GreenRoad has developed a technology — including an embedded computer in the car, a GPS and cellular connection and a website to remotely check on driving progress — that can help corporate fleet drivers become safer and greener drivers. The IT tech monitors drivers and gives them consistent feedback (green light, yellow light, red light), and then rewards them for changing their driving behavior.

The company says its technology can help companies save significantly on fuel costs (10 percent less fuel), as well as fewer crashes (50 percent fewer accidents). GreenRoad says its technology is embedded in 60,000 corporate fleets.

Check out our Green Overdrive episode we did on GreenRoad in March, with then CEO Patrick Burtis.

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The French environmental engineering giant launched its Veolia Innovation Accelerator (VIA) program last year, but Tuesday’s announcement at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco is the first time it has named any partners. Veolia isn’t making equity investments in the startups, but with its size and scope — 315,000 employees in 77 countries and annual revenues of about $46 billion — it still has a lot to offer them in terms of technical support and access to markets.

In the case of GreenRoad, for example, Veolia has been piloting the startup’s technology in buses operating in Atlanta, Ga. for the past six months. GreenRoad’s vehicle-embedded computers, GPS and cellular connections and web site monitoring system save fuel, reduce emissions and reduce accidents. (See our video interview with GreenRoad for our Green Overdrive show below).

Veolia’s transportation projects are significant, and could get even larger as Veolia completes its merger with French transport giant Transdev, which will create a company with sales of 8 billion euros ($10.6 billion).

Phillipe Martin, Veolia’s senior vice president of research and innovation, also said that Veolia could see immediate uses in its wastewater treatment business from startup Ostara, which makes technology that separates phosphorous from wastewater to turn it into fertilizer. Likewise, Veolia partner Advanced Cyclone Systems, or ACS, a Portuguese startup that separates particles from gases for pollution control or reuse in biomass conversion and gasification projects, will be installing its technology in Veolia biomass-to-energy projects in Europe.

Another Veolia partner is French startup Envolure, which makes environmental diagnostic kits that can detect and identify organic components of waste streams about 10 times cheaper and faster than competing technologies, said Marie-Anne Brodschii, vice president of innovation at Veolia Environment. The startup is looking at designing kits specifically for Veolia and testing them in pilot projects including those Veolia is setting up with Ostara, Yves Dudal, Envolure president and co-founder, said.

The final Veolia partner announced Tuesday, the CoSMo Company, is involved in a more experimental part of Veolia’s business — the linking of water, waste, transportation and energy management systems in a city-wide environment. The startup cut its teeth in software modeling of complex systems for the biotech industry, but plans to develop modeling tools for Veolia to use in organizing its business lines into an integrated whole, CoSMo CEO Hugues de Bantel said at the Tuesday event.

That sounds a bit like the work IBM, Cisco and Microsoft are doing to connect city networks and IT systems into an integrated whole. Veolia is best known for its water and waste treatment expertise, but it’s also doing quite a bit of work in smart grid-type systems, including its “Reflexe” project in southern France, where it’s integrating systems from French power giant Alstom and French consumer electronics company Sagemcom.

Image courtesy of Carlos62 via Creative Commons license.

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While the project is being looked at as an example of just how far outside of its core business Google has been reaching, the prospect of self-driving, computerized cars is compelling because they could make driving more sustainable.

The more computerized a car is, the more optimized it can be for efficiency, sticking to the most direct routes, driving in the most efficient manner (avoiding lots of quick acceleration) and reducing fuel consumption. According to the Times report, self-driving cars could also mean fewer accidents, so car companies could end up building cars that require fewer materials, which would be lighter and more fuel efficient. Robotic cars could also facilitate more resource efficient car-sharing services — say, if a Zip Car you booked could just drive to you when you’re ready, instead of it sitting in a parking space.

Entrepreneurs, investors and big car companies alike have already been turning to software, networks and GPS navigation systems to make driving more efficient. For example, startup GreenRoad, which is backed by Richard Branson and Al Gore’s funds, sells driving services to public and private fleets that reduces fuel consumption and optimizes routes and driving habits based on driving data from a processor, a GPS unit and a cellular connection embedded in the vehicle. Startup the Virtual Vehicle Company has built a mobile app that captures data about how fast or slow a car is driving, along with other details about a person’s driving habits, and creates efficiency services around that driving data (see Car Data As The Next Platform for Innovation, GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

The big auto makers like Nissan are also embedding more IT and computerized services in their latest vehicles, like the recently-on-sale, all-electric LEAF. The LEAF has an AT&T connection, GPS navigation, and applications that show the driver where the nearest electric vehicle charger is and how many MPGs the car is getting at any one time. All of the hybrid and electric vehicles I’ve driven for our weekly Green Overdrive show have computerized systems that encourage and show the driver how to drive as efficiently as possible to save battery life and gas.

