3147: How Cambridge Mobile Telematics is Making Roads Safer with Technology

[00:00:04] What happens when an MIT engineering visionary and a self-described atypical tech CEO come together to tackle one of the most pressing issues on our roads? This ain't a joke. Cambridge Mobile Telematics, or CMT, is the world's largest telematic service provider. And it's the result of that partnership, a mission-driven company making roads safer for millions of drivers globally.

[00:00:34] And with a foundation built on cutting-edge AI and IoT technology, CMT's DriveWell platform collects and analyzes data from smartphones, connected vehicles, dashcams and much more to offer unparalleled insights into driving behavior. And those very same insights are then helping insurers, automakers and governments incentivize safer driving, reducing crashes and rethinking how we approach mobility.

[00:01:03] So today I'm joined by the CMT and co-founders, Hari and Bill, who are going to share their journey, which began as what they described as being an odd-couple partnership, to building a huge unicorn tech company that's transforming road safety. And today I want to discuss their measurable impact of their technology, which has reduced crash rates by up to 20% in collaboration with their partners,

[00:01:30] and how this blend of engineering genius and entrepreneurial vision has fueled their success. From combating phone distraction to addressing the challenges of integrating safety technology into older infrastructures, CMT is undoubtedly at the front of tackling the complexities of modern mobility. But before we dive into their story, think about this, what role should technology play in making our roads safer?

[00:01:58] And how can partnerships between innovators, insurers and automakers better reshape the way we think about driving? And with our sat-nav set for our discussion today, it's time for me to introduce you to my guests. Welcome to the show, Bill. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? My name is Bill Powers. I'm the CEO of Cambridge Mobile Telematics.

[00:02:25] We are the largest telematics provider in the world. And I'm on with my wonderful business partner of 15 years, who's become my brother, Dr. Hari Balakrishnan. And Hari, would you like to tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do too? Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Hari Balakrishnan. I'm the co-founder, CTO, and chairman of CMT, a company we started.

[00:02:50] Bill and I started with our other partner, Sam Madden, about almost 15 years ago. I'm also professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at MIT. Well, it's a pleasure to have you both on the podcast. And if you don't mind me saying, they're quite an eclectic mix because we've got a Marconi prize-winning engineer. And Bill, you're a self-described atypical tech CEO. So how did these unique backgrounds and perspectives complement each other

[00:03:19] and ultimately collide to allow you to build Cambridge Mobile Telematics? Yeah, I wouldn't say collide. We were introduced by some investors in the Boston community. And as different as we might appear to be on paper, we are actually very similar in our thought process, our view of life, our view is of how we treat and deal with people, how we grow, how we collaborate.

[00:03:46] 15 years is a long time, and I've learned a lot from Hari. And I don't mean necessarily technology. I mean more just how he views problems, how he deals with folks, and how he looks to problem-solve. It's really been wonderful. And you often describe yourselves as the odd couple I read. And whenever I say that out loud, I almost feel compelled to do a Walter Metow impression and say, Felix, you're driving me nuts.

[00:04:14] But can you share the story of how you came together? What inspired you to tackle the challenges facing 1.5 billion drivers worldwide? There's got to be a story here, right? I had led a research project at MIT between 2005, 2004, 2005, and 2010 called Cartel, along with my colleague at MIT, Sam Mann. And around 2008 or so, we had got a lot of academic success.

[00:04:43] And the press had started writing about our project in the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, in particular one area of it called the Pothole Patrol, where we were using sensors attached to vehicles, mobile devices, et cetera, in Boston taxi companies to measure road surface conditions. And this led me to start thinking about commercial opportunities. Met Bill in 2009.

[00:05:08] And he had really, when I first talked to him, it was really interesting because although his background is completely different, these values, we share very similar values. And over the past 15 years, we really just hit it off and learned a lot from each other. I've learned a lot from him about how to think about organizations, about people, about making an impact on the world, on society.

[00:05:36] And we continue to focus on our mission, which is to make the world's roads and drivers safer. And really this idea of orienting ourselves around a mission and really sharing similar values around intellectual curiosity, around providing a framework, providing the environment so that everyone in our company, as well as our partners and customers can succeed.

