City Data Solutions | Ford Mobility

City Insights

Unlock new insights from combined city data and vehicle connectivity

Every day, millions of people face mobility challenges in cities all over the world. The question is: how can connected vehicle data be used to tackle these challenges? Can it help improve the quality of life for everyone living and working in our urban environments?

At Ford Mobility, we think it can. We believe data will help cities understand how vehicles operate. A deeper understanding of driver and vehicle behaviour can contribute to reducing congestion, improving road safety and mitigating traffic challenges. Our latest research has demonstrated the power of connected vehicle data to provide valuable insights and effective predictive tools. For example, we have managed to use data to predict the locations of incidents on the road network and identify the optimal locations for future electric charge points.

The Solution

Ford Mobility fitted over 300 commercial vehicles in and around London, Valencia and Cologne, with telematics devices. We have recorded over 2.5 million kilometres of commercial vehicle journeys and driving events data. Our pilot programmes have shown the power of connected vehicle data to support future urban compliance systems and improve air quality, traffic and road safety.

The Technology

Connected vehicle data, including vehicle location, acceleration, braking, and even whether the hazard lights were on, was analysed for a cross section of vans in the city. With drivers and businesses signed up to participate and share their data, our telematics devices monitored and recorded a range of granular data points from the vehicles that helped to build actionable insights. This data was then combined with other data, such as accident and traffic information, to help us understand some of our cities’ most complex challenges.

The Outcome

The insights we found broadly fall into five main categories – areas where we feel data could potentially make a difference: identification of future potential road incidents hotspots, traffic retiming impact analysis, electric vehicle charging point placement, journeys and routes analytics and vehicle speeds and stops patterns. The objective was to help improve the understanding of how our cities move and operate.

What are the potential applications for City Insights?

Makes actionable insights accessible to all members of a city, independent of their data analytic skills
Provides a predictive tool to identify locations where there’s an opportunity to reduce the risk of a traffic incident, helping cities on the road to zero casualties
Unlocks real insights on the impact of policy decision making

Helps cities model and optimise traffic planning for both citizens and businesses
Contributes to effective Low Emmisions Zones management
Supports urban infrastructure and capacity planning including public electric vehicle recharge points network and parking bays reclassification.