Protecting a World in Motion
At Lytx®, innovation isn't just a buzzword—it’s a way of life. For more than 25 years, we’ve pioneered solutions that help protect fleets and their drivers. That’s where Lytx Lab comes in. Lytx Lab is designed to push the boundaries of innovation for fleet safety and operational efficiency while supporting our company mission to protect a business’ most valuable assets in motion—their people, their equipment, and their reputation.
What is Lytx Lab?
Lytx Lab is more than just a product incubator—it’s a collaborative environment where Lytx teams, safety experts, and customers come together to test, validate, and optimize product ideas before they are rolled out to the broader market. It’s a proving ground for innovation, where experimental features are trialed in real-world conditions to ensure they deliver tangible value to fleet operations. Unlike beta programs that may focus on releasing near-finalized products, Lytx Lab is where ideas are born, designed to gather feedback and improve features long before they’re fully commercialized.
The core principle of Lytx Lab is to walk the talk—we don’t just talk about working with customers; we collaborate with them on the development journey, ensuring their real-world needs are reflected in our solutions. Through this iterative process, we can quickly identify what works, what needs improvement, and what innovations should move forward to full deployment.
Fostering Continuous Improvement
The transportation and logistics landscape is evolving at a rapid pace, driven by technological advancements and shifting safety regulations. Fleets face new and complex challenges every day, from ensuring driver safety on increasingly congested roads to responding to unpredictable conditions. Lytx Lab fosters a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement to develop innovative solutions that keep pace with these changes and emerging needs.
As the only company in the industry with a program of this kind, Lytx Lab helps us maintain our leadership in fleet technology by rapidly developing and testing new ideas. It provides the transparency and agility that fleet operators value, giving them an inside look at how Lytx continually innovates to solve their problems. With more than 850,000 vehicles connected across the globe, Lytx Lab is uniquely positioned to harness data and insights from the world’s largest network of fleet vehicles to shape the future of safety.
Why Lytx Lab Matters
What makes Lytx Lab truly groundbreaking is its ability to turn customer feedback into rapid product evolution. Customers participating in Lytx Lab can provide direct feedback that shapes product features before they are fully commercialized. This agility not only makes our product offerings more robust but also ensures that we are delivering tools that meet real-world fleet needs.
Key Features Driving Fleet Efficiency
Lytx Lab offers a suite of experimental applications designed to solve some of the most pressing challenges faced by fleets today. By testing these features in real-world settings, we gather the critical feedback needed to refine and commercialize them. Here are some of the key features developed in Lytx Lab and how they benefit fleet operations:
1. Weather Hazard Alerting: Keeping Drivers Safe in Unpredictable Conditions
- Notify drivers of hazardous conditions
- Re-route drivers
- Interact with real-time data
One of the most valuable features tested in Lytx Lab is Weather Hazard Alerting. This tool uses AI-powered geospatial technology to provide fleet managers with real-time alerts about hazardous weather conditions based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Weather-related accidents account for 21% of all vehicle crashes in the U.S., and 70% of U.S. roads are in regions that experience more than 5 inches of snow annually. The Weather Hazard Alerting feature enables fleet managers to receive automated email notifications when severe weather, such as snowstorms, flooding, low visibility, or extreme winds, are forecasted near their vehicles. They can use this information to re-route drivers, pull vehicles off the road, or take other precautionary actions to mitigate risk.
Additionally, this feature is enhanced with in-cab audio alerts which will notify drivers directly of approaching hazardous conditions, enabling them to take proactive safety measures before encountering dangerous weather.
We recently made a presentation to our safety management team about the weather alerts and the road conditions AI features, and how effective they are across our operation. These elements work really well and are a big hit!
An interactive, layered, and unified map for enriched insights
Interact with data by overlapping layers for enriched insights and more informed decisions.
2. Route Risk: Understanding the Most Dangerous Routes
- Plan routes that avoid dangerous areas
- Re-route drivers
- Voice alerts to warn drivers of high-risk areas ahead
Route planning is critical for fleet safety, and Route Risk helps managers assess and avoid high-risk routes. The Route Risk feature analyzes data from over 50 million collision reports spanning the last decade to identify accident-prone areas. It highlights more than 25 potential hazard types, including areas with slowing traffic, pedestrian crossings, and wildlife like deer. Managers can use this data to plan safer routes for their drivers, reducing the likelihood of accidents and improving operational efficiency.
