The Business — January 2007

» AVIONICS & TRANSPORTATION

Pay As You Drive Insurance Gets Brit Road Test

Under a plan offered by British insurer Norwich Union, GPS helps determine how much drivers pay for their auto insurance.

The company’s Pay As You Drive plan uses GPS to calculate monthly insurance premiums based on how often, when, and where a person drives, basing the premium on the individual’s driving habits — rather than everyone else’s — and potentially saving the customer some money.

A black-box GPS unit provided by Trafficmaster is installed in the trunk or under the dashboard so it cannot be disturbed or tampered with. Once the unit is fitted on the car, the insured motorist’s journeys are monitored to see what types of road they drive on, and whether they drive at peak or off-peak times. This generates a price per mile that is totaled on their monthly bill.

The objective is to help drivers control insurance costs by making informed choices about when to use the car. Examples of pricing might be 1 penny per mile for off-peak motorway driving for 24 to 65 year olds, and as much as £1 per mile for an under 24-year-old driver at night.

Norwich Union has been piloting the project since 2004, with 5,000 customers recording data on 100 million miles from more than 10 million trips.

The program especially targets young motorists. “We tested young drivers because they have an issue with high insurance charges so we wanted to find ways to help them,” said Norwich Union’s product development manager Sue Rowland. “On average, they saved 30 percent on their premium.”

The Pay As You Drive bill looks similar to a mobile phone bill, with premiums for each journey calculated and totaled. According to Iain Napier, director of Pay As You Drive insurance, this transparent approach to motor insurance will help customers control insurance costs.

“We’re confident that Pay As You Drive insurance is simply a fairer way of calculating premiums and gives customers greater control, flexibility, and choice,” Napier said. “That is why we expect this unique UK proposition to be a huge success with motorists.”

The Association of British Drivers (ABD) is not fond of the plan. “Aside from the obvious implications for privacy and civil liberties, the ABD warns drivers that this information can also be used for the government’s planned road charging scheme.” In that proposal, aimed at cutting congestion, “pay-as-you-go” road charges would replace road and gas taxes. Every vehicle would be equipped with a GPS black box to track its journey. Costs would range from as little as 2 cents per mile in rural areas to £1.34 per mile for peak time in city areas.

An ABD spokesman who participated in the initial 5,000-vehicle trial said, “Insurance premiums are already based on a driver’s accident/ conviction history, age, the number of miles traveled annually, and the vehicle’s insurance group. Why do we need to attempt a micro-managed premium calculation? We don’t. The government’s own research shows that they are not trusted with an individual’s personal journey details by the majority of the British public. The use of service providers, such as insurance companies, is seen as a way around the problem.”

Norwich Union is the UK’s largest general insurer with a market share of around 14 percent, and a focus on insurance for individuals and small businesses.

» LOCATION-BASED SERVICES

Philips Exits PND Market Before Entry

Philips Electronics, the Netherlands-based electronics giant that is Europe’s largest consumer electronics company, said in June, 2006, that it would enter the personal navigation device (PND) market in the fall, to compete with Garmin, TomTom, Magellan, and other PND makers. But it abruptly pulled the plug on that effort in early December, stating that it was no longer interested. A spokesperson confided that the company had watched the market closely and decided it was too crowded.

This marks the second time Philips has retreated in this sector. Although its Carin system was an early dedicated in-vehicle nav system (circa 1990), and the company was an early investor in NavTeq, it later abandoned that market.

The booming European PND market, which analysts say could double to about 5 million units, has attracted Japanese consumer-electronics giants as well as many smaller Taiwanese manufacturers. Hardly a day goes by without a trumpeting of a new PND, often from a company heretofore unheard of in GPS and nav circles.

“It’s a very competitive market and it puts a lot of pressure on profit margins,” stated the Philips spokeperson. “We decided we need some focus, and navigation devices like these don’t fit within this focus.”

The company remains interested in GPS in general, but not for stand-alone products. “We don’t want to go further with GPS as a single device, but it’s an interesting technology to implement in other products,” she added. Mobile phones or digital music players remain as possible candidates for GPS capabilities.

» TRANSPORTATION & AVIONICS

Trimble Acquires @Road, Spacient

Trimble will acquire @Road, Inc. of Fremont, California for $496 million. This expands Trimble’s role in mobile resource management (MRM), formerly known as fleet tracking. Trimble acquired Spacient Technologies, an MRM software supplier, in November.

