http://sustainableindustries.com/articles/2011/05/hed-0
Im trying to have a bad trip.
Specifically, I’m driving around a warren of Silicon Valley office parks in an Acura sedan, willfully disregarding everything I learned in driver’s ed. Next to me in the passenger seat, Glenn Pereira, is urging me to put more lead in my foot.
Pereira is the marketing chief at GreenRoad. The startup makes hardware and software designed to cut corporate clients’ costs by increasing safety and reducing fuel consumption. They do that by changing driving habits through in-the-moment feedback to drivers while they’re behind the wheel. He’s generously encouraging me to abuse his car, but so far, GreenRoad’s feedback is telling me one thing: I drive like an old lady.
“We are focused on helping people improve their driving,” Pereira says. “It’s like driving along with the drivers.”
As I drive, GreenRoad’s sensors record bad behavior in five areas: acceleration, braking, corner handling, lane changing and speeding. Its hardware includes a dashboard-mounted device with three colored lights. Drive smooth and steady, and the light stays green, but when a driver has what Pereira calls an “event” – taking a turn too fast, for example – the light flashes a cautionary orange. An egregious foul earns a flashing red light. In addition to the warning after each transgression, racking up too many events changes the rating of a driver’s whole journey, downgrading the entire trip to orange or red.
Information from the journey is transmitted wirelessly back to GreenRoad’s servers. Drivers and fleet managers access the data through an online dashboard, and can assess driving performance, pinpoint trouble spots on routes and figure out where there’s room for improvement.
If GreenRoad’s persistent-yet-nonintrusive nudging towards mellower driving saves fuel and potentially lives, it also saves money – the company estimates its customers collectively have saved more than $100 million to date. For each vehicle outfitted with GreenRoad equipment, a fleet owner pays about $30 per month for the hardware and software services, and saves between $1,200 and $4,000 per vehicle annually, the company says.
Driving habits account for up to one-third of fuel consumption. GreenRoad estimates that its customers will see fuel reductions of about 10 percent, though the dollar value of that unused gas could swell as rising fuel costs increasingly cut into businesses’ bottom lines. Beyond fuel savings, GreenRoad says it can cut costs associated with crashes in half in the first year of use.
“Economics is what drives most of these decisions,” Pereira says.
For now, GreenRoad’s technology is being used for commercial fleets and reaches about 60,000 drivers in the U.S. and England. It’s brought in about $45 million in venture funding, including investments from Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and Richard Branson’s Virgin Green Fund.
Back in Pereira’s car, I’m still unable to coax a scolding from GreenRoad’s device, so he takes the wheel. He tells me that the hardware in his car is tuned to be less sensitive than what a delivery driver would likely experience – the sensitivity can be customized according to customer needs – but within a few minutes of hard braking, taking turns way too fast and careening around a freeway on-ramp, Pereira has succeeded in earning our white-knuckle joyride an angry red light.
I may not have a future as a stuntman, but I’m determined to piss off GreenRoad’s sensors at least once before handing in the keys. I get behind the wheel one more time. Avoiding the freeway, I decide my best bet is the stop signs on the quieter commercial streets. Building up speed, I swerve into the adjacent lane and slam on the brakes. Seconds later, the light flashes orange. Triumphant, I pound the gas pedal, pushing Pereira and me into our seats before my inner traffic cop takes over and pilots us safely home.
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