[00:06:02] Those common values have allowed us to achieve whatever we might have achieved so far. And I really think we should celebrate some of these differences that have propelled your business forward because Cambridge Mobile Telematics has grown into a unicorn company, which is just phenomenal. I've got to ask, what were the key moments or maybe innovations that helped the company achieve this level of success? What do you think that secret sauce is? I'll answer the beginning part of this.

[00:06:30] I would say you need to start with really good people. In other words, it doesn't matter if somebody has the best technical skills or the best sales skills or the best product skills. If they're not good people, it just doesn't work. So I would say good people, hard work, and a shared vision. Hari, why don't you pick it up from there? Yeah, I think the people are very critical.

[00:07:00] So I would say there are three. I think it does start with that, with just having really great people. The second is really thinking about a mission and providing the environment for that mission to succeed, which in our case is to make the world's roads and drivers safer. That is very motivating. It's very compelling.

[00:07:24] And it allows us to then, you know, there's a phrase that people often use, which is you fall in love with a problem, not a solution. So we've really been motivated by this problem. And over the years have been able to invent and bring to market a wide range of solutions to that fundamental problem of safety and working with, you know, with our partners. And the third is the word I've used before, which is partnership.

[00:07:54] We don't view our customers as, we would like not to think of ourselves as merely vendors. We think of ourselves as partners who help our business partners and our consumers achieve success. So having a collaborative, partnership-oriented mindset, I think, is very important. So just to summarize, it comes from the people.

[00:08:16] It comes from a very compelling mission allowing us to fall in love with a problem and a partnership collaborative mindset rather than a technology vendor mindset. And on this podcast every day, I try and get people thinking differently about areas that are impacted by technology that you don't associate with tech. And driving safety is a global challenge and something you probably don't associate with tech. So I think you guys are a perfect fit for the podcast today.

[00:08:43] So how do you use technology to address this problem? And what has been the measurable impact so far? Because we often get obsessed by or distracted by technology. But it's that measurable impact. That's the belts and braces of any IT project. And you can share around that. Let's just look at the history of automotive technology and cars over the last 15 years. About 15 years ago, there were 1 billion vehicles on the road. Today, there's 1.5 billion.

[00:09:13] And within the next less than a decade, we have over 2 billion vehicles on the road. Now, if you look at the problem of safety, one of the main things that's changed over that 15-year time frame compared to before is the rise of the smartphone. Smartphones have become an indispensable part of our lives. But they've also led to a significant epidemic of phone distraction.

[00:09:41] I call these phones weapons of mass distraction. People old enough to remember 20 years ago or know what that phrase means or where it comes from. And the provocative aspect of what we did at CMT is to use the sensors on the phones, the same phones that have led to a rise in traffic crashes. One in three trips or more have significant phone distraction today.

[00:10:09] And between 25 and 30% of all car crashes have phone distraction happening within a minute before the crash. So these are significant causative factors. But the same smartphones that are the problem, we can use the sensors on these smartphones, as well as on really inexpensive Internet of Things, IoT devices, such as our drive-wheel tag device that we invented about 10 years ago,

[00:10:36] to measure people's driving and to provide incentives, such as rewards, such as insurance discounts, such as family safety, such as crash detection in real time with emergency roadside assistance, and automated claims processing using this sensor data to not only help people in times of crashes, but to reduce crash rates.

[00:11:00] And when you bring it all together and you work with partners in insurance, in mobility companies such as Uber, with car makers, and then with the public sector, you can start to make an impact by reducing crash rates. For example, with our partner in South Africa, they have shown, Discovery Insure, they have shown that with the right programs and incentives, the crash rates are 24% lower amongst the users of the program compared to the general population.

[00:11:29] Our partner in Japan has 18% lower crash rates. And we're seeing numbers that are statistically significant pretty much everywhere in the world. We're in about 25 countries now, and you're seeing this type of an impact. And the reason is that for the first time with the sensor data, accelerometer data, velocity data from these mobile devices and IoT devices, you can accurately measure how people drive and tie it to actual risk.

