Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
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38 | Overdrive | September 2017 PRIVATE EYES, WATCHING YOU visible warnings are delivered in-cab if fatigue or distraction is sensed. The system also captures video of the driver and the road ahead, as does the basic DriveCam system. Events are reviewed by Lytx at a 24/7-staffed facility, then forwarded to the fleet with notes on what the reviewer sees as coaching-worthy or laudable, says Holly Williamson, Lytx's senior portfolio manager for ActiveVision. Three primary trigger events have been covered under ActiveVision since its 2016 introduction: lane departure, inadequate following dis- tance and what the company calls "critical distance," or when the camera detects there's "less than 0.6 seconds between you and the vehicle ahead," Williamson says. To this trio, Lytx added a fourth last month: the rolling stop. The system has evolved to where it can recognize road signs. The system will be triggered when a truck "is traveling through a stop sign between 3 and 20 miles an hour," Williamson says. SmartDrive's SmartIQ data analytics platform SmartDrive's multi-camera event record- ing system is available in configura- tions ranging from a single road-facing camera to a multi-camera system that includes a driver-facing cam and full 360-degree coverage around the truck. It offers optional "extended recording" of full driving footage accessible at any moment. Its platform appears to have seen a wide uptake in U.S. trucking, though the company declined to share customer numbers. The system detects fatigue only inso- far as signs of it are observed by event reviewers or can be extrapolated from on-highway interactions. Jason Palmer, chief operating officer, says the system combines multiple observations into a data-rich stream that can analyze driver performance. For SmartDrive, that's through the SmartIQ platform that scores drivers according to collision risk. Ten years ago, fleets could detect severe maneuvers via hard-brake record- ing built into the electronic control mod- ule and collected by telematics devices or detected by g-force camera sensors. Now, Palmer says, "You're bringing multiple sensors together to be more intelligent." In the case of fatigue, knowing the time of day or a driver's place in his duty cycle is key. Such data can be com- bined with analyzing "particular types of maneuvers," such as a swerve out of and back into a lane, captured via road- facing cameras. The SmartDrive system can com- bine telematics and g-force data with visual in-cab data of the driver at the time of the maneuver and "offload that video in real time and prioritize it for a driving analyst," Palmer says. "You're able to see whether that driver is fatigued and [know whether] alert- ing the driver" with audio-visual warn- ings is working. If it's not, prioritization to the supervi- sor could be the next step, Palmer says. "That's where a video-based safety sys- tem like ours can really come into play" as another level of protection. Drivers can get performance feedback via an app or a mobile website. "They can see how they stack up against their peers," Palmer says. The driver-facing video aids in fatigue recognition only after the fact, when combined with truck performance data. But the company is investigating real- time fatigue detection and measurement with a variety of third-party systems. Reliance on one element – eye- tracking data alone, for instance – "produces a lot of false positives" of fatigue, Palmer says. SmartDrive stud- ied hard-brake reports from telematics units and determined that "87 percent were false positives," where brake use was justified. Some fleets Palmer and company talk to, he says, "want to be more conserva- tive" than simply working within hours of service limits. "If the driver appears distracted, to signal them to pull over and complete a cognitive test." Or to do the same "prior to starting a shift. At the end of the day, fleets are looking to make sure the driver is cognitively ready to operate the vehicle." You're bringing multiple sensors together to be more intelligent. – Jason Palmer, SmartDrive COO, describ- ing the system's use of ECM data and dual-camera input SmartDrive and other camera manufacturers have expanded beyond their initial single or dual (driver- and road-facing) camera setups to cover side views, as illustrated in this video feed. The expanded views add greater context to captured events. LEARN MORE ABOUT DASHCAM SYSTEMS AND FATIGUE by visit- ing the Industry Speakers playlist at youtube.com/OverdriveMag. Watch "Seeing Machines' dual-camera sys- tem," an interview with Vice President Chris Sluss, and "SmartDrive's vision for dashcams and safety," an interview with CEO Steve Mitgang.