Google's Quiet Breakthrough: How Hard Braking Data From Millions of Phones Could Predict Where the Next Fatal Crash Will Happen

Google's research has made a groundbreaking discovery that could revolutionize the way transportation agencies identify and fix the most dangerous stretches of road.

TL;DR
• Google's research uses hard braking data from millions of Android smartphones to predict road segment crash risk.
• This data can help transportation agencies identify dangerous roads and prevent fatal crashes.
• The research has the potential to save thousands of lives on American roads.

Summary
Road traffic crashes claim approximately 1.35 million lives globally each year, with over 40,000 fatalities occurring annually in the United States. Google Research has made a significant breakthrough by utilizing hard braking data from millions of Android smartphones to predict road segment crash risk. This approach offers transportation agencies a proactive tool to identify and address dangerous roads before fatal crashes occur.

The research team collected and aggregated anonymized hard braking events from Android devices, mapping them to specific road segments. They found a striking correlation between road segments with higher rates of hard braking events and actual crash rates. Road segments in the highest quintile of hard braking rates showed dramatically elevated crash rates compared to those in the lowest quintile.

The use of hard braking data presents several advantages over traditional methods, including the ability to identify high-risk locations in near-real-time and the potential for broader coverage. This approach could be particularly beneficial for rural agencies with limited data collection infrastructure. However, concerns regarding privacy, data governance, and informed consent must be addressed.

Key takeaways include:
• Hard braking data can serve as a powerful surrogate measure for crash risk on individual road segments.
• Aggregated and anonymized data from millions of Android smartphones can be used to identify hazardous locations.
• The approach offers a proactive tool for transportation agencies to address road safety challenges.
• Privacy concerns and data governance must be carefully managed in the implementation of this approach.

The research aligns with a growing movement in transportation engineering toward a 'Safe System' approach, which assumes that humans will inevitably make mistakes and that the road environment should be designed to prevent those mistakes from resulting in death or serious injury. By mapping failure points at scale, Google's data could help engineers redesign roads to be more forgiving of human error.

The era of relying solely on historical crash counts to guide road safety investment is drawing to a close. The smartphones riding in the pockets and cup holders of millions of drivers are generating a continuous, real-time safety audit of the nation's road network.