[00:11:58] And not only are these factors correlated with risk or safety, in most cases they also cause the problem. Phone distraction, inattentive driving leading to excessive amounts of hard braking, excessive speeding, way above and beyond what the other traffic on the road is doing. All of these cause traffic, cause crashes. But by making this information available to users and then providing the right feedback and incentives, we can actually lower crash rates.

[00:12:27] So what we've shown is not only, you know, the traditional ways of doing it are penalties. Like you give people traffic tickets. You know, they have the misfortune of getting into a crash. They probably, their insurance premium might rise. For the first time, we brought these products to the market with our partners that provide positive carrots, positive incentives, good feedback to lower crash rates. So our vision and what we've been able to achieve, although we're at the tip of the iceberg and there's a lot left to go,

[00:12:55] is to make roads safer by making drivers better. And also your engineering expertise has clearly had somewhat of a transformative impact here as well. You were recognized by the Marconi Prize, for example. So I'm curious, how has that experience helped shape your approach to solving some of these real world problems that we're talking about here through leveraging technology? Well, it is a technology-oriented set of services and products,

[00:13:23] but I think it comes again from understanding what we want to achieve from the standpoint of the change you want to make on the world or what types of applications you want to provide. So my approach in my research and engineering career has been really to try to work on impactful big problems where technology could play a role in seeing a different outcome.

[00:13:51] So some people approach engineering by finding really cool and interesting ideas in technology terms and then trying to invent new technologies, and then they figure out where it applies. I've had often an opposite approach, which is I start thinking about areas in which one could make an impact and then ask whether engineering ideas or ideas in algorithms or software or AI could be applied to those problems.

[00:14:20] So CMT was very much born from research whose focus was on improving transportation, broadly defined. That could be traffic conditions, it could be road safety conditions, it could be road hazard conditions on the road, it could be automotive performance. And then from that vision, we developed technologies and then we focused it on safety in the company. And Bill, with an entrepreneurial background, as a sales executive as well,

[00:14:49] how has your approach to leadership and business strategy influenced the company's growth and customer engagement? Because it's incredible the balance that you've got here. I'd love to learn more about how your approach has delivered success too. Yeah, I think you'd have to, in order to get a full answer on that, you'd have to kind of go back and look at the experiences I had leading up to it. And then starting 15 years ago when we got together as a company,

[00:15:17] we really didn't know what we were selling. We knew what problem could be coming. So imagine 15 years ago, many folks didn't have the future of mobility in mind. And, you know, it was, in order to learn where you're going, you have to take a look at where you've been. And I would say Hari and Sam and one of our other early partners, a gentleman named Louis Gerard,

[00:15:46] they had this really interesting vision of where the world was going relative to connectivity and consumer behavior in and around technology. So for me, my revenue generation or commercial view really was shaped through where is the consumer going? And then we would start to have those conversations with customers, not just about here's an off-the-shelf product, but how can we solve consumer challenges?

[00:16:16] How can we solve distraction? How can we tie that into a business philosophy? So when you bring that back to customer obsessed or partner driven as opposed to vendor driven, there were other companies in our space that started out and they used to say, well, our app is better than CMT's app. And we would politely chuckle. And it's not about the app. It's about the data derived from whatever signal you're gaining from the consumer. And then who are you working with going forward, whether it's an OEM, an insurance company,

[00:16:45] roadside assistance company, a tech company. So I'd love to tell you that I had a magic secret sauce or silver bullet, but it really had to do with understanding consumer behavior, understanding the problems we were trying to solve from a potential tech engagement. And then how would that potential tech engagement slash consumer challenge translate into what an insurance company would need or what a government or public sector group would need

[00:17:14] or what a roadside assistance company would need. And then when you focus on that lens in a broader world of mobility, then you have lots of different commercial avenues you can take. Love that. And if we do dare, well, if I dare ask you to look into my virtual crystal ball and looking to further to life in 2025 and beyond, I'm curious, what do you see as the next big opportunities

[00:17:40] and indeed challenges of using technology to make driving safer and smarter? And how are you preparing for this future? So I'm very excited that you asked this question because you're on the right path. You're looking at it the right way, Neil. So if you, I'll ask you a little question, a quiz I try to have some fun with. Do you have any idea what one of the biggest challenges

[00:18:09] for the Ford Motor Company and Mercedes-Benz were when they started producing automobiles? I'll give you a hint. I had a young analyst say to me, well, they didn't have enough chips. And he was very sure of himself, Neil. He knew the answer. Yeah. And he wasn't wrong. I mean, the fact they didn't have any chips back then makes him correct, but that wasn't the challenge. So any idea, Neil, what that might have been?

