Every auto insurance provider in the U.S. is pursuing usage-based insurance at some level as a way to expand their market share.  There are a variety of approaches in how vehicle telematics are being utilized to retrieve driver behavior data and how insurance companies are utilizing the data to offer reduced insurance premiums. This is a wholly private sector approach to driver behavior changes through pricing that can have societal benefits. 

TTI is interested in insurance telematics research and the influence of insurance pricing in the following areas:

• Measuring societal benefits, including safety (crash reduction, teen and aging driver behavior), environmental (reduction in fuel consumption, emission, GHG), and system usage (reduction in driving and related reduction in congestion and infrastructure usage)
• Evidence-based public policy research in support of uniform state legislation
• Government role in educating the public on the benefits of usage-based insurance and incorporation of UBI into TDM marketing programs.

Featured Research 

Evaluating the Effects of Distance-based Insurance and Other Incentives on Travel Behavior in Texas

The Texas Department of Transportation was awarded over $1.9 million under the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Value Pricing Program (VPPP) to study the influence of pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) insurance and ridesharing incentives on travel behavior. TTI is the prime contractor for the research, performed in partnership with Infinity Property and Casualty and NuRide.  Some of the measures of driving behavior that will be evaluated by the research team include:

• Changes in vehicle miles traveled after application of distance-based insurance;
• Changes in mode use under incentive programs, and the change in the cost of travel due to the distance based insurance cost;
• Differences in travel behavior (mode choice, number of trips, trip chaining, vehicle miles traveled) under distance-based insurance by socioeconomic characteristics;
• Differences in travel behavior (mode choice, number of trips, trip chaining, vehicle miles traveled) between rural and urban drivers under distance-based insurance.

In addition, an emissions analysis will be performed that uses before-and-after VMT data to estimate the reduction in volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides along with greenhouse emissions under a distance-based insurance program.

The three-year study will run from January 2012 through December 2014.  For more information contact Trey Baker r-baker@ttimail.tamu.edu.