Adjust driving behaviour, reduce emissions
My Clean Break column today takes a closer look at a project being led by Ottawa-based Netistix Technologies, which is a vehicle telematics company primarily focused on fleets. With funding help from Sustainable Development Technologies Canada, the company wants to expand its technology beyond fleets to the consumer market. The goal is to provide an affordable, easy-to-use driver feedback service that would help vehicle owners drive and maintain their cars as efficiently and affordably as possible, with the result being less fuel consumption and reduced emissions.
The diagnostic and driving information would be wirelessly beamed to a Netistix server whenever the vehicle owner visited a participating service station. Wi-Fi would be the technology of choice. Once collected, the driver could access feedback reports on the Web or get alerts pushed to them via e-mail or text message.
Will be interesting to see how this experiment unfolds, and whether drivers can truly benefit from the information they receive. More important, whether drivers actually act on the information they receive.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca