Adding the missing links to trip chaining

In our quest to provide transportation planners and modelers with the most comprehensive insights into commercial freight activity, we knew how important it was to dive into the true purpose of commercial vehicle trips on the road. As the foundation for Geotab ITS’ Origin & Destination product, this aggregate data is used to examine key behaviors affecting the road networks across the country and the vehicle journeys taking place on them.

In particular, analysts were keen to see the true origins and destinations of vehicles by chaining trips together, a unique feature now available in the Geotab ITS’ Altitude platform. The original trip chaining algorithm was controlled by setting a minimum stop duration threshold to determine what was deemed a trip.

However, as more users started mapping aggregate journeys in our Altitude platform, we received customer feedback that there were actually a number of use cases that analysts were solving for that needed further refinement of the algorithm. So, we heard our customers loud and clear and worked to make updates to our trip chaining feature set that allow users to better control the parameters of their analysis

Our trip chaining algorithm is still entirely controlled by the user, but it now offers 6 additional parameters to define the journey by. Analysts can accurately control how a journey is defined and what is included in their trip chaining analysis. This is available in both the UI of Altitude as well as through our API services to allow for greater customization in analysis.

Here’s a breakdown of the new parameters we’ve added to our trip chaining capabilities:

• Users now have the ability to define whether a chained journey includes multiple stops within an established origin or destination. This is useful in scenarios where it may be of interest to understand how efficiently vehicles move through a particular space, such as a warehouse distribution center.
• Users now have the ability to view metrics related to stops within the journey that occur at defined destinations. This allows analysts to better understand how goods are moving and stopping during longer journeys, such as accommodating for hours of service at rest stops for commercial vehicles.
• Users now have the ability to control whether a journey is included in an analysis based on whether the initial or final stop duration is of interest or not. This ability can help analysts better understand the total traffic demand for an area of interest.

Our original trip chaining algorithm reported all stops for a journey between an origin and destination. However, this created a gap for planners that only cared about the final destination counts or were interested in understanding the amount of travel within an initial origin and final destination.

With our new parameters, users in the Altitude platform will be able to select additional use cases for their analysis and choose which trips they want to chain in their journey. This adds a new layer of insight to our transportation analytics engine and gives users more control over their findings.

For more information on how to use trip chaining parameters or to book a demo, contact us at its@geotab.com or use this form to connect with one of our data experts.