Zoomcar is now using this AI tech to make driving safer on Indian roads

The cost of road accidents to India’s economy is reckoned at around 3% of GDP, with 1,41,526 persons killed in 2014, as per NCRB 2015 report.

In view of this challenge, Zoomcar, India’s first self-drive car rental company, has signed a joint agreement with ICICI Lombard to make driving more secure and safe in India.

What this will basically do is use safety control and warning systems using monocular video processing algorithms running on a system-on-a-chip architecture (“EyeQ”) computing platform.

Mobileye ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) is designed to prevent road accidents that occur primarily due to driver inattention.
The system provides three primary warning types: lane departure, headway monitoring, and forward collision warning. The technology is based on a small camera located on the inside of the front windshield using image processing that provides warnings in dangerous situations.

Mobileye has been installed by Zoomcar in the first 40 Mahindra and Ford vehicles starting with the capital, New Delhi, followed by other metro cities in India.

How it works

A speeding alert system enabled via an in-car ‘smart device’ helps the company monitor the speed of its vehicles in real-time and penalise over-speeding customers. With the recent advent of novel Bluetooth based hardware tied to the OBD (on-board diagnostics) port, Zoomcar actually monitors the driver performance by assessing braking, steering, and fuel efficiency.

This new platform also provides feedback on in-trip fuel efficiency, thereby helping to ensure that the driver can save significant money on fuel (the largest variable cost on any trip).

Overall, this deep learning system undoubtedly makes the self-drive industry far safer than other technology powered transportation solutions like on-demand taxis and buses.