The Eastern Research Group (ERG) studied the usefulness of using vehicle telematics data to create vehicle emission inventories. The study has been published by the Coordinated Research Council, Inc (CRC).

ERG surveyed several data sets and analytics platforms and vetted them before embarking on a more detailed study. They selected three sources, these included Moonshadow Mobile’s DB4IoT Platform with INRIX data, StreetLight Data’s Insight platform and Otonomo data.

Data from StreetLight were used to estimate total Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) within their study area. The study area was the 10-county Denver metro area. ERG verified StreetLight algorithm for scaling up telematics trip counts to total VMT “ by scaling up the Moonshadow/INRIX data to Colorado DOT traffic counter data, coming within two percent of StreetLight’s estimate for the same period.”

The study showed that the total estimated VMT derived through telematics was 34 percent higher than estimates used by the EPA.  VMT is the most important factor in estimating total vehicle emissions. The large discrepancy between the VMT derived from telematics data and the EPA estimates warrants further study to ascertain if VMT is similarly under counted in other regions.

ERG found Moonshadow’s DB4IoT Platform with INRIX data especially useful for emission hot spot analysis. ERG used the platform and the data to estimate vehicle activity near Denver’s football stadium following an NFL game.

ERG concluded that telematics data “is a sea change with respect to sample size, geographic coverage and temporal coverage of the data.” compared to the instrumented studies which have populated EPA and CARB emission inventories since the 1990s.  However,  ERG also points out that the data is not specific for emission studies.

With climate change increasingly effecting people’s life and well being, there is a clear and important  opportunity for Moonshadow and other data and platform providers to increase the usability of their products for vehicle emission studies.

Access to a pdf of the full report here