Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/949884
32 commercial carrier journal | march 2018 Building scale Lytx celebrates 20 years, talks future of video data I n 1998, a San Diego company, DriveCam, launched a windshield-mounted device that could automatically record pre- and post-event footage of collisions. The video event records were triggered when an accelerome- ter detected excessive g-forces. DriveCam's major selling point to fleets was its potential to reduce accident claims costs. Twenty years have passed since the original DriveCam start- ed a new era in safety and risk management. The company's rebranding in 2013 as Lytx reflected its prowess with analytics, not just video. To date, Lytx has captured and analyzed more than 80 billion miles of driving data through DriveCam. A managed service Soon after fleets began deploying the original DriveCam device, the company realized it was capable of providing more utility, says Brandon Nixon, chief executive officer. Fleets were using data from the accelerometer and video event footage to identify risky driving behaviors. However, reviewing videos to detect those behaviors consumed val- uable internal resources. In 2005, Lytx decided to leverage the cellular network to automatically upload event videos from the vehicle to its own review center. "We went from being a technology provider to being a service provider," Nixon says. "That allowed our clients to focus on what they do best — the coaching of drivers." New orders came in from large fleets, and Lytx decided to sharpen its focus on predictive analytics to help its custom- ers run the program more efficiently. "We had to score events, score drivers and prioritize drivers as to which ones are the riskiest on the road and have the types of behaviors that lead to collisions," Nixon says. Machine learning In 2011, Lytx started developing machine learning capa- bilities for its DriveCam platform. Those efforts led to an optional service in 2015, ActiveVision, that uses additional sensor data and machine learning to detect risk patterns that include lane departures, distracted driving and unsafe following distances. Lytx Video Services, the latest enhancement to the Drive- Cam program, captures video events from cameras that pro- vide an always-on 360-degree view around a tractor-trailer. Lytx plans to apply machine learning and artificial intelli- gence to LVS to better understand and predict risk in driving and nondriving events. Lytx now has 500,000 vehicle subscriptions from 3,000 cli- ents who in 2017 collectively reported savings of nearly half a billion dollars in claims costs. Going forward, the scale of the company's data makes it possible to automatically recognize more patterns in unique data sets. "Innovations come from listening to clients for what they want us to do," Nixon says. "As long as you have unique data sets, you can train (machine vision) to recognize almost anything." MAKING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS WORK FOR YOUR FLEET BY AARON HUFF technology AARON HUFF is Senior Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail ahuff@ccjmagazine.com or call 385-225-9472. INTERESTED IN TRUCKING TECHNOLOGY? Scan the barcode or go to www.goo.gl/Ph9JK to subscribe to the CCJ Technology Weekly e-mail newsletter. MAJOR SELLING POINT: DriveCam had the potential to reduce accident claims costs. HELPING FLEETS: The company transformed from a technology provider into a service provider. GOING FORWARD: Lytx can use sensor data and machine learning to detect risk patterns. Lytx is adding about 1 billion driving miles to its database every two weeks.