Telematics data describing vehicle movements captured by the black boxes and smartphone applications offered by some insurers to their policyholders can provide a rich source of information about how people are using a road network. Millions of vehicle traces accumulate across the network every day, which means we can build a picture of how vehicles are moving along the network, and importantly for road safety analysis, how vehicle speeds vary along routes and across networks.

Traditionally, vehicle speed data has been captured either using a ‘speed gun’ or Automatic Traffic Counters (ATCs) at single point locations. Increasingly Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems are used on major routes. These data are coarse and sparsely available across the road network.

Telematics however can provide a very rich source of data on speed since every inch of the network is covered and increases and decreases in vehicle speeds can be detected along a route which can help identify where compliance is poor and where speed management approaches need to be applied. It can also help refine models (e.g. iRAP Star Rating) since such models require speed as an input variable.

This project aims to make such data readily available to road safety stakeholders (from community speed watch groups and parish councils, through to road authorities, police and researchers), and to develop and test Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for how such data should be used. The aim is to maximise the availability of such data through an easy to access interface and to maximise the impact of the data to direct mitigation activities and inform road safety engineering initiatives through the development of robust practical approaches. In this project, the impact of enhanced speed data set on practice will be measured.

Dr Suzy Charman, Executive Director, Road Safety Foundation

Suzy has worked in road safety for 17 years and is the executive director of the Road Safety Foundation.

Suzy has broad road safety expertise having led research and policy across all areas of road safety.

She has a strong specialism in proactive risk management, infrastructure safety and speed management.

Sam Chapman, Chief Innovation Officer, Co-Founder and Director, The Floow

Sam Chapman co-founded The Floow Limited, a global telematics company with a singular mission to make mobility safer and smart for all. Sam's focus is upon driving The Floow to develop cutting edge capabilities and new services to better understand risk.

Sam is involved in leading national and international R&D projects and has published more than 38​ papers in international conferences, books and journals.

His publications and expertise cover a broad range of areas including ​traffic management, vehicular pollution and telematics.

Sam has won a range of awards related to understanding risk including the Queens Award for Enterprise in Innovation and Prince Michael International Award for Road Safety.