OBD-II Device Helps You Save Fuel by Turning Safe Driving into a Competition

As reported by Zdnet: I love car apps. 

I regularly use the Waze app to find out what's going on with traffic (INRIX looks good too), Gas Buddy to find cheap gas, and RoadAhead to find out what food options are at the next rest area. I used to obsessively track my fuel economy with GasCubby until I got a car with the MPG on the instrument panel. I also love the iPhone-connected Cobra Atom radar detector, and commuting would be virtually impossible for me without the Downcast and Audible apps.

I just received my private beta Link hardware from Automatic and am enjoying it immensely. Automatic Link (pictured) is a small hardware device that plugs into your vehicle's diagnostic/data port (usually located just below the dash) that tracks your driving habits and gives you tips on how to save money by driving more economically.

Link connects to the free iOS app over Bluetooth Low Energy and displays driving data in an elegant and easy-to-understand user interface (UI) that tracks how many miles you've driven, driving hours, fuel usage (in dollars), and actual MPG, even for older cars that don't display fuel efficiency on the dashboard. 

An exceedingly cool features is that Automatic detects fill-ups and tracks local gas prices (on newer vehicles) to show you how much you're spending on each trip in real dollars. Automatic combines all the data it collects into a score on a 100 point scale and I was able to score a 96 in my first test of the hardware.

In addition to the data provided by the iOS app, the Link hardware contains a small speaker that emits different sounds to alert you when you're accelerating or braking too fast, or speeding — which can have a negative impact on fuel economy. 

While it bears a resemblance to the SnapShot device from Progressive Insurance, instead of ratting out your bad driving habits to your insurer (who could raise your rates or even drop you) Automatic only shares your driving details with you. You can read their privacy policy here. Insert your favorite NSA joke here.

In addition to its fuel-saving features, Automatic has several OnStar-like features, minus the recurring fees. The Automatic Link includes an accelerometer that can detect many types of crashes and can use your phone's data connection to report a crash to 911* with your name, location, and vehicle description. After help is dispatched, Automatic can send a text message to a loved one to let them know what happened, where you are, and that help is on the way.

Automatic can send you a push notification when the dreaded "Check Engine" light comes on and can decode the cryptic Engine Trouble Codes generated by your vehicle and offer possible solutions. For simple problems, you can even clear the light yourself saving a trip to the shop. It can even help remember where you parked, which I could have used when searching for my car in the long-term parking lot at midnight last night after a week's vacation. 

Check to see if your vehicle is compatible and find more answers on the Automatic QA page.

Taxing Fuel at the Local Level - County Fuel Tax Levies in Nevada Start a Trend

With Federal, State and now County taxes being levied on fuel,
combined with no recognized credit on Count taxes toward IFTA;
is this a kind of double taxation?

As reported by Fleet Owner: In a possible harbinger of how transportation funding will be generated in this country, Nevada’s Clark County recently passed a two-year fuel tax increase due to take effect Jan. 1 next year – an effort that should result in a 3-cent per gallon tax hike that’s expected to raise $700 million for transportation projects across Southern Nevada.

While local fuel taxes aren't necessarily new – indeed, Nevada’s Washoe County passed a similar fuel tax hike on diesel back in 2009, and we’ll get to that in a bit here – trucking’s involvement in crafting Clark County’s fuel tax plan certainly is, and the industry did so in an effort to head off some very nasty ripple effects.

Thus, as more and more local governments potentially line up to institute such localized fuel taxation, truckers may want to keep Nevada’s experience with such taxes handy.

First, let’s examine Clark County’s fuel tax plan more closely. First of all, it’s a county ordinance that indexes the fuel tax to inflation; a move that is expected to result in that 3-cent per gallon tax increase mentioned earlier.

That fuel tax boost will, in turn, allow the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) to issue bonds to fund 183 regional transportation projects, including developing Interstate 11, widening U.S.-95 in the northwest part of Las Vegas from Ann Road to Kyle Canyon, bringing the 215 Beltway to freeway standards, among others.

Here’s another key part of this tax plan: all of the funds generated by Clark County’s fuel tax hike will only go toward projects in Clark County.