Drivers can also benefit directly from this feature via the Lytx Driver App, which provides voice alerts when they are approaching risky areas, allowing them to adjust their driving accordingly. Whether you’re managing local deliveries or long-haul trips, Route Risk equips fleet managers with the insights needed to keep drivers safe on the road.
Route Risk for mobile is a great example of a feature that was tested in the Lytx Lab and then made available to all users several months later.
The specific place search feature is ideal for us. The ability to see the whole United States is a huge benefit for a big fleet like ours. This is valuable information to help prepare our current dispatch and upcoming dispatch plans!
3. Road View: Real-Time Visibility of Road Conditions
- Access near real-time images of road conditions
- Plan routes based on live data
- Re-route drivers
For fleet managers, real-time information is key to making quick, informed decisions, especially when conditions on the road can change rapidly. Road View, another feature currently in Lytx Lab, allows managers to access near real-time images of road conditions captured by an extensive network of participating Lytx dash cams.
This feature uses Lytx’s camera network to deliver up-to-date visuals of road surfaces, traffic, and weather conditions from vehicles currently on the road. It enables managers to evaluate current conditions and adjust driver routes or schedules based on live data. Importantly, Road View includes privacy protection measures—no personal identifiable information is displayed, and only external images are shared.
4. Parked-Highway/Ramp Alerts: Managing Dangerous Stops
- Identify vehicles parked in dangerous locations
- Alert fleet managers or unsafe driver parking
- Direct drivers to safer parking
Drivers often need to pull over on highways or ramps due to hours-of-service regulations or mechanical issues, but these stops can pose significant safety risks. The Parked-Highway/Ramp Alert feature leverages GPS and geospatial awareness to identify when a vehicle is parked in a potentially dangerous location.
By providing fleet managers with alerts when a vehicle is stopped in an unsafe area, this feature can help ensure drivers find safer locations for required stops or rest breaks. This capability has already proven invaluable for managing hours-of-service compliance and reducing roadside risks.
This is another example of a feature that started in the Lab and was made available to all users several months later.
Innovation in Action
What sets Lytx Lab apart is its ability to translate customer challenges into real-world solutions. By collaborating with customers, we can quickly validate the usability and effectiveness of experimental features, ensuring they meet the unique demands of fleet operations. Customers benefit by getting early access to innovative tools that help improve safety, efficiency, and overall fleet performance. Here are some of the key benefits that Lytx Lab offers:
- Continuous Innovation: Lytx Lab allows us to constantly iterate and improve on product concepts, ensuring they meet real-world needs before full deployment. Our agile development process ensures that feedback is quickly integrated, leading to faster, more effective solutions.
- Speed and Responsiveness: Traditional product development cycles can be lengthy, but with Lytx Lab, we can respond rapidly to customer feedback and market changes. By shortening the feedback loop, we can deliver solutions faster and help customers solve problems more efficiently.
- Value Creation: Every experiment in Lytx Lab is designed to add value to fleet operations, whether it’s through improved safety, better route planning, or enhanced decision-making capabilities. By testing features in real-world conditions, we ensure that they provide measurable benefits.
- Customer Collaboration: Lytx Lab fosters a deep partnership between Lytx and its customers, allowing for transparency and collaboration at every stage of development. Customers get a direct say in shaping the products they use, which leads to more tailored and effective solutions.
The Future of Fleet Safety Starts Here
Lytx is committed to leading the way in fleet safety and operational efficiency. Through Lytx Lab, we’re able to explore and test new ideas that push the boundaries of what’s possible in fleet management. Whether it’s enhancing safety through weather alerts, optimizing route planning, or providing real-time visibility into road conditions, Lytx Lab is transforming how fleets operate—one experiment at a time. Through ongoing collaboration with customers, Lytx continues to help ensure that every mile traveled is safer, smarter, and more efficient.
For fleet operators looking to stay ahead of the curve, Lytx Lab offers an unprecedented opportunity to be part of the innovation process. By collaborating with Lytx, you’ll have early access to the tools and technologies that will define the future of fleet safety.
Interested in more? Check out episode one of our Innovation Showcase series: Configurability for Privacy and Security.
*Lytx Lab features are experimental in nature and are provided for informational purposes only. Access to Lytx Lab is made available to users at no charge as part of their service, however some experimental features may require subscription to specific Lytx products in order to provide the intended insights. Lytx Lab features may be added, altered, or removed without notice.