Driver profiling system and method

1. A computer-implemented method of profiling a driver comprising:

obtaining, by a position sensor mounted on a vehicle, data representing motion of the vehicle;

generating a network of links from a road map;

generating, for a link of the network of links, one or more link indexes, at least one link index being associated with a feature of the link that influences a behaviour of the driver of the vehicle travelling along the link;

identifying, by a processor, events in the data representing motion of the vehicle, the events including acceleration events and braking events characterised by a speed at which the vehicle was travelling when respective event occurred;

selecting, by the processor, one or more of the events based on a profile index associated with the respective event and on at least one attribute derived from the respective event, the profile index relating to the link on which the vehicle was travelling at a point during the respective event, wherein the profile index relating to the link is derived at least from the one or more of the link indexes relating to one or more features of the link that influence a behaviour of the driver of the vehicle travelling along the link;

determining, by the processor, a driver profile from the one or more selected events;

characterising, by the processor, the driving behaviour of the driver on a basis of the driver profile; and

providing an output interface comprising a display of an overall driver score presented in conjunction with one or more sub-scores that provide a measure of the characterised driving behaviour of the driver.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the at least one attribute derived from the respective event includes at least one of: a start time of the event; a finish time of the event; a duration of the event; a start location of the event; a finish location of the event; an intermediate location of the event; a start speed; a finish speed; or a maximum rate of acceleration or braking.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the profile index relating to the link is further derived from one or more indexes that are time-dependent or driver dependent.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the one or more events further comprise one or more events selected from the group consisting of: speed events, cornering events, familiarity events recording that the vehicle has driven on a specific road link and distance events.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the one or more link indexes include at least one index specifying a road classification of the link on which the event occurred, and wherein the road classification includes at least one of: a road category and a road setting.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the determining the driver profile further comprises grouping events by both event category and profile index.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising deriving an analysis profile from the driver profile, the analysis profile containing less details than the driver profile.

8. The method as claimed in claim 7 wherein data points in the driver profile are, for at least one profile index, classified against a plurality of possible values for the profile index, and wherein deriving the analysis profile comprises selecting data points corresponding to a subset of possible values of the profile index.

9. The method as claimed in claim 7 wherein data points in the driver profile are, for at least one profile index, classified against a plurality of possible values for the profile index, and wherein deriving the analysis profile comprises merging two or more possible values of the profile index.

10. The method as claimed in claim 7 further comprising comparing the analysis profile to a reference profile.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10 wherein the reference profile is a profile for one or more advanced drivers or wherein the reference profile is a profile for one or more drivers of approximately same age or driving experience as the driver.

12. The method as claimed in claim 10 wherein the reference profile is a profile obtained by combining at least a first profile for a first group of drivers and a second profile for a second group of drivers.

13. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the position sensor is independent of a main bus of the vehicle.

14. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the position sensor is a GPS sensor.

15. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the position sensor records at least a position of the vehicle at successive sampling times.

16. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the data representing motion of the vehicle is transmitted to a processing location.

17. The method as claimed in claim 16 wherein the data is transmitted to the processing location in real time or in near real time.

18. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the data representing motion of the vehicle is filtered, the filtering applied being selected based on the position sensor.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

generating a network of links from a road map;

generating, for a link of the network of links, one or more link indexes, at least one link index being associated with a feature of the link that influences a behaviour of a driver of a vehicle travelling along the link;

identifying events in data obtained by a position sensor mounted on the vehicle, representing motion of the vehicle, the events including acceleration events or braking events characterised by a speed at which the vehicle was travelling when respective event occurred;

selecting one or more of the events based on a profile index associated with the respective event and on at least one attribute derived from the respective event, the profile index relating to the link on which the vehicle was travelling at a point during the respective event, wherein the profile index relating to the link is derived at least from one or more of the link indexes relating to one or more features of the link that influence the behaviour of the driver of the vehicle travelling along the link;

determining a driver profile from the one or more selected events;

characterising the driving behaviour of the driver on a basis of the driver profile; and

providing an output interface comprising a display of an overall driver score presented in conjunction with one or more sub-scores that provide a measure of the characterised driving behaviour of the driver.