TrueMotion Impact Detects Car Crashes Using a Smartphone

BOSTON, MA and CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - Sep 7, 2016) - TrueMotion, a technology company that leverages the power of smartphone technology and big data to improve road safety today announced the availability of TrueMotion Impact, a smartphone app that can detect when a vehicle has been in a collision. TrueMotion Impact automatically notifies first responders, connects with emergency services and subsequently facilitates the claims process saving time and money. Announced today at TU-Automotive's Connected Car Insurance USA event, Impact is now available for licensing by insurance companies.

"With the rate of auto accidents increasing at an alarming rate, largely due to distracted driving, our goal is to put crash detection and assistance in the pocket of every insurer's customer," said Vance Loiselle, CEO of TrueMotion. "With TrueMotion Impact we have harnessed the power of the smartphone to provide the safety benefits of in-car crash technology into an app on a smartphone. Soon every consumer will have access to automatic emergency response and the peace of mind that goes with it."

TrueMotion Impact combines the accuracy of in-car hardware-based devices with the simplicity of a smartphone app. TrueMotion's recent innovations and intellectual property in identifying the driver, phone position and location (i.e., cup holder, mount, in a pocket or hand, a bag in the back seat, etc.) was critical to modeling the very different signals (and g-force) produced and captured by the smartphone sensors. As a result, TrueMotion Impact is able to identify and distinguish between a low and high-speed crash and eliminate false positives, such as hard braking or simply dropping the phone on the floor.

These data science innovations combined the creation of the largest known smartphone dataset of more than 3,000 crashes involving live car-to-car and car-to-barrier crashes. In addition, Impact has also been verified against nearly 1,000,000 miles of actual driving data. The company conducted live crash testing with Calspan, the leading independent engineering, test, evaluation and research service company. Calspan is used by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and nearly all automotive OEMs to test and certify their products. The company has posted a video that shows the crash tests and describes in detail the algorithms it has developed to detect a crash.

"TrueMotion has set a new standard for thoroughness and volume when it comes to testing a smartphone-based crash detection application," said Greg Campbell, Senior Director of Test Services at Calspan. "Through our testing, they were able to measure the effects of accidents on the phone factoring on various locations and positions within the car, such as in a dashboard mount, in the driver's pocket, lying loose on passenger seat and in the driver's hand near the ear, producing an incredibly rich set of information about what a crash looks like through the bits and bytes of a mobile device."

TrueMotion Impact will help insurers deepen customer loyalty by offering timely and useful service at a critical moment. For customers, the app will immediately notify loved ones and dispatch emergency aid in the case of a crash, helping ease the stress of an accident and potentially saving lives. For insurers, the app will also provide critical data and insights about location, conditions, time of day, speed, braking and other information necessary to enable quick and efficient processing of claims.

TrueMotion is initially offering Impact as either a Software Development Kit (SDK) or as a turnkey service. In addition, it can be an add-on module to TrueMotion's core Usage Based Insurance platform already in use by major insurers, including Progressive, and others in the U.S. and Europe. Later this Fall, Impact will be integrated into TrueMotion Family, the company's safe driving app for families with teen drivers.

About TrueMotion
Headquartered in Boston, Mass., TrueMotion brings the power of data and mobile technology to address the growing problem of distracted driving, which is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance claims each year. TrueMotion's core technology platform enables insurance companies to distinguish between safe and risky drivers, reward safe drivers and help reduce the number of driving accidents. It offers TrueMotion Family, a free mobile app that makes it fun and easy for everyone in a family to track each other's driving behavior and to stay connected while on the road. More information is available at goTrueMotion.com.