Shift Magazine - Issue 2 2018 - 7

WATCHING DRIVERS ASK THE
Chicago, Arity collect data to improve traffic safety
EXPERTS
BY HANNAH LUTZ

magine a city that tracks driver behaviors -
watching them speed up too quickly, brake
hard, turn sharply - not to hand out fines but
in an effort to make its streets safer.
Chicago recently launched its Vision Zero
Action Plan, a data-driven strategy aimed to
eliminate Chicago's traffic deaths and serious
injuries by 2026.
Last month, the city took its initiative a step
further by officially partnering with Arity, a connected-car technology company founded by
Allstate Corp. in 2016. Each month, Arity collects 1 billion miles of driving data from more
than 1 million mobile phone and in-car devices.
The company analyzes that data to
identify behavioral
patterns that lead to
traffic accidents. The
Chicago Department
of
Transportation
has been working
with Arity, without a
formal partnership,
for about a year.
With Arity's data
and technology, CDOT will gain insights to
understand the risk of specific streets and intersections across the city and determine where
infrastructure adjustments should be made to
improve traffic safety.
Chicago already has data on basic crash
reporting, but Arity's front-row seat of the
driver experience "provided another layer to
augment what we can know about fatalities
on the streets of Chicago. They are a company
who is built around understanding behavior and
risk," said Kevin O'Malley, managing deputy

commissioner of CDOT.
Through mobile apps, devices that plug into a
vehicle's onboard diagnostics port, or software
embedded in the vehicle, Arity collects driving
behavior data, such as when, where and how
often a driver brakes hard.
"Through the sharing of data, we have been
able to open the city's aperture to see a higher
level of detail about the current state of risk
on the roadways in Chicago," said Grady Irey,
Arity's senior vice president of data science.
In many cases, Irey said, accidents happen
because drivers don't pay attention. But the city
is learning that some accidents may be avoided
by changes in the
infrastructure. With
combined
data,
Arity and CDOT can
determine
which
areas are more dangerous than others.
"If it's happening
repetitively in one
location by a lot
of drivers, maybe
it's something in
the built environment - a street segment or
intersection or interchange or something along
those lines," said O'Malley.
For example, traffic around a construction
project could cause a risk, he said. In that case,
the city would likely consider rerouting traffic.
Although Chicago already has an abundance
of data, the city doesn't get good insights into
driver behavior through its data, O'Malley said.
"We don't know about these things because
we don't have the eyes on the street like what
Arity may have," he said. n

The city is learning
that some accidents
may be avoided
by changes in the
infrastructure.

Startups turn to
Manheim for help
with reconditioning,
maintenance
BY JACKIE CHARNIGA

urns out, if you want to be a disrupter
but have little to no automotive experience, you're going to need some help.
Online retailers Shift Technologies
and Carvana have turned to 73-year-old auction
company Manheim to store, recondition and
maintain their fleets.
While these startups operate fluidly in the
digital space, Manheim Regional Vice President
Matt Trapp says they have
some holes in their knowledge
base.
Outsourcing to Manheim
saves startups the cost of
doing all this work on their
own - especially as Manheim
Trapp
has taken steps to be located
just down the road from Silicon Valley, a hotbed
for startups. In June, the company announced it
invested $500,000 into a reconditioning location
on the Manheim San Francisco Bay campus.
Manheim has 19 reconditioning sites across the
country, totaling close to 7,000 acres.
The auction company offers tech partners
a 140-point inspection on the vehicles in their
fleets, alongside mechanical and body reconditioning, paint, detail, merchandising and 360degree imaging. "It's the nonsexy stuff," Trapp
said. "This is what we do."
Manheim began its partnership with Carvana
five years ago; now the two work together in 40
markets. In April, Shift Technologies said it would
start using Manheim for its 300-vehicle fleet in
Southern California. General Motors' car-sharing
service Maven also has tied in with Manheim,
using it to buy and sell the company's vehicles.
"A lot of these new competitors ... don't look
anything like the dealers or the manufacturers
do today," said Lois Rossi, a Manheim spokeswoman. "We feel we have so many different
types of services, we can probably meet any of
the needs they have." n
James B. Treece and Alexa St. John
contributed to this report.

july 2018 * shift

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - Issue 2 2018