Ford announced Thursday that the navigation system in vehicles with MyFord Touch (basically an interface that provides easy access and controls in the dash for Ford’s onboard communication system, Sync) will let drivers select a route that prioritizes not only distance or time, but also efficiency — avoiding congested freeways and stop-and-go traffic while maximizing more open roadways likely to allow a constant, efficient rate of speed. In addition, Ford said a new tool will provide feedback to drivers about how their driving behavior affects real-time and cumulative fuel economy. Drivers will be able to view average miles per gallon over the past 5, 10 or 30 minutes.

Hypermiling has gained the most traction among hybrid drivers — notably those behind the wheel of a Prius, one of the first models to prominently display fuel economy data in the dash. And Ford previously developed an instrument cluster dubbed “SmartGauge with EcoGuide” for a pair of hybrid models that, as Grist put it recently, tells “the driver (nicely) whether to ditch the lead foot or keep the good times rollin’.” But as part of MyFord Touch, the new tool will appear in regular gas-powered vehicles, too, starting with select models in the 2011 model year and later extending across all new Lincoln vehicles.

Ford says the efficient routing tool can boost fuel economy by up to 15 percent. We’d like to see much bigger gains. But this type of tech — like the smartphone apps designed to arm drivers with similar data about real-time and cumulative fuel economy, or GreenRoad’s system for the commercial fleet market — represents a tool that’s relatively easy to implement. In combination with other technologies, it could help to reduce emissions from the transportation sector, the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country since 1990.

Photos courtesy of Ford

But that funding — much like the country’s government-led massive financial injection into broadband and mobile infrastructure — has been saving the country more than it’s been spending and could lead to the creation of new markets. South Korea says it has been saving $1.5 billion per year via automatic toll collection, smarter systems that lead to fewer accidents and reduced pollution.

Information technology — computing, software, wireless networks — can save money and reduce the carbon emissions associated with transportation by unleashing information about fuel economy, traffic conditions, and the collective routes of vehicles on the roads, and can make transportation much more efficient. According to The Climate Group’s Smart2020 report, IT can help commercial road transport operators in Europe save more than 33 billion euros ($52 billion) in Europe by 2020.

That type of savings can lead to sizable industries and opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. In the U.S., GreenRoad has been using basic IT embedded in vehicles — sensors, an accelerometor, GPS and customized algorithms — to calculate the relative risk of different driving maneuvers, then communicating that information back to the driver in order to change driving behavior. The result is that GreenRoad’s customers, which are largely commercial fleet operators, can save on fuel costs, and carbon emissions. The company’s latest backers include Generation IM Climate Solutions Fund, which was created by investor David Blood and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

On top of all the efficiencies, cost savings and business opportunities, there’s the planet-friendly incentive behind connected cars and transportation — less fuel burned equals less carbon emitted. CNN says that South Korea plans to connect its ITS systems to services that will be specifically focused on reducing carbon emissions, like suggesting the shortest and most eco-friendly routes. Combined with South Korea’s aggressive investment into the smart grid, that could make for a country with a winning green IT strategy.

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Image courtesy of yewenyi’s photostream and biblicone’s photostream

GreenRoad’s system uses sensors, an accelerometor, GPS and customized algorithms to calculate the relative risk of different driving maneuvers, then communicates that to the driver by illuminating either a red, yellow or green light. Installed mainly on commercial fleet vehicles (80 fleets so far), the device can have its algorithm customized according to a customer’s priorities, and it communicates information via cellular networks to GreenRoad’s data center.

“The brains are in the vehicle,” GreenRoad marketing chief Eric Weiss told us earlier this month, so even in areas without cellular coverage, drivers “always get real-time feedback.” Earlier this month Earth2Tech’s Josie explained the service as “think of it as a friendly backseat driver with a remarkable mind for calculating risk and a keen ability to cut your fuel use and emissions.”

The crucial part of GreenRoad’s tool is the real-time service. It’s only through constant reminding that the driver will change his/her behavior. Without that piece the service would just be a more high-tech driving lesson. The Prius’s dashboard has been one of the pioneers of showing how drivers will utilize real-time information to affect their driving decisions.

Companies that are building tools for the power grid, like home energy management dashboards, are also starting to embrace real-time data. The California Public Utilities Commission has said that it wants the the big investor-owned utilities to provide customers and approved third parties with “near real time” data from smart meters. Check out this piece I wrote last year about how important real-time data is for changing home energy consumption and also for delivering innovation.

