Ford, HP Monitor Driving Habits in Fleet Insights Experiments
Engineers at Ford, using Hewlett-Packard’s Big Data Discover Experience Services and HP Haven, pulled together data on commercial commuting in the hopes of streamlining fleet operations and personal driving experiences.
Ford’s Fleet Insights experiment looks for ways to lower operating costs by monitoring and analyzing prevalent trends with drivers, including when and where they stop for coffee and what kind of gas they use to fill up.
“The Fleet Insights experiment is one of the first steps to better understand and learn about how driving behavior is changing,” said Marcy Klevorn, Ford vice president and chief information officer. “Fleets could see operating costs lowered through national buying contracts and improved utilization and maintenance, while individual drivers could receive coupons or create cooperative pools to share unused vehicles.”
Among the observations in the experiment, Ford engineers found that most drivers tend to visit the same coffee house and refuel with the same brand of gasoline, employees who travel leave vehicles at airports for long enough periods of time that they could potentially be used for car-sharing programs, and 70% of all driving takes place on weekdays with average driving distances of 13 miles or less.
The kind of driving analyzed by Ford through HP Big Data Discover Experience Services can be broken down into four categories: city block driving (34%), freeway driving (21%), non rush-hour driving (29%), and rush-hour driving (16%).
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