Now, without indexing, RTC estimated that it would only have about $22.4 million per year over the next 10 years to spend on local streets and highway projects – equivalent to building one interchange per year, one mile of roadway per jurisdiction per year, or one beltway segment without bridges per year.

“Figuring out how best to raise revenue to fund roadway projects is an issue that not only affects Clark County but our entire nation,” noted Tina Quigley, RTC’s general manager, in a statement. “We believe that indexing the fuel tax to inflation is the quickest alternative with the least impact on our community to help address our streets and highways budget that will allow us to help create a transportation vision for our future.”

That’s all very nice, but Nevada’s truckers quickly realized that such localized fuel taxes don’t count towards International Fuel Tax Agreement or “IFTA” calculations – and that leaves carriers both large and small open to “double taxation,” Paul Enos, executive director of the Nevada Trucking Association, told me.

Now, as all truckers know, IFTA is a compact signed by the 48 contiguous states and 10 Canadian provinces to ensure that fuel taxes are paid not at the point of purchase (where a truck fills up on fuel) but at point of use. “This ensures that interstate trucking companies that travel on Nevada’s roads are paying for their use on Nevada’s roads, even if they do not buy fuel in our state,” Enos explained.

Thus every interstate trucking company is required to keep track of their miles traveled in every jurisdiction, and report those miles traveled to their base state, which then sends the revenue due to other states. If a carrier owes more to a particular state, Enos said, they send in a tax payment. If the carrier has paid too much they receive a refund.

Ah, but here’s the critical part: IFTA only deals with state taxes and will not collect, or credit, local taxes unless they are applied statewide.
Now, with that salient fact in mind, let’s return to Nevada’s Washoe County, which implemented an “indexed to inflation” fuel tax hike four years ago.

Enos explained that Washoe’s fuel tax hike initially started at 3 cents per gallon but has increased by about 3 cents per gallon every year since – and none of it counts towards IFTA calculations.

As an example of how that hurts truckers he pointed to Washoe-based carriers that operate a goodly portion of miles in nearby California. The Golden State imposes a fuel tax of 44.5 cents per gallon, whereas Nevada’s state fuel 27 cents per gallon. Ah, but truckers in Washoe County pay a further local fuel tax of 13.5 cents per gallon, meaning they are shelling out about 40.5 cents per gallon in total state and local fuel taxes. Yet that extra 13.5 cents per gallon doesn’t count towards their IFTA payments.

End result? Although Washoe County-based truckers actually pay 40.5 cents per gallon in fuel taxes, they only get assessed the difference between the California state rate of 44.5 cents and the Nevada state rate of 27 cents per gallon. This effectively is double taxation on the California miles because instead of having to make up only 4 cents per gallon in fuel tax differences between Nevada and California, Washoe truckers must make up 17.5 cents per gallon.

Enos told me that, for one Washoe County-based trucking firm that operates 80% of its miles in California, that translates into $120,000 in extra fuel tax payments to the Golden State per year. In a word: blech!

“On top of all that, the Washoe County fuel tax plan can’t be changed until 2019 until the bonds it’s indexed against come due,” Enos told me. “That’s why we got involved in the Clark County fuel tax effort: we wanted to ensure more Nevada trucking companies don’t become competitively disadvantaged due to higher fuel taxes.”

In Clark County’s case, then, the trucking community crafted a fuel tax rebate structure similar to IFTA’s and managed by Nevada’s department of motor vehicles (DMV). Enos explained that having a single state entity collect and manage and collect such local fuel taxes – DMV does the same for Washoe County – is critical as it significantly reduces administrative costs, thus ensuing more tax money ends up funding transportation projects.

Enos also believes that the trucking community should prepare itself for more “localized fuel tax hikes” as they are the wave of the future to his mind.

“No one wants to raise taxes; not the federal government, not the state legislatures,” he explained. “In our case in Clark County, the state legislature designed this fuel tax, allowed for DMV to collect and manage it, yet then pushed the final decision to implement it down to the board of commissioners.”

Enos also said Nevada’s trucking industry saw this coming for a while and realized it would be very difficult – if not impossible – to stop. “So we said how do we get involved to ensure our industry doesn't suffer competitively from this? I hate to be a trailblazer – it certainly isn't fun – but we had to face the reality of this [Clark County fuel tax] and make the best of it,” he said. “Given that it mirrors the current structure of IFTA, it’s a system that’s as fair as can be.”