GreenRoad isn’t the only one looking to provide real-time driving feedback to make transportation more efficient. A lot of the big car companies are starting to investigate this space. Ford has developed an instrument cluster that provides basic information. Honda developed a video game-like system called “Eco Assist” for its new Insight that’s meant to not only provide fuel-efficiency feedback, but also “actually help drivers to learn a better way of driving through instruments and electronic indications,” as chief engineer Yasunari Seki told us last year. And last year Volvo unveiled a prototype of its CO2 “pedometer” software, which lets mobile-phone users track their daily travels and carbon footprint. (For more about some of these services check out GigaOM Pro, subscription required.)

GreenRoad launched commercially in 2007, but was founded 7 years ago. The company has now raised close to $50 million.

GreenRoad’s system uses sensors, an accelerometor, GPS and customized algorithms to calculate the relative risk of different driving maneuvers, then communicates that to the driver by illuminating either a red, yellow or green light. Installed mainly on commercial fleet vehicles (80 fleets so far), the device can have its algorithm customized according to a customer’s priorities, and it communicates information via cellular networks to GreenRoad’s data center. “The brains are in the vehicle,” GreenRoad marketing chief Eric Weiss told me this week, so even in areas without cellular coverage, drivers “always get real-time feedback.”

Weiss commented that the “preoccupation” with banning texting while driving (an idea that’s gaining momentum in certain states and among U.S. policymakers), and the “legislative approach of cordoning off all the things you can’t do…is not effective for converting wrong to right.”

It also obscures a larger opportunity, he said, to transform driving habits using technology, or more specifically: real-time feedback for drivers (both positive and negative), constant data gathering and an online display showing potential savings and areas for improvement — similar to the energy management tools rolling out that monitor homeowners’ real-time use of electricity, natural gas and water, and present it in web-based portals and in-home displays.

Based in Redwood Shores, Calif., with offices in the U.S., UK and Israel, Greenroad is not alone in trying to seize that opportunity. A number of smartphone apps and after-market vehicle retrofits have emerged in an effort to meet demand for the real-time and cumulative data about fuel efficiency that hypermilers have come to love in the Toyota Prius display.

And more automakers are starting build these tools right into the vehicle. Ford, for example, has developed an instrument cluster that, as Grist put it recently, tells “the driver (nicely) whether to ditch the lead foot or keep the good times rollin’.”

For GreenRoad, backed by Virgin Green Fund and Benchmark Capital, among others, one of its main selling points to fleet operators is that the real-time risk assessments of different driving maneuvers help to improve safety, reduce wear and tear on vehicles and slash the number of accidents. But Weiss said that the company’s system has been installed in “two of the country’s largest truck fleets, primarily because of fuel saving.”

We’d like to see bigger cuts in fuel consumption than the 10 percent noted on GreenRoad’s web site, and the up to 15 percent that Weiss said the system can deliver (depending on the route, vehicle and driver). But the system represents one tool that’s relatively easy to implement and, in combination with other technologies, could help to reduce emissions from the transportation sector — the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country since 1990, and also one of the largest.

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Whisher, a Wi-Fi company that launched with much fanfare at DEMO in January 2007, sold itself to WiFi.com, a hot-spot services company, sometime earlier this year, according to founder and Chief Technology Officer Mike Puchol. The sale came close on the heels of the firing of CEO Ferran Moreno in October 2008. Now while for most companies, such a sale would signal the end of the story, with Whisher it was the start of a new one. As part of its preparation to merge operations with WiFi.com, Whisher launched an internal audit that turned up certain irregularities, which in turn led to a full-blown investigative audit. What it discovered wasn’t good. From a company statement sent to us by Puchol:

“Whisher announces that after a thorough investigation, on April 23rd 2009, it filed a criminal lawsuit against its founder and former CEO Ferran Moreno Blanca, for the alleged offenses of embezzlement, disloyal administration, and falseness in mercantile documents. The lawsuit is also filed against Jesús Roy Solanas for his alleged intervention in the offenses. Whisher confirms that no other party connected with the company was involved in the case, and that the lawsuit has been accepted by the Spanish courts in Barcelona. Ferran Moreno will declare before the courts as defendant on July 1st.”

Wow, what an interesting turn of events for Ferran, who got into an argument with Martin Varsavsky, founder of FON and his former boss, around the time Whisher was launched. Ferran, who was a longtime employee of the Swiss phone company, Swisscom, had championed the idea to his employers, who ended up seed funding the project. But somewhere along the line things got murky, and fake invoices were submitted, first to Swisscom and then to Whisher, Puchol alleges in his email.

I bet we haven’t heard the last of this saga.

