Data Items

Our connected car data catalogue grows with every new manufacturer. Explore the variety of data items available via our Auto API.

Our Data Categories

Connected Vehicle Data

Using telematics devices, cars can distribute data for many purposes for an end-user. Car data is created by electrical sensors linked to the ECU or Electronic Control Unit. An ECU is linked to an onboard telematics device which transmits live data. A user in a central location receives this data over the air, with an end interface that can be configured in a way that works for their business.Many attributes of a car can be transmitted live or at set intervals using GPS and mobile data networks.

Using car data, fleet management companies analyse their vehicles to help reduce costs, prevent maintenance issues and schedule service appointments in advance. Governments and councils can use car technical data to better manage traffic. Insurance companies can have real-world use cases for their customers and the introduction of smart cities with connected cars results in more efficient infrastructure. Most importantly, emergency services receive live vehicle data to accurately locate an accident, with automatic triggers to call ambulances if the vehicle senses it is in a severe accident.
Our connected car data catalogue grows with every new manufacturer. Explore the variety of data items available via our Auto API.
Our data catalog on Airtable contains technical information specific to each data category, including its properties and their production availability.

What is an Accident Event?

To work out events of an accident an EDR (Event Data Recorder) or Black Box is used. To capture accident event data, the EDR records several necessary data points leading up to the accident.

The EDR takes data from key vehicle sensors and records it to be played back by the emergency services, investigators and insurers. Data can include acceleration change, location data, vehicle speed, throttle percentage, braking data, engine ignition data, airbag activation and ADAS recordings. The box can be physically retrieved after an incident by recovery teams or by the insurer and analysed. It can also be sent just as an incident occurs over the air using mobile networks to insurers, fleet management companies and emergency services.

Use Cases

This data is vital for emergency services to understand what happened. This includes the location of the incident and any other factors such as the speed of the crash. Knowing this data allows support teams to be distributed immediately to attend to the crash. 

Insurers can install a system to monitor driving behaviour and impose restrictions. Preventing nighttime driving to allow cheaper premiums, reward safer driving and collect driving habits from their fleet of insured vehicles.

It benefits insurers further as accident event data is used to see which party was at fault and get to the root cause quickly. Authorities can use the accident event data in courts and legal systems as evidence for prosecution.

Fleet management can work out what happened in an incident to prevent it from happening in the future. With drivers able to learn from their mistakes and improve their driving safety.