Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Pay-as-you-drive rates in the UK

CNet News takes up the thread on the UK insurer Norwich Union's pay-as-you-drive scheme currently in operation:

As far back as 2003, word got out that U.K. insurer Norwich Union was working on a pay-as-you-drive, in-car "black box" device. Early suppliers emerged, including IBM and Orange, for the telematics software and network coverage, respectively, and Intec--a company better known for writing billing software for telecommunications companies--also came onboard.

However, with in-car devices and customers now numbering more than 100,000, the kind of serious number crunching that needs to be done is based on software from data warehousing stalwart Teradata, an independently NYSE-listed company since the start of October...

...a trial using GPS-based IVUs (in-vehicle units) provided by Trafficmaster began in November 2003 and finished 11 months later. It involved 5,000 devices, 8 million journeys, and 15 billion journey points. The journey points were represented as dots on a map when a vehicle checks in with NU's central computers--in this case a mainframe--every few seconds...The U.K. government is eyeing plans for a pay-as-you-drive system to replace standard road tax discs.



Read more - 'U.K. insurer computes pay-as-you-drive rates'

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