[00:18:39] No, not at all. No. It was roads. It was infrastructure. And because you had these vehicles, but they really weren't able to drive many places. So when you look at the world of mobility, infrastructure will be a big challenge that it's one thing to have an autonomous vehicle drive around parts of Northern California or newer cities with grids. But if you get into areas of the world globally,

[00:19:07] India, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Northeast in the United States with all the older cities and roadways, infrastructure becomes a very big challenge. So again, stepping back from the past and looking at what happened to examine our future, we're about the world of mobility, short-term, mid-term, and long-term. So 2025 is very different than 2030 and 35 and beyond.

[00:19:36] So we're working in all these areas to not only engage consumers, but perhaps even building roadways that are safer with this new world of mobility, or at least helping influence how they should be built. We're not going to actually have the cement mixer out there ourselves. Hari might, though. So he's a big cement mixer guy. Hari, anything you'd like to add to that answer? No, it's really very important to understand this.

[00:20:03] I'll just augment it by saying that if you look since 2017, we've had more and more technology in vehicles. And a lot of that technology is for safety. The investment in ADAS over a five-year time frame, the total investment in assisted driving, safety-related technologies in vehicles has gone up by 250%. It's a phenomenal investment. And the technology also has come down in price.

[00:20:31] So more vehicles have this, these safety technologies. But if you look over that timeframe, at actual crash rates, they have not come down. In some places, they've come down. In some places, they've gone up. But overall, the reduction in crashes, the reduction in serious crashes has not kept pace with this investment in technology. I call this the vehicle paradox. And there are many reasons for that. And one of the reasons is that actually the vehicles have become more complicated, not less, to operate.

[00:21:01] Now you have all these different warnings. You know, my favorite example is the thing that keeps me in my lane. But every once in a while, I want to move. And I have to wrestle with the vehicle because it's trying to pull me back. No, but I do want to move. I'm not saying the technology is all bad. I think it's good. But the human-machine interface is something that has become more complicated. Phone distraction is awful. So we put in these infotainment systems in the vehicle, and now we're distracted by those big displays, trying to figure out how to get the map to do whatever.

[00:21:29] And so I think there are many, many challenges ahead. And I do think its infrastructure is very critical to how the future of mobility will evolve. And I also think that the future of vehicle design relies on understanding that the world is going to be hybrid with respect to different types of vehicles, some human, some partial, some autonomous, coexisting. And last but not least, we cannot leave people outside cars away.

[00:21:59] We cannot leave them out of this revolution. 50% of the serious injuries caused by vehicles happen to people outside the vehicles. It's about 20% of the U.S., 50% worldwide. And when we talk about connected vehicles connecting everything, well, it's connected mobility is a better thing to aspire to because we want to take care of the pedestrians, the runners, the bicyclists, and the road workers.

[00:22:28] All of them have to be kept safe as well. It's not enough to try to keep people inside the vehicle safe. Even that we're not really doing successfully, even though there's a lot more technology. So I do believe very much that technology will make a huge difference in solving the problem, and that will happen over the next several years. But it's going to take a lot of effort, not just making vehicles smarter. Completely agree with you both. There are so many great points.

[00:22:56] On the topic of those giant screens or those bigger screens inside cars now, I was reading recently that some motor companies are going away from touchscreens and going back to buttons. It's like everything's going 90s. We're going back to buttons and away from touchscreens. Hold on, Neil. The 90s were a good decade. I mean, those are some formative years for me. That's not the 90s, baby. Come on now. You would be pumped. Spiral attack as well. That's coming back.

