At IAA Commercial Vehicles 2016, Astrata Europe, formerly known as Qualcomm, and EIT Digital present the first working prototype of the end-to-end fitness solution 'Fit to Perform' and its potential with telematics integration. It tackles health risks for professional truck drivers, increases road safety and will improve profit margins for the transportation sector. Fit to Perform is an EIT Digital innovation activity that monitors the driver's vital signs and informs the driver and company on safe driving limits.
The integration into the Astrata telematics system allows transportation companies to track the wellbeing status of their drivers and optimize their fleet management. By determining the health level and sleep quality through measuring heart rate variability, skin temperature and galvanic skin response, the wearable Fit to Perform predicts when drivers may need a rest. When necessary the working hours can be adapted, which will improve the driver's quality of work and life and benefit the company with higher profit margins.
"We are happy to give the IAA audience a preview of Fit to Perform before it launches on the market in 2017. There is a high demand for fitness monitoring in the transport industry. For many people and businesses, truck driving is the most important source of income. But it creates a lot of stress and allows little exercise for the truck drivers. This causes, not only obesity and cardiovascular diseases for the drivers, but also a threat to road safety and economic values for the trucking companies due to ineffective working hours. We can easily avoid these causes by measuring the fitness status and predicting the driving limits," explains Jean Gelissen, Head of EIT Digital's Wellbeing Innovation Action Line.
"Fit to Perform is an innovative step into the future we are making today. We need to focus on improving the health condition and overall wellbeing of the drivers for safer operation for the business as well as for society. We recognise this project as a milestone in development for the transport and logistics industry, which could significantly change the way we perceive driving as an occupation and its impact on environment." says Antoine Mathiaud, Director Sales and Marketing at Astrata Europe.
Fit to Perform is a High Impact Initiative of EIT Digital's Wellbeing Action Line. As a research driven innovation of EIT Digital it will benefit the market by displaying a positive relation between physiological features, driving behaviour and a link to existing telematics solutions for primary and aftersales, which may result in higher profit margins of transportation businesses. Astrata is proud to be a partner of EIT Digital introducing the innovation to the transport and logistics industry. Other EIT Digital partners that co-created Fit to Perform are: Bittium, DFKI, Imperial College London Philips, TNO, TU Eindhoven and University College London.
The EIT Digital Action Line Digital Wellbeing leverages digital technologies that support the prevention of and coping with mental and physical impairments. The Digital Wellbeing activities have the goal to slow down the growth of healthcare expenses while maintaining quality of life.
Find out more about the initiative: contact Astrata or visit the official EIT Digital website.
