Truck telematics: Technology review, policy options, roadmap
High-quality freight and truck telematics data collated and visualised to suit a wide range of decision requirements of various stakeholders to help better inform policy decisions and business operations across Australia road infrastructure and transport networks.
This project will develop a tailored roadmap for the governance of truck movement data by systematically analysing current and future policy and data sharing landscape for truck telematics data.
It will support the National Freight Data Hub (NFDH) to enhance the collection and timely access to a wide range of data to improve strategic planning and day-to-day operations, evaluate the efficiency of the Australian freight network. and recommend data-driven means to improve its resilience.
Project background
Information on how much and where freight moves is important to informing policy and planning future road infrastructure needs. Road freight data has historically been collected using a mix of methods, including large-scale sample surveys, road-side surveys/interviews, and classified traffic count and/or (fixed location) weigh-in-motion sensors.
Traditional methods can be expensive, and in the case of surveys impose considerable burden on respondents. Advances in digital technology, wireless network communications and GPS-based location services, has led to growth in use of location-based tracking of freight vehicles.
Today, many freight vehicles in the Australian fleet automatically report their location at regular intervals so business-owners can better manage their fleet. When combined and de-identified, such data can potentially be used to inform a wide range of decisions across various stakeholders, including better inform policy and infrastructure planning decisions, road network operation and management, and business operation decisions. Moreover, telematics data is potentially more cost-effective, provides richer detail and imposes less burden on stakeholders than traditional data collection methods.
This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of QUT researchers with expertise in data architecture technologies and solution design, digital infrastructure strategy, transport planning, telematics data services, and social justice and a strong track record in successfully delivering industry relevant outcomes to design the proposed roadmap.
It will directly support one of the priorities of the NFDH to evaluate the suitability of the already available truck telematics data from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) and from Transport Certification Australia (TCA) and provide recommendations regarding the accuracy and usefulness of visualisations and catalogue data (datasets for future release under an enduring NFDH website), noting the different governance arrangements covering various existing collections.
Project objectives
The objectives of this project are to:
- examine the current and future policy and data sharing landscape for truck movements data in Australia;
- systematically analyse the future data architecture and system requirements to access, use and dispose of truck telematics data; and
- develop a clear and tailored roadmap for efficiently collecting and managing truck telematics data from a range of partners efficiently and securely.
Project wrap-up
This project has been completed, and a wrap-up has been published at: Improving road freight outcomes with telematics data: A roadmap. Included is information on use cases, the roadmap, and conclusions and findings.
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