INRIX

History

INRIX was founded in 2004 by Bryan Mistele and Craig Chapman and spun out technology from Microsoft Research. Since 2005, the company has raised $129 million in venture capital funding over five rounds from August Capital, Venrock, Bain Capital Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Porsche SE, and Intel Capital. INRIX acquired ITIS (a provider of daily traffic and travel information to European drivers), ParkMe, and OpenCar in 2011, 2015, and 2016, respectively.

In November 2023, INRIX acquired the Portland-based shared mobility platform Ride Report.

Technology

INRIX collects anonymized data on congestion, traffic incidents, parking, and weather-related road conditions from billions of data points daily in more than 145 countries. The data is aggregated from connected cars and mobile devices, cameras and sensors on roadways, and major events expected to affect traffic. The company makes this analysis available through SaaS cloud-based applications for businesses and road authorities to understand mobility trends. INRIX works with local authorities to digitize rules of the road for highly automated vehicles (HAVs) operating on public roads, and information gathered from HAVs can be used for infrastructure improvements.

Applications

INRIX apps and APIs include: INRIX IQ, a suite of SaaS applications that compile and analyze traffic patterns, congestion, traffic signals, safety, and other transportation information used by commuters, businesses, and municipal planners;INRIX AI Traffic, which uses anonymized data from mobile phones and vehicles to provide historical, real-time, and predictive traffic data to road authorities and drivers; INRIX Parking, which helps users find available parking and compares prices.

INRIX products and analysis are used in three main areas.

Safety – Safety View by GM Future Roads and INRIX is an application used by city transportation planners to analyze data on vehicle crashes, traffic speed, vulnerable road users (e.g. pedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists), and US Census data. This information is used by local authorities to improve road safety and measure the effectiveness of road safety efforts. Safety View data was used to analyze road speeds and safety around 27 schools in Washington DC.

Efficiency – INRIX works with national, state and local DOTs to identify inefficiencies in traffic flow in real time, allowing local authorities to reduce congestion and vehicle emissions while saving time and money. The resulting infrastructural performance assessments are used to improve traffic-light timing, road configuration, signage and other mobility information.

Environmental – Transportation planners use INRIX data and tools to analyze traffic patterns, congestion, traffic signals, safety and another mobility information. Municipal and state transportation authorities use these insights to reduce delays and bottlenecks and other inefficiencies in their transportation arteries, thus reducing carbon emissions.

Partnerships

INRIX has formed partnerships with academic, state, local, and federal institutions to design and implement its research. These include Texas A&M Transport Institute and the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory (CATT Lab).

References

References

1. (2014). "Reality Mining: Using Big Data to Engineer a Better World". MIT Press.
2. (May 22, 2012). "Inrix Traffic 4 for iOS helps drivers avoid traffic congestion and estimate arrival times (video)".
3. Turnbull, K. F.. (2013). "Performance Measurement of Transportation Systems: Summary of the Fourth International Conference, May 18–20, 2011, Irvine, California". Transportation Research Board.
4. (April 9, 2018). "What's the most expensive cost U.S. drivers faced last year?".
5. Newcomb, Doug. (March 8, 2017). "Exclusive: How Data Can Help Cities Hone Deployment Of Self-Driving Cars".
6. Constine, Josh. (November 26, 2012). "Inrix Now Collects Traffic Data From 100M Drivers, Shows Black Friday Congestion Up 32.5% Despite Ecommerce".
7. Rao, Leena. (July 24, 2011). "Kleiner Perkins Leads $37 Million Round In Realtime Traffic Data Company Inrix".
8. Boston, William. (September 12, 2014). "Porsche Family Fund Buys Stake in Traffic Mapping Startup Inrix". The Wall Street Journal.
9. Korosec, Kirsten. (March 9, 2016). "Traffic Data Firm Buys Apple, Google Rival OpenCar".
10. (November 13, 2023). "Inrix to acquire Portland startup Ride Report, which helps cities manage mobility programs". GeekWire.
11. (June 9, 2022). "It's not Apple or Tesla, but Inrix has data from 500 million vehicles taking transportation into the future".
12. (December 7, 2021). "Traffic in Cities Is Rising but Still Largely Below Pre-Pandemic Levels". The Wall Street Journal.
13. Mikulski, J.. (2016). "Challenge of Transport Telematics: 16th International Conference on Transport Systems Telematics, TST 2016, Katowice-Ustroń, Poland, March 16–19, 2016, Selected Papers". Springer International Publishing.
14. (January 9, 202). "CATT Lab-powered analytics suite offers improved road network insights". Mark Allen Group.
15. (11 March 2019). "Inrix and SharedStreets to standardize road data for automated vehicles". Mark Allen Group Limited.
16. (February 24, 2021). "INRIX expands signal analytics to measure intersection performance". Mark Allen Group Limited.
17. (June 22, 2019). "Traffic tech company INRIX approaches its 15th birthday, looks to AI to drive its business". GeekWire LLC.
18. (June 3, 2018). "Inrix uses AI to tackle congestion and difficult traffic conditions". Smart Cities World Ltd.
19. Taub, Eric A.. (January 22, 2015). "The Technological Race to Find You a Place to Park". The New York Times.
20. (August 2, 2022). "Despite signage, D.C. drivers aren't slowing in school zones, study says.". The Washington Post.
21. "SIS Bottleneck Study - Technical memorandum No. 1 Data Review.". State of Florida Dept. of Transportation.
22. "Evaluation of Opportunities and Challenges of Using INRIX Data for Real-Time Performance Monitoring and Historical Trend Assessment. Final Report.". Nebraska Department of Transportation.
23. (7 June 2017). "Federal Highway Administration Partners With INRIX to Measure, Monitor and Report Health of Road Networks". e.Republic.
24. (2019). "Tools and Best Practices for Using Passive Origin-Destination Data". TEXAS A&M TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE.