Innovation of the month: Improving road safety safe driving data

We are excited to share this month’s innovation of the month, an opportunity for innovators to receive recognition for their projects early on in the awards program. By receiving the Submission of the Month award, the innovator automatically becomes a nominee. This Efma-Accenture innovation of the month for January is The ANWB (Royal Dutch Touring Club) Safe Driving Data project (ASDD), an initiative that motivates customers to drive better while improving road safety.

Insurers are increasingly playing a role in improving societies at large. The act of evaluating and preparing for risk doesn’t just benefit the customer but can set in motion behavioural changes that can transform communities for the better. As the insurance company of the ANWB, Unigarant is passionate about improving road safety in the Netherlands in every way possible. The ASDD project presented the opportunity to achieve this with impact.

ANWB Safe Driving Insurance was launched in 2016. This connected driving insurance initiative rewards customers for driving safely by calculating a driving score. The driving score in turn leads to a discount on their premium.

In order to calculate the driving score, speed, corner speed, acceleration and braking is measured. This act of measurement alone resulted in tangible change. In adhering to their driving scores, more than 75.000 people became safe drivers in the past five years. Together they drove more than a trillion kilometres, which resulted in valuable data and insights being collected about road safety in the Netherlands.

Marin Roos, Chief Innovation Officer, at Unigarant, says, “Younger drivers have shown the most significant improvement as they are most open to feedback. People are surprised with the lengths we go to in order to help them get better. We recently started a pilot in which we actively call people to coach them on their driving as an additional service on top of the feedback in the app. The first results are very promising.”

On a macro level, the data can be used by road managers to gain insights into dangerous roads, crossings or other traffic situations.

Roos adds, “The beauty of this initiative is the fact that the data is a by-product of the ANWB Drive Safe insurance and not the primary business case. This enables us to provide anonymous, customer-approved data at a reasonable cost to road/traffic managers, helping contribute to a safer environment on the roads.”

For example, in 2020 the insurer conducted a pilot experiment with the city of Rotterdam. Their traffic department used ASDD data to enrich their traffic model to make specific analysis of the city roads. The pilot was a success. Not only did the city find a number of dangerous spots, they had a clear idea what caused the problems and how safety could be improved. This resulted in a range of improved traffic situations.

The success of the pilot encouraged ANWB to make the data available to all road managers in the country, and cooperation with Rotterdam continues. As a product of this success, more and more governments are reporting that they would like to use the ANWB data, and at this moment more than a hundred road managing organizations have access to the ASDD.

For insurers wishing to pursue a similar initiative, Marin advises, “Firstly, you need to be clear about your motivations. We were transparent with our customers about our intended use of the collected data from the outset. Secondly, the ANWB Drive Safe Insurance initiative proves that it is possible to develop a commercial proposition that has a public benefit. All it takes is that you look at your product from a variety of different perspectives during development.”