Now we must wait and see how many other localities follow Nevada’s example, crafting fuel taxes to pay for local transportation projects. 

Five “Hurdles” Holding Back Adoption of Fuel Saving Systems for Trucking

As reported by Fleet Owner: A recent report compiled by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) and Cascade Sierra Solutions (CSS) on behalf of the International Council for Clean Transportation(ICCT) determined that five major “hurdles” are preventing many heavy-duty fleets from adopting a wide range of fuel efficiency technologies: hurdles that include lack of access to capital and uncertainty regarding payback calculations.

“The report clearly shows the gap between perceptions and reality of the adoption of technologies,” noted Mike Roeth, NACFE’s executive director. “If implemented, currently available trucking technologies could earn fuel savings of as much as $20,000 per truck with a payback time of less than 18 to 24 months.”

The five main hurdles identified in the report are: payback time and high initial cost of trucks; lack of access to capital; lack of credible information; insufficient reliability; and unavailability of technology.

Yet Roeth told Fleet Owner that lack of credible information on fuel savings is the single biggest barrier preventing fleets from adopting any number of technologies aimed at boost fuel efficiency.

“Most of the big fleets told us that if they get credible information detailing real-world fuel savings for a particular technology, then they usually can easily find the money to invest in it,” he explained. To his mind, credible information for payback analysis is the “main domino” that causes all the other barriers to fall away.

On the flip side, Roeth believes determining that a lack of “credible information” is the main hold up for adoption by many fleets is a major benefit, because it’s “a relatively easy problem to solve” via better constructed testing.

“One of the things we've found is that many technology providers will do a test with one fleet and believe that fleet’s operation is representative of the entire industry,” he pointed out. “So better research means looking more closely at all the different applications within the trucking business so such systems get placed in the right truck duty-cycle for maximum return.”

Using GPS to Measure a 'Quality' Stop

Which is more important: reducing overall miles or
managing miles and customer activity together?

As reported by Automotive Fleet: When you think of fuel costs, do you think of the price per gallon or do you think of the importance of each trip you make? Have you ever thought that your company appears to be keeping busy, but company growth is not reflecting the activity level?

GPS tracking technology promises to reduce the number of miles your fleet vehicles drive. But it's less about reducing miles or the most efficient trip—it's about valuing the quality of the stops you make.


Example 1
A distributor plans a 64-mile route—32 miles out, 32 miles back—to make an $80 delivery with a $20 profit margin on the goods being delivered. The minimum fleet cost to deliver any product or service on a 64 mile trip is $0.50 per mile, so this trip has a net loss of at least $12.

The distributor just paid the customer $12 to deliver the product to them.

Action Step: Create a Customer Profile
Profile each customer into a "customer type" and assign a priority on a scale of 1 to 5. Single piece, low margin, but frequent order customers can be grouped and served at greater net profit inclusive of the physical delivery costs.

Example 2

Evaluating customer location, routes and travel times can
help increase profit margins by detailing travel costs.

A national field service organization has several branch offices. Each branch office has an average of 16 vehicles. The company decides to deploy a GPS system to measure activity through the day, the number of customer stops, the duration of each stop, the distance between stops, the total miles driven, the starting time in the morning and the arrival time at the end of the day.

Before deployment, each vehicle drove an average 987 miles per week and made 20 customer stops. After deployment, the vehicles average 1,060 miles per week and 25 customer stops.

As the fleet manager, you care that these vehicles are driving more than they did before GPS and are therefore costing more in fuel. But consider this—the average mileage to serve each customer dropped by about seven miles by deploying measurement-based GPS technology. It is costing the company at least $3.50 less on average for each customer visit at $.50 per mile. Who has their eye on the ball for the company—the person wanting to reduce overall miles or the person managing miles and customer activity together?

Action Step: Measure Average Miles per Customer Visit
By valuing fuel and activity together, your company can best see the impact of fuel combined with mileage and customer visits.

Include Engine Diagnostics
Using asset management tools with engine diagnostics capable of reading VIN, mileage, voltage, oil and active engine faults will enable you to extend the maintenance of your fleet to a cycle of health-based maintenance. By monitoring the vehicle's engine health, you can keep your fleet running at the lowest preventive maintenance costs possible.

