|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | |
NOVEMBER 7, 2003
A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car [Page 2 of 2] LEGAL LIMITATIONS. The box can send more than just a cry for help. Its signal can be packed with helpful data, such as the vehicle's exact longitude and latitude. So if the car was hit on the highway and skidded into oncoming traffic, emergency responders can adjust in advance. Or it can relay an estimate of the crash's intensity, based on the computer's measurement of how fast the car decelerated or changed direction, so responders will know in advance if an ambulance may be necessary. Who gets to see this data is dictated by national law. In Ireland's case, SIS is building the communication links and software systems that route it only to those who have legal permission to know such private details as the driver's name, address, and driving record. As a rule of thumb, says SIS President Dr. Ricardo Martinez, a trauma surgeon who got into accident safety because of what he saw in emergency rooms, only responders and insurance companies will get that info. Crash data will be collected and analyzed by an SIS subsidiary, the European Safety Data Vault, which may someday house the data for the entire EU. Once the data is "sanitized" of all personal information, SIS hopes to build a business analyzing it for a variety of trends. Though neither IBM nor SIS would reveal details on the size of their deal, they'll earn revenue from companies that pay a fee to study the data, such as insurance groups, public-transportation authorities, vehicle makers, and large fleet operators. "THE DARK AGES." Indeed, the SIS-IBM joint venture has already announced its first major customer. Starting next year, Britian's Minorplanet Systems, one of Europe's largest fleet managers, will begin to offer the black boxes and related crash data along with its existing suite of vehicle management-information services. The company now manages nearly 200,000 vehicles worldwide, including some 6,000 in Ireland. Observers in the U.S. are closely monitoring the development of Europes's crash data telematics program. A trove of such consistent crash data will spark big improvements in road safety in both places, says SIS's Martinez, who headed the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the Clinton Administration. Existing road-safety data is largely based on subjective judgments and inconsistent reporting. "When I oversaw the rollout of airbags in the U.S.," he says, "I was stunned by how bad the crash data was. We're still really in the dark ages in that respect." The data repository will allow safety authorities to look for ways to make better judgments. By looking at geographical trends, for example, researchers might discover that a certain off-ramp is prone to crashes and suggest rebuilding it. Carmakers are also intrigued. By examining a large number of crashes, an abnormally high incident of those involving a given model could point to quality problems. "Every crash is a lost opportunity to improve safety and save lives," says Martinez. EURO AGGRESSIVENESS. These safety gains will come to Ireland, and Europe, before the U.S. for a couple of reasons. For one, the EU's more standardized cellular networks make it easier to develop a single wireless standard for the black boxes. Another factor is that the EU is more aggressive about setting broad goals for road-safety improvements than the U.S., says Martinez. Ireland's telematics program is one part of broader EU agenda to halve current road fatalities, to 20,000, by 2010, and to cut the EU's annual crash costs of some $200 billion. By mandating that drivers use the boxes, Ireland seems to have snuffed out privacy concerns that have slowed the voluntary adaptation of the technology elsewhere, says Thilo Koslowski, vice-president and lead automotive analyst at Gartner Inc. In a U.S. poll, Gartner found that 57% of drivers said they would be happy to install a black box if it cut their insurance costs. But only 15% said they had no worries about the ability of authorities to locate their car via the GPS unit. "Earning the drivers' trust is the key to making [telematics] work," says Koslowski. Still, the Irish announcement is a sign that crash-data telematics is poised to take off. Even in New York City, American Transit Insurance, which covers four of every five of the city' taxis and limos, is working with IBM and SIS to rollout a pilot telematics program in 2004 that would cut insurance costs by delivering more reliable crash data and improve taxi safety. That's something drivers -- and their passengers -- can appreciate whether they're in New York or in Dublin.
 By Adam Aston in New York
BW MALL
SPONSORED LINKS
Buy a link now!Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
 Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Policy |
Printer-Friendly Version
