DfT commisions research into telematics effect on young drivers

The research is being procured through the Government’s Crown Commercial Service and the project is intended to start in December 2014.

The purpose is to gain an understanding of the effect which telematics products have on the driving behaviour of novice drivers and the consequential impact which telematics could have on road safety.

The research will estimate the impact of the use of telematics products on the driving behaviour and safety of those using them, and to use this as the basis for quantitatively estimating the possible impact of the wider adoption of such devices on the wider population.

The DfT recogmises the need for a robust scoping stage before embarking on any such work and therefore expect the research to be carried out in two phases.

Phase one – Scoping – this scoping phase will be in three stages.

• The first stage will be to review the existing evidence on the impact of telematics on accident reduction based on a comprehensive review of data from the UK and the rest of the world. This will include looking at the experiences of other countries who have developed and implemented different policies around the use of telematics.
• The second stage will involve scoping out what primary UK insurance claims data is, and is not, available and considering how best this data can be accessed, compiled and ultimately used to estimate the likely percentage reduction in road traffic accidents which may result from the wider adoption of telematics products. This stage of the research will require discussions with the insurance industry.
• The third and final stage will be to scope and develop a methodology for using this data to create an experimental sample of telematics users and a matched sample of non-telematics users. These would need be designed in such a way as to allow robust analysis of the impacts both on this group but also for further analysis scaling this up to the wider population in a way that ideally accounts for any ‘selection bias’. This should be as robust as possible given the data available.

Phase 2 – Quantifying – the expected reduction in accidents and casualties generated by the use of telematics products amongst novice drivers. This phase of the research would involve carrying out the above primary research, based on the methodology proposed in phase one of the research (subject to any further revisions requested by the Department for Transport).