[00:23:25] It's interesting that he calls those years formative. Yes. Vanilla Ice was a legend. And still is, many will argue. And also I spent some time in Arizona. Tony, you were mentioning the road infrastructure there, Bill. And they've got all these autonomous vehicles that they're testing on those long Arizona roads. But those vehicles cannot perform on the kind of roads in those bigger inner cities. So there's a lot of work that still needs to be done, isn't there? Yeah.

[00:23:54] So technically they can perform. Yeah. The problem is the infrastructure in cities like that changes because there's nowhere. So if you think about whenever there is construction or something, you're dealing with narrow roads that weren't built contemplating what's happening today. And then you've got many non—I don't want to say that.

[00:24:21] Many non—there's some intelligent vehicles, but there's also a lot of human-driven vehicles. And humans were failed, were flawed, were distracted. And so the severity of accidents in many cases is actually getting worse. So even if the numbers have gone down, the severity has gone up. And we've got a lot of data that we've seen that happening, particularly during COVID lockdowns.

[00:24:48] And I think that is a topic we might have to explore on another episode. But before I let you go, I want to end on a bit of a fun note here. We're going to have some fun with you both here. I always ask my guests to leave either a book that means something to them that we can add to our Amazon wishlist or a song to our Spotify playlist. Guilty pleasures are allowed. Vanilla Ice is allowed. But Hari, I'm going to let you go first. Would you like to leave everyone listening with a book or a song?

[00:25:15] Well, the thing that I've been really fascinated by and listening to recently is a podcast called Empire. It's an amazing podcast on, as the name suggests, empires around the world. It's by William de Rimpel and Anita Arnand. Fantastic. Highly recommend. Ooh, nice choice. I'll be checking that out myself. And Bill, what are you going to leave everyone listening with? You know, music is really something special to me.

[00:25:44] I would say music is something that is very deep. It's very deep to individuals. And if you think about songs that move you from different parts of your life, I was joking about Vanilla Ice, but everybody knows that if you hear it in a club. And I have a music list that I play on the golf course.

[00:26:06] And I think one of the songs that is awesome and I always go back to is a song called by Bob Seeger called Turn the Page. And I graduated high school in 1985. Hari, that was a long time ago, if you don't recall that. I was born there. I don't know which time it was. So Bob Seeger, Turn the Page would be one that I would leave you with. What a great song that is. And Metallica did a cover as well, didn't they, if I remember right? Yeah, we don't. Metallica's wonderful, but we don't want to.

[00:26:35] We don't want to Sully Seeger with anybody doing a cover. 100% with you on that. That's like Warren's Eve on Werewolves of London saying somebody else did it. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to apologize for that. And we will get Bob Seeger and his silver bullet man added to the Spotify playlist. For anyone listening just wanting to find out more information about anything we talked about today, Cambridge Mobile Telematics, or indeed connect with either of you.

[00:27:05] Where would you like to put on everyone listening? You can go to our website, cmt.ai. Both Bill and I are on LinkedIn. So you can connect with us there. Awesome. Well, I will get those links added to the show notes so people can find you both easily. I'm going to go listen to Bob Seeger now singing Turn the Page. But more than anything, thank you for sharing your wonderful story with me today. Thank you, Neil. All the best. Keep it up. Happy holidays.

[00:27:32] As we wrap up this conversation today, I think it's inspiring to see how this collaboration has transformed a mission into measurable impact in the world. And CMT isn't just about technology. It's about saving lives, fostering safer driver habits, and addressing the challenges of modern mobility. But with creativity and innovation.

[00:27:56] From reducing phone distraction to enabling smarter crash detection and claims processes, their work for me is redefining road safety in tangible ways. But what are your thoughts for the future of driving safety? Can technology alone solve the challenges of our roads, or does it require a broader cultural and collaborative shift? I'd love to hear your insights. Please join the discussion. Share your perspective.

[00:28:23] Email me, techbrokeriteroutlook.com, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, just at Neil C. Hughes. But now it's time for me to kick back, relax, put on Bob Seeger and his silver bullet band singing Turn the Page as we hit the road. But where we're going, we don't need roads. Speak with you all tomorrow. Bye for now.