An early sector pioneer, @Road has a scalable software infrastructure, relationships with telecom carrier partners, system integrators, and a strong field presence in transportation, distribution, telecommunications, utilities, facilities management, and public works. This complements Trimble Mobile Solutions division’s business in construction supply, store delivery, and public safety.

Frost and Sullivan forecasts MRM growth to $2.6 billion by 2010, from $1.2 billion in 2006.

Carnegie Mellon’s Sandstorm racer, veteran of both Mojave and
Grand Challenges

» MILITARY & GOVERNMENT

Driving for Dollars: Urban Challenge Purse Put at $3.5 Million

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will award $2 million, $1 million and $500,000 awards to the top three robotic finishers who complete its new Urban Challenge course in November 2007.

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Kenneth J. Krieg approved the cash prizes, evidencing the Department’s interest in making one-third of all combat vehicles — principally supply vehicles — driver-less by 2015.

DARPA has staged two desert Grand Challenges, in 2004 and 2005 in the Mojave, with significant difficulties posed by geography and terrain. The 2007 Urban Challenge will feature fully autonomous ground vehicles conducting simulated military supply missions in a mock urban area. The race will take place on November 3, 2007, at a location to be announced later, in the western United States.

Robotic vehicles will attempt to complete a 60-mile course through traffic in less than six hours, operating under their own computer-based control. Vehicles must obey traffic laws while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles.

Learning Curve. Participants in past Grand Challenges have truly risen to the occasion, learning and innovating as they go. The number of sensors and software applications integrated into most of the experimental vehicles increased dramatically between the first and second races. Inertial sensors proliferated, with cost, size, and power consumption going down, while performance went up. Inertial systems, along with various camera/vision apparati, function as the workhorses covering the ground in most of the vehicles. GPS generally teams with a central processing unit (CPU) to act as the brain guiding the process.

William “Red” Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and Louis Nastro of Applanix Corporation co-authored a detailed technical article in September 2006 GPS World on their experience with the students of Carnegie Mellon’s Red Team Racing effort, designing and outfitting two vehicles that competed and placed in the 2005 race.

To qualify for the race or simply watch, see the Grand Challenge website for additional information and rules for the Urban Challenge.

» AGRICULTURE & NATURAL RESOURCES

Accuracy on the Move

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) announced an effort to develop a standard on the dynamic accuracy of GPS equipment used in precision agriculture. In unveiling Project X587, Assessment and Reporting of GPS Receiver Dynamic Accuracy, in its October 2006 newsletter, the Society states: “GPS receivers are used in many agricultural field operations. There are standards in place to guide assessment of the static accuracy of GPS receivers, but static performance is not always indicative of the performance when the receiver is used dynamically.”

The ASABE seeks to develop such dynamic accuracy standards to enable evaluation of moving GPS units. Farmers spend thousands of dollars on mobile, high-precision GPS units that are components of tractor guidance systems, variable-rate application equipment, and crop- yield monitoring equipment. The proposed standards will provide prospective purchasers with a benchmark to compare the specifications of units for accuracy.

Current specifications assume that GPS units that monitor satellite signals five times per second deliver greater positional accuracy than units that monitor the signals one time per second. The proposed ASABE standards will provide a more definitive measurement on the way GPS units must function on moving vehicles.

» LOCATION-BASED SERVICES

Cingular TeleNavs Mobiles

Cingular Wireless has launched its first generally available, location-based service with TeleNav Inc’s GPS Navigator. Cingular business and government customers can get turn-by-turn voice and onscreen GPS directions, while driving or walking, on Cingular business devices including the HP iPAQ hw6920 and hw6500 Mobile Communicators, the Cingular 8125 Pocket PC, and the Palm Treo 650. The latter two devices require a Bluetooth GPS receiver. A GPS receiver is built into the Mobile Communicators. Features include:

• full-color moving maps
• a “Biz Finder” for locating nearby businesses such as cash machines, restaurants, hotels, and gas stations
• a spot marker for locating a parked car
• a fuel finder for finding low gas prices
• pedestrian mode.

Pricing is $5.99 per month for up to 10 trips, or $9.99 per month for unlimited trips.

“Location-based services on wireless phones have disrupted the navigation market and created a more versatile solution for both businesses and consumers,” said Ken Hyers, principal mobile wireless analyst at ABI Research, of the launch of TeleNav GPS Navigator.