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GreenRoad’s system is designed for both fleet and consumer vehicles. Once GreenRoad installs sensors in the vehicles, an on-board device transmits data to an LED light display to provide immediate feedback to the driver. It also transmits that data via cellular network to GreenRoad servers to evaluate overall driving risk and skills and serve up the findings to users on a web-based portal. Drivers and fleet operators can find more detailed analysis online, and drivers with especially good behavior are recognized and can be rewarded by their companies. “When dealing with human behavior, there is a lot of psychology involved,” explained GreenRoad’s Eric Weiss, senior VP for worldwide marketing.

GreenRoad, which launched commercially in 2007, is among the fastest-growing startups in the space. It’s already serving more than 60 fleet customers in trucking, public transit, telecommunications and other sectors in North America, Israel and the UK. Among its biggest customers are telecom giant T-Mobile and the UK Ministry of Defense. The company uses a subscription-based model, charging less than $30 a month per vehicle, and Weiss says the system typically pays for itself in less than 90 days through lower fuels costs (7-11 percent reduction) and fewer accidents (49 percent reduction).

Other companies have caught on that fleet owners and consumers are interested in receiving more information about their driving behavior, meaning startups like GreenRoad could have a hard time carving out a niche as automakers integrate the tools into their vehicles. Honda developed a video game-like system called “Eco Assist” for its new Insight that’s meant to not only provide fuel-efficiency feedback, but also “actually help drivers to learn a better way of driving through instruments and electronic indications,” as chief engineer Yasunari Seki told us earlier this year.

Just this week, car maker Volvo unveiled a prototype of its CO2 “pedometer” software, which lets mobile-phone users track their daily travels and carbon footprint.  In a pilot program in Göteborg, Sweden, participants reduced their carbon footprints by more than 30 percent, as they were encouraged to change their travel patterns and drive during low traffic hours or take more public transit. The car-sharing startup Zipcar has built an on-board device that allows fleet managers to remotely track their vehicles and use them more efficiently. (For more about the role of location-based services in the transition to plug-in vehicles, check out our Long View on the subject in GigaOM Pro, subscription required.)

GreenRoad has raised just under $40 million in venture funding to date, including this latest round. This trend of giving consumers more information has been especially present in the building management industry, with startups like EnergyHub and Tendril rolling out software and hardware to help homeowners and business track when and where they consume energy. In the last few years, VCs have been attracted to these companies in part because their technologies are more capital efficient and offer value to customers by helping them reduce consumption. But finding and securing distribution channels will continue to be a major point on which the success of these startups hinges.

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1). Online Eco-Driving School: Startup GreenRoad Technologies sells a subscription service for a web-based educational tool that tracks driving habits (and encourages safer, more efficient ones) via an in-vehicle monitoring system. The company, which is backed by at least $20 million from Virgin Green, Benchmark Capital, Amadeus Capital and Balderton Capital, sells its service to enterprise fleet customers that want to save on fuel and have employees drive more safely. GreenRoad says driving habits are responsible for 33 percent of fuel consumption and more than 95 percent of vehicle crashes.

2). Cell Phone Fuel Tracking: Your cell phone in your pocket can provide a handy way to keep track of your fuel economy. Moblu is a mobile and web tool that drivers can use to keep track of miles driven and gas purchased — you can enter the data via mobile twitter, or use the mobile web on a Blackberry or iPhone. At lease five other applications provide similar fuel-tracking tools for the iPhone. By using their mobiles to monitor fuel usage, drivers can become more aware of their fuel economy and know to get a tuneup when mileage slips.

3). Traffic-Avoiding Software Tools: Last year, after five years of research, Microsoft launched a web-based service that helps drivers avoid traffic jams using algorithms and artificial intelligence. Basically, the service applies software models that reproduce traffic interactions and determines how traffic will respond in a given location. We haven’t tested it out, but Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist Rob Bernard (who will be giving a keynote at Green:Net) was pretty bullish on it at a recent data center conference. Less sophisticated traffic-avoiding services are available in most cities via online services like Yahoo Maps, MapQuest, or local news web sites and phone-based services.

4). Good Ol’ GPS Navigation: OK, GPS systems for our cars and trucks have long been in existence, and companies from TomTom to TeleNav to Garmin are selling gadgets and services. But providing the quickest route for your individual destination using an eye in the sky is a very easy way to cut down on time on the road and thus fuel consumption. Many large fleet operators are now relying on GPS navigation systems these days to significantly trim their gas bills.

5). In-Car Eco-Driving Games: Toyota might have started a fuel-geek craze with the Prius’ digital dashboard, which displays real-time fuel consumption and prods some drivers to drive more efficiently. But other car companies are seeing the benefits of digital interfaces that can promote fuel economy. Honda told us recently about its “Eco Assist” dashboard for the 2010 Honