Whitepaper – Telematics and Data Science: Informing Energy-Efficient Mobility
The State and Alternative Fuel Provider Fleet Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) worked with Sawatch Labs (Sawatch) to analyze fleet vehicle suitability for transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and pilot the use of telematics data to perform the analysis. This effort supported improved understanding of how fleets mandated under the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) could use such information to support the acquisition of alternative fuel vehicles, or otherwise implement strategies to increase alternative fuel use. Data collection and analyses were completed for five EPAct-covered fleets that included vehicles from four states (Louisiana, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Colorado), and one utility (Florida Power & Light (FPL)).
The pilot projects were initiated with the intent to use a smartphone-based mobile application to collect telematics data from fleet vehicles and drivers. Initial conversations with fleet managers quickly revealed that some fleets already collect these data via other providers, in most instances using more traditional telematics devices connected to the vehicle’s onboard diagnostics port. To work with these fleets, Sawatch created a data-source-agnostic platform to work with any fleet collecting telematics data, regardless of provider.
With data in hand, whether collected via smartphone or traditional telematics hardware, and using Sawatch’s ezEV analytics package, each fleet was provided with an analysis of its vehicles’ suitability for transition to an EV. These analytics use telematics data to translate drive cycles and driving behavior for individual fleet vehicles into an EV Suitability score for each vehicle assessed. Each fleet project employed slightly different data collection methods, with varying vehicle use profiles and resulting recommendations for EV adoption. Data collection methods were broadly successful, with one exception: the method employed in Rhode Island was limited in its ability to generate an EV suitability assessment.
Data collection efforts reveal that smartphone-based data collection can be a valuable, low-cost tool where fleets have not yet made their own investments in more traditional telematics. Nonetheless, smartphones are not a sufficient replacement for traditional telematics technology. Instead, the two can complement one-another.
The duty cycles of each pilot project varied significantly, revealing both opportunities and challenges for the deployment of EVs into the fleets examined. EV placement recommendations were limited and may depend on changes to vehicle management/assignment for fleets with large geographic footprints such as Colorado and Louisiana. This could require ensuring that specific driving routes are placed on EVs while long-distance and overnight trips to rural and more remote parts of those states are driven in a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) or internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.
Conversely, fleets with more compact geographies, like those examined in Rhode Island and Connecticut, had better opportunities for EV deployment based on their operational profiles but saw significantly lower usage of vehicles overall in terms of total miles driven. The lower vehicles miles traveled could complicate these fleets’ ability to generate a sufficient return on their investment in EV technology in a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand, the FPL fleet vehicles, operating on a service territory duty cycle, exhibited high-mileage vehicles operating in known geographies with fairly consistent operational needs. Many of its duty cycles present good opportunities for EVs given the combination of high-mileage vehicles, minimal long-distance travel, and frequent access to facilities with existing charging infrastructure.
The results of this study suggest additional lines of inquiry, examinations that might best be undertaken with the Colorado fleet given its critical mass of EVs in operation and available data compared with the other four fleets that were part of this study.
Read the complete study and see suggested next steps that can be explored with the Colorado fleet by reading our whitepaper.