The Big Picture
"You can't manage what you don't measure." In good economic times, measurement technologies that include GPS with engine diagnostics, driver safety and mileage recording technology are often used to improve driver safety and reduce fleet operating costs.

Today, measurement technologies are even more needed to plan and make strategic decisions on where and how to direct field resources, sales, technical, support and delivery–everyone you've got.

Action Steps: Set Goals Based on Priority Customer Visit

• Record, measure as much as you can.
• Review how time is spent including commuting to work, while driving and with customers.
• Set goals based not solely on daily miles driven but on reducing the average number of miles per priority customer visit and measuring fuel consumed per customer trip.
• Monitor goals and communicate positive results with employees.
• Repeat steps 1 to 4. 

Smartphone Location Data Increasingly Used to Stop Fraud and Cyber Crooks

As reported by Inside GNSS: Establishing someone’s immediate whereabouts is emerging as a key element in preventing credit fraud and improving cyber security.

The technique uses location data, derived from GPS and other sources, to estimate the likelihood that the person making a request to enter a building, access a computer network, or use a credit card is actually who they say they are.

“Let's say that I'm in a mall, I just swiped my credit card — am I the person who is really carrying out that transaction or is it somebody else who's got hold of my card,” said Bhavin Shah, vice president of marketing and business development for cell-tracking firm Polaris Wireless. “The simple way to correlate it is the location of my cell phone. There is a very high likelihood —  nine times out of ten — that wherever I am, so is my credit card and so is my cell phone.”

Security companies, however, are going beyond just looking at location data. They are combining information on where you are with other elements in risk-assessing algorithms to estimate the risk of fraud. Finsphere, of Bellevue Wash., uses a 207-element fraud model to authenticate the ID of users when they make a credit purchase or access their online accounts.

“The way it works is that cardholders — with their permission, of course — provide us location," said Mary Reeder, Finsphere's chief technology officer. "They can provide us location one of two ways — it depends on the bank on how they want to offer the service. The location function can be embedded in a banking mobile app or can be handled through a network query — which does not require an app, making it usable even if the customer does not have a smart phone.

“So, say we've got a card-present transaction where I have traveled overseas and I've swiped my card at a merchant,” she continued. “The proximity of my mobile phone to that merchant is used to authenticate the transaction.”

This type of service helps banks in two ways, said Breeder,  

“All banks are interested in reducing their fraud. . . . That pain seems to be more acute in countries where fraud management is not as mature, say in South Africa,” Breeder explained. “But if you take the U.S., the UK, and the like, almost more important is managing the customer experience — which is basically reducing false positives. Those occasions where you, for instance, travel overseas, swipe your card and it is declined — even though it's a legitimate transaction.”

Though the location data can be from GPS signals, unaided GPS and even assisted-GPS is often too slow for credit card transactions, said Reeder. To speed things up Finsphere often relies on cell tower location for positioning.

“We are leveraging APIs [application program interfaces] that are embedded in underlying operating systems — whether that be Android, iOS, or Blackberry's,” she added. “It’s a public subscription model; so, our app would subscribe to this underlying service that says when there is a significant location change, ‘Take me out of a suspended state, report that information to me,’ and then our app sends it along.”

A significant location change typically equates to a cell site change, Reeder said.

The firm also provides authentication information for access to banking functions and to the computer networks of companies.

Their online banking service can be used at login, but the banks are more interested in using it where you have already logged on and been authenticated — usually through a username or password.

At that point, she said, you can view your balances with read-only access. If you want to do something more risky, such as add a new payee, or transfer funds, then they bank would tap Finsphere’s service.

“In this case,” she said, “[Finsphere] would be pairing the mobile phone location to the location of the GEO IP address of the end user’s browser.”

The exchange is similar in situations where you want to sign into a company’s computer network. “In that case we'd be embedded into the VPN solution, and we would be comparing remote location to your mobile phone location.”

GPS expert Logan Scott points out that location can be used to limit not just who is allowed access a computer system, but where files are sent. "Is a command file for printing a jet engine turbofan using selective laser sintering relevant at a specific location? Is it an authorized manufacture location? If not, don’t release the command file!” he wrote in "Proving Location Using GPS Location Signatures: Why it is Needed and a Way to Do It," a paper to be presented at ION GNSS 2013.

