologies.

Smartphone instrumentation for insurance telematics

Insurance telematics is a disruptive technology that is expected to reform the vehicle insurance industry. Based on sensor data, the traditional measures for calculating the insurance premium are complemented to determine a fee that more accurately predicts the risk profile of the policyholder. From an instrumentation and measurement point of view, there are several insurance telematics challenges that have to be tackled. It is about consistently extracting relevant figures of merit (FoMs) like number of harsh braking, speeding, heavy cornering, trip smoothness, etc, and then to transform these FoMs into a valid measure, or score, that determines the risk profile of the insurance customer. The paper presents a characterization of FoMs in terms of actuarial relevance, the drivers influence, stationarity and observability, which are important for the given task. Dedicated hardware to be fitted into the on-board diagnostics outlet as well as contemporary smartphones are two different insurance telematics platforms for data collection. The paper discusses the properties of the smartphone in the perspective of insurance telematics as a low-cost alternative to the hardwired platforms like the one connected to the vehicles on-board diagnostics outlet.

How to Achieve Sustainable Business IT Alignment -- Designing a Circular Organizational Structure at SAAB

To achieve sustainable business IT alignment (BITA) requires firms to create a circular organizational structure that enhance interactions of major stakeholders. We aim to explore the issue, and in our study of SAAB, we find three viable components to design the organizational structure so it can foster the accomplishment of sustainable BITA: (1) Strong top management initiates the management boards so stakeholders across IT and business, and at different organization levels can participate in IT planning and decision making, (2) Business managers propose and engage in business related IT initiatives so they define critical requirements and needs, and they are responsible/accountable for BITA, and (3) CIO facilitates and coordinates planning, decision making, and implementation of ICT initiatives at ICT boards with a clear strategic focus on realizing business values. The paper explores unique insights of designing a circular organizational structure and its impacts on BITA, and contributes knowledge to IT management and practice.