Martin 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.

Accurate indoor positioning of firefighters using dual foot-mounted inertial sensors and inter-agent ranging

A real-time cooperative localization system, utilizing dual foot-mounted low-cost inertial sensors and RF-based inter-agent ranging, has been developed. Scenario-based tests have been performed, using fully-equipped firefighters mimicking a search operation in a partly smoke-filled environment, to evaluate the performance of the TOR (Tactical lOcatoR) system. The performed tests included realistic firefighter movements and inter-agent distances, factors that are crucial in order to provide realistic evaluations of the expected performance in real-world operations. The tests indicate that the TOR system may be able to provide a position accuracy of approximately two to three meters during realistic firefighter operations, with only two smoke diving firefighters and one supervising firefighter within range.

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.

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.