These sort of techniques may soon enter broader usage in cyber security through a program sponsored by the federal government. The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is weighing a number of proposals from firms including Finsphere for pilot projects to create a secure, easy-to-use, interoperable identity credentials for accessing online services.

Proposals were submitted in May, and the agency is expected to make its first awards as early as next month. Funding for the pilot projects is expected to range from $1.25 million to $2 million per year for up to two years.

Driving Tips on how to Reduce Fuel Expenses

Agressive driving can be a significant factor in fuel efficiency.

Here are some quick tips on how to increase your fuel economy, and lower the overall cost of operating your individual or fleet of vehicles:

Drive Sensibly 

Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gas. It can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. Sensible driving is also safer for you and others, so you may save more than gas money.

(Fuel Economy Benefit 5-33%  Equivalent Gas Savings $0.18-$1.19/gallon)

Observe the Speed Limit

While each vehicle reaches its optimal fuel economy at a different speed (or range of speeds), gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 50 mph.

You can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 50 mph is like paying an additional $0.25 per gallon for gas.

Observing the speed limit is also safer.

(Fuel Economy Benefit 7-14%  Equivalent Gas Savings $0.25-$0.51/gallon)

Remove Excess Weight 

Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your MPG by up to 2 percent. The reduction is based on the percentage of extra weight relative to the vehicle's weight and affects smaller vehicles more than larger ones.

(Fuel Economy Benefit 1-2%  Equivalent Gas Savings $0.04-$0.07/gallon)

Avoid Excessive Idling 

Idling can use a quarter to a half gallon of fuel per hour, depending on engine size and air conditioner (AC) use. Turn off your engine when your vehicle is parked. It only takes a few seconds worth of fuel to restart your vehicle. Turning your engine on and off excessively, however, may increase starter wear.

(Fuel Cost Savings $0.01-$0.03/min. [AC off] Fuel Cost Savings $0.02-$0.04/min. [AC on])

Use Cruise Control

Using cruise control on the highway helps you maintain a constant speed and, in most cases, will save gas.

User Overdrive Gears

When you use overdrive gearing, your car's engine speed goes down. This saves gas and reduces engine wear.

Note: Cost savings are based on an assumed fuel price of $3.61/gallon.

European Union countries in test of home-grown GPS system

Current Galileo GPS system with four satellites deployed.

As reported by UPI: Testing has begun on Europe's Galileo navigation satellites intended to offer highly accurate services to authorized users, officials said.

Transmitted on two frequency bands with enhanced protection, the Public Regulated Service (PRS) offers a highly accurate positioning and timing service to mostly governmental users, a release from the Paris headquarters of the European Space Agency reported Tuesday.

PRS access was initially planned for Galileo's Full Operational Capability phase by the end of the decade but was brought forward response to the strong interest of EU member states in the service, the ESA said.

The ESA has overseen the provision of several tools, including test receivers and other qualification equipment, for governments wishing to test the PRS system.

The ESA's technical center in the Netherlands provided training, demonstrations and sample data, the agency said.

"As a result, Belgium, France, Italy and the United Kingdom have now performed independent PRS acquisition and positioning tests," Miguel Manteiga Bautista, head of ESA's Galileo Security Office, said. "In parallel, ESA, through collaboration with Dutch and Italian authorities, is also conducting PRS fixed and mobile validation in several locations in the Netherlands and Italy."

The PRS tests have demonstrated a current autonomous positioning accuracy below 30 feet (9.1 meters), an impressive result considering the small number of Galileo satellites in orbit -- just four so far -- and the limited ground infrastructure so far deployed, the ESA said.

The ESA plans to have 30 in-orbit spacecraft (including 3 spares) in operation before the end of the decade.  The Galileo system operates on a different set of frequencies from the US GPS satellite system so that if one system is being jammed, the other would still potentially be available.

Galileo is intended to be an EU civilian GNSS that allows all users access to it. GPS is a US military GNSS that provides location signals that have high precision to US military users, while also providing less precise location signals to others. The GPS had the capability to block the "civilian" signals while still being able to use the "military" signal (M-band). A primary motivation for the Galileo project was European concern that the US could deny others access to GPS during political disagreements.