Wejo data platform to accelerate autonomous vehicle development

Vehicle data specialist Wejo - which collects live data from 18 million vehicles and has clients including Amazon, national governments and 17 car manufacturers - has announced a new smart platform that aims to pool all the data it receives to deliver greater insights for autonomous vehicle developers than previously possible.

The platform, called the Wejo Autonomous Vehicle Operating System (AV-OS), has been set up to interpret real-world driving data and use it to inform development of self-driving vehicles. Wejo says it anticipates this will unlock “never-before-seen insights” and support “the rapid acceleration of AV testing”.

The data processed on the platform will be made available to any autonomous vehicle developer, regardless of any association with Wejo.

The company says it hopes the pooling of information on the platform will allow faster development of autonomous vehicles, bringing with it safety and environmental benefits. Wejo estimates that at peak times it receives 650,000 data points a second, and that it has data from 76.7 billion journeys in its database to date.

Wejo CEO Richard Barlow said: “The widespread adoption of autonomous driving is integral to safer roads, lower emissions and a significant reduction of traffic accidents. Automotive accidents and emissions combine for a staggering 9.3 million deaths per year.

“But without cross-industry collaboration, innovation will be slow. By democratising access to connected vehicle data, our AV-OS platform will remove barriers to widespread AV adoption in ways never before possible, rapidly reducing development time.”

Barlow said Wejo’s expertise lies in turning vehicle data into actionable insights into vehicles and that will substantially reduce development times. Asked about concerns regarding user privacy, he said: “I’ve always been clear. We have to be open and up front about giving consumers the right to opt out, and we have to be clear about what the advantages of sharing the data are.

“My belief is most people will see that this data can be used for the good of society.”