Arpit Agarwal, holds over eight years of experience working as a Associate Consultant, Equity Research Analyst, Associate Manager, Associate Director Data Science and Director Data Science in companies like Oracle, UBS Investment Bank, Mu Sigma, Cartesian Consulting and Zoomcar.

One of the strong impediments to a happy & safe road trip is rash driving. The roads are made unsafe when people who let their temperament get the better of them take on the wheels. Of course, the challenges are only made more complex with a lack of proper infrastructure, for instance the quality of construction, well lit roads and others. However, rash driving remains one of the key challenges that has led various globally-leading economies to come up with a scorecard for drivers.

Hardly to be deemed as a disruption, Driver Score is quite prevalent in many of the western economies, helping them best gauge the driver behaviour. It also has implications on their chances of owning a vehicle, accessing insurance facilities, amongst others. However, a western scorecard is not suited for India, given a world of a difference between the driving conditions. Since the tech stack doesn’t consider a majority of Indian centric constraints, India’s needs a system for assessing driver behaviour while also taking into account the real constraints.

While Driver Score is powered by advancements in AI and machine learning, the infrastructure is enabled by the Internet of Moving Things(IoMT). With IoMT-enabled driving ecosystem, a lot of relevant data is made available to get an enrich driver profile. With the help of relevant data, brands can best keep track of the changing mechanical specs of the car and the driving style of an individual behind the wheel. The system will also be able to notify say, when repair or maintenance is in order, or perhaps when a critical event may occur. Thus, instead of being a yardstick for judging or penalising rash driving, an AI & IoMT powered Driver Score would prove to

be a driver’s most trusted assistant when on the road, giving feedback and suggesting ways to improve.

With IOMT - enabled driving ecosystem, a LoT of relevant data is made available to get an enrich driver profile

Let’s understand in detail how AI and other leading advancements like IoMT and others can be leveraged to ensure a safe driving experience:-
Tracking The Driving Behaviour
At different instances, the IoMT engine tracks a wealth of car parts and driving related data. This includes data regarding the location of the car, usage of clutch, accelerator and brake, reading from the odometer and RPM, amongst others. The data is fed to the AI-engine to reveal deeprooted insights into the driving behaviour until the trip lasts. The driver score is shared with the renter every 15 min with event level insights on their driving behaviour. Positive driving behaviour is rewarded accordingly.This helps reduce accidents, thus building a safe driving ecosystem.

Predicting Car Breakdown
We have built algorithms to predict fatal events such as engine breakdown clutch and brake failures, lowtyre pressure and many others. We have studied years of data relayed from car to build a predictive maintenance engine. The engine predicts much in advance when a breakdown is probable to happen thus avoiding causalities. This is also used by the operations team to service the vehicle on time and enhance customer experience

Collision Detection
Zoomcar has installed AI enabled dashcams, which use computer vision to detect collision probability in near real time. The cameras analyze live video stream and alerts for objects that might lead to a collision. A stitch in time saves nine, as they say. Just in case, AI can contribute towards saving the lives of drivers or other commuters on the road, in addition to other damage arising from collisions or rash driving.

Never Running Out Of Fuel Again!
There’s not a bigger bummer to an exciting or romantic long weekend road trip than realizing that one is out of fuel. However such a common occurrence would become a thing of the past when every vehicle is fitted with an AI & IoMT engine/device.

Data insights also reveal the fuel requirement of the car; AI equips brands or service providers to gauge the appropriate time for a refill in real-time. Furthermore, it can also provide suggestions for the nearest petrol pumps. The feature comes handy especially when it is a long weekend getaway to a different city.

Conclusion
In a nutshell with AI beginning to take control of Indian roads we are looking at a seamless driving experience coupled with a reduction in the number of accidents and increase in asset longevity. Once it achieves the scale of operations, insurance companies may partner with disruptive tech platforms to come up with dynamic pricing that would incentivise the best driver behaviour and encourage the same.