Mercedes 'traffic insights' unit gains traction with Dutch road data project win

Correction: The Dutch infrastructure ministry's budget for the road monitoring project it is conducting with Mercedes-Benz was 2.5 million euros. A previous version of this story misstated the figure.

Mercedes-Benz's push to turn the data collected from its vehicles into fresh source of revenue is gaining traction.

The German automaker has partnered with the Netherlands' Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management to monitor the country's 130,000 km (81,000) of road through data collected by its vehicles.

It's the second major data-collection project for Mercedes after teaming up with Transport for London to help improve road safety in the megacity by identifying high risk locations before accidents took place.

In the Netherlands, Mercedes' two-year project with Dutch authorities will go beyond road safety, adding asset management and winter management to the areas that will be monitored.

The data will be accrued via car-to-X and other systems from connected Mercedes vehicles. (Car-to-X is the term used to describe communication between vehicles with the transport infrastructure. The X in car-to-X stands for everything, meaning the car can communicate with other connected vehicles as well as the infrastructure independently via WiFi or mobile radio.)

Daniel Deparis, head of urban mobility solutions for Mercedes-Benz Group, told Automotive News Europe that the company's algorithms would break down the data to provide Dutch transportation authorities with insights to aid decision-making processes for infrastructure and traffic safety projects.

"We don't deliver any raw data -- what we deliver is 'traffic insights,' " he said. "That means it's really about data-driven insights, and in this way, we deliver a user-friendly solution to road operators."

From Deparis' perspective, the most important aspect is the dialogue that will occur between Mercedes and the transportation authorities, where solutions for trouble spots -- such as an intersection where Mercedes has been recording a high level of "near-miss" incidents -- can be discussed.

"Let's say there is a bus stop on the other side of the street, but there is no pedestrian crossing. That means people are running to catch the bus," he said. "They could decide, based on our dialogue, what the best solution could be."

Deparis noted that these solutions could turn out to be very simple and may not require millions of euros in new infrastructure spending.

"Sometimes it just means having a sign or having a zebra strip or some sort of nudge to make it clear for people that it could be dangerous to cross," he explained.

New revenue streams

Gartner analyst Pedro Pacheco said from the perspective of automakers, the move into services such as road monitoring makes sense as they want to diversify from traditional revenue streams.

"They need to make money with other things besides selling and servicing cars. This includes using the data collected from their cars to provide insights to other stakeholders -- namely, local or even national governments or transit authorities," he said. "This is just one flavor of many things that carmakers are trying to do to diversify their sources of revenue."

He added that automakers such as Mercedes also want to understand the ambient conditions in which their cars are driven and can also use that data for a different purpose to provide governments with information concerning road safety and overall efficiency.  

While Mercedes declined to provide financial terms of the deal, the budget set for the program was 2.5 million euros, the Dutch infrastructure ministry told Automotive News Europe in an email reply to questions.

"We cannot disclose the exact numbers of the agreement, but the winning bid was well within the budget of the assignment,” a ministry spokeswoman said.

Deparis said that early detection of road damage such as potholes, can be picked up by vehicle sensors, while stereo cameras can identify missing or damaged traffic signs

For potholes or surface waviness, Mercedes' data can identify not only where the damage exists, but also the intensity and development over time.

"We have systems in our cars based on the dampers, the GPS information and acceleration information. They give us information about the grip of the vehicle on the road and other road conditions," he said.

When the sensors detect low road friction, the data, including GPS information, is sent to the Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Cloud via the mobile communications network.

'Building a win-win'

"In terms of improving the safety of those cars, improving comfort or improving durability, it's just a matter of sharing that data or insights with other organizations," Gartner's Pacheo said. "Obviously, the Netherlands government recognized that this would be useful to them. It's a little bit like building a win-win."

Deparis said the data can also be used to improve multi-modal mobility and expand mobility equity across cities by providing information to users as to when, where, and how they could make journeys with various transport options.

"If you want sustainable urban mobility, cities need a complete set of measurements to help attain more safe and efficient transportation," he said. "To ease the access to these opportunities is a very clear goal for us."

He added that it is important to provide authorities with a user-friendly dashboard that doesn't overwhelm them with an avalanche of information. The aim is to offer targeted insights about specific locations, at specific times of day, that way improvements can be seen in real time.

"With a map-based dashboard, the operator can choose which kind of information he wants to see on the map and focus on it," Deparis said. "You can focus on patterns that occur over a period of time or look at the risk score of an intersection, which is determined by near-miss data taken from the vehicles."

The team uses anonymized data from the cars' advance driver assistance systems (ADAS) to detect and analyze the locations where on-board safety systems are being deployed most frequently.

Deparis said that when this information is combined with existing historical data on collisions, city planners have targeted insights to assist them with decisions on infrastructure improvement and development.

Contextual analysis is key

The ability to provide contextual analysis -- a kind of before-and-after check—is a "crucial point" for Mercedes.

"You can imagine how valuable it is to be able to evaluate the impact of the measures you take, by putting up a sign, for example, and seeing how concrete measures immediately improve the traffic situation," Deparis said.

To ensure the collected data is anonymous and secure, Mercedes is storing it a company cloud and processing it in Stuttgart.

The company is also deploying artificial intelligence (AI) to look for patterns and propose solutions. Deparis said this is a key part of the company's plan to scales up its the efforts to offer the service to more cities and countries.

"If a city in Italy would call us tomorrow, for example, we would be able to deliver -- after some work, of course -- a solution as well as we did for all of the Netherlands," he said. "The plan is very clear. It's to scale."

From Gartner analyst Pacheco's perspective this partnership is merely the beginning of a trend whereby governments will be able to achieve a more in-depth understanding of infrastructure conditions and road safety.

"Just imagine what they could do if they could tap into cars from all manufacturers -- this would amplify the insights that could be extracted," he said. "We are not there yet because for certain government it's going to be very, very difficult to establish contracts with all automakers."

While these types of partnerships could pay big dividends for automakers and transportation authorities in the future, Pacheco said the developments are likely to evolve over a long period of time.

"This is not something that's going to get turned around overnight," he said. "We are talking about the creation of an open data-mobility ecosystem."