Optibus has teamed up with telematics company GreenRoad Technologies to increase passenger safety by bringing historical road safety data into the earliest phases of transportation planning.
Optibus says the lack of safety data at the earliest stages of transportation planning means many road and driving hazards are detected only after services roll-out, at the driver-level.
According to Optibus, this exposes passengers to low-quality, risky services that compromise their safety and comfort and increase the rate of injuries or incidents per million miles.
Optibus co-founder Amos Haggiag says: “Although public transit is one of the safest ways to travel, thousands of passengers, as well as drivers, pedestrians, and occupants of other vehicles, are still injured or killed each year in bus-related crashes. Many of these incidents could be prevented if safety data was used to plan networks that are safer.”
“Partnering with GreenRoad allows us to do just that, by creating the first-ever integrated planning and safety system for public transport providers,” Haggiag adds.
To reduce risks, the partners are allowing operators and agencies to account for safety factors, such as collisions, speed and sudden acceleration and braking, at the network planning stage.
On the Optibus platform, planners can harness GreenRoad’s Safety Heat Map to visualise and assess the safety score of existing routes within their network. They can re-plan low-scoring routes to avoid hazard areas and increase safety, assess the impact of re-routing on the entire network, and support local authorities in identifying and fixing road hazards.
GreenRoad CEO David Ripstein says: “Early insight into route safety enables operators to reduce risks, save lives, and deliver better services to passengers. The combination of GreenRoad’s world-class safety data and telematics and Optibus’ cutting-edge transportation planning software creates a powerful, essential tool for ensuring the safety of mass transit.”
