Case study in Côtes-d'Armor (France)
The Côtes-d'Armor Departmental Council trusted RoadTraceᵀᴹ to improve the safety of road users.
Recognized for its spirit of innovation and constantly seeking to identify the best solutions to better serve the community, the Côtes-d'Armor Departmental Council was one of the first French customers wishing to test the "Safety Insights" solution from RoadTraceᵀᴹ, brand of the Aisin group, the 5th largest automotive supplier in the world.
RoadTraceᵀᴹ is Aisin's answer to road infrastructure managers, public or private, looking for objective information on road safety risks, on which to base their decision-making. It is based on the analysis of collective driving behavior, reported by existing vehicle fleets.
The wide deployment of connected vehicles (i.e. vehicles with an Internet connection) in recent years now makes available a large amount of data related to driver behavior. In particular, the detection of unusual driving events, such as sudden steering movements, loss of control, overspeeding or sudden braking.
The availability of these new types of data allows a better understanding of the real behavior of drivers and the performance of the infrastructure in terms of road safety. But these raw data alone are not directly and easily exploitable by road managers. This is where RoadTraceᵀᴹ comes in to analyze and contextualize this data in order to extract useful “Safety Insights”.
After the UK, RoadTraceᵀᴹ is successfully deployed in France
In the case of Côtes-d'Armor, RoadTraceᵀᴹ automatically analyzed the data collected by thousands of vehicles, of all types, on the department's roads for several months in order to identify the most critical areas in terms of road safety. Priority has been placed on identifying areas of accumulation of sudden braking. The combination of different types and different sources of data, such as weather conditions, traffic conditions, lighting, the actual speed of vehicles or the proximity of road attributes (intersection, roundabout, traffic lights, pedestrian crossing, …) also allowed a better understanding of the context in which these events took place. Based on these “Safety Insights” analyses, managers can prioritize network maintenance and improvement actions, optimize their investments and justify them on the basis of real and neutral data.
“The analyzes provided by RoadTrace allowed us to objectify the field observations and confirm the areas to be treated as a priority”
"The analyzes provided by RoadTraceTM as part of this pilot allowed us to objectify the field observations and confirm the areas to be treated as a priority", declares Mr. Bourdais, Director of Infrastructure, Mobility and the Sea at the Board Departmental of Côtes-d'Armor. “We were amazed at the relevance of the results. Some areas identified were well known to our services as problem areas, but RoadTraceTM was also able to identify new areas that we can now treat proactively. For our teams, the analysis of the context is particularly valuable in enabling us to identify the actions to be implemented”. After an initial phase of identifying the areas to be investigated, a more precise analysis was carried out on certain selected areas in order to better identify the causes of the problems. A detailed analysis of the speed profiles, trajectories and intentions of the drivers thus made it possible to determine the measures to be taken. "Based on the findings of RoadTraceTM, our teams in the field will now design and implement the appropriate improvements", continues Mr. Bourdais. The continuous collection and analysis of driving data will make it possible to measure the real impact of the measures implemented on driver behavior and to objectify the concrete benefits for road safety. "I am delighted with the collaboration with the RoadTraceTM teams and the results of this pilot project", concludes Mr. Bourdais.
“We were amazed at the relevance of the results. Some areas identified were well known to our services as problem areas, but RoadTrace was also able to identify new areas that we can now treat proactively”
The recent availability of this type of analysis offers new perspectives in the design of network improvement plans and provides a valuable tool in supporting decision-making, based on objective risk assessment data. for all users. The combination of RoadTraceᵀᴹ Safety Insights with the available accidentology information and, in this case, the incident reports made available by the County Council, makes it possible to identify correlations and, in certain places, to detect accident-prone situations even before a first serious accident occurs. This makes it possible to act in a preventive and targeted manner in the places presenting the best opportunities for improvement.
Anticipation saves lives!
The RoadTraceᵀᴹ brand is already present in the UK where Safety Insights are used by a dozen customers with excellent results (read the opinion of our customers: https://www.roadtrace.eu/insights). We are proud to now also be able to contribute to making the roads of France safer and are happy to see that other Departments are already inspired by the example of Côtes-d'Armor. Aisin, a major group in the field of mobility at the global level, acts as a neutral player, unrelated to public works companies and not dependent on a particular data source. Our technology is based on more than thirty years of experience in the development of navigation systems, localization, driving aids and on-board safety systems in the vehicles of the largest European and Japanese car manufacturers. This expertise is now used to serve communities, governments and infrastructure managers across Europe. We look forward to sharing the results of other ongoing projects soon.
Thank you to our customers for their collaboration and trust!