DC Velocity - January 2018

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24 DC VELOCITY JANUARY 2018 www.dcvelocity.com other drivers on the roads causing traffic, and you begin to get a clearer view of why solutions are needed that can help reroute drivers and get them to their destinations with the same safety and efficiency parameters as those given to aviation.

QIs the module available to shippers and third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) that work with truckers on behalf of their shipper customers?

AYes it is. The service is available across all corners of the industry.

QDo you have any data to quantify the cost of bad weather on the trucking ecosystem?

ABad weather costs the U.S. trucking industry more than $14 billion annually. According to the Department of Transportation, 22 percent of all U.S. traffic accidents are weather-related. Additionally, we know there were 438,000 large-truck accidents in 2014. So approximately 96,360 of those accidents were likely to be weather-related. If you look at the average cost per trucking accident, which we believe to be $148,000, and the number of total weather-related incidents in a year, it calculates out to more than $14

billion in costs to the industry.

QCan you describe the role that the Internet of Things (Io T) plays in your weather forecasting model for trucks?

AIoT is a critical piece of improving the driving experience because data collected from vehicles greatly deepens the volume and quality of real-time observations. This detailed understanding of the road state will move us far beyond the few thousand Road Weather Information System (RWIS) sensors that report today, enabling the monitoring of more roads and improving road-surface forecasts.

QCan truckers use these tools for nonbusiness-related purposes? AAbsolutely. Our dashboard has all of the standard weather features and information that you would see on television or on the Internet. In fact, The Weather Company supplies most of the weather data and graphics used by local broadcasters. This means truckers can plan for short and longer road trips in their “off-time,” as well as look for daily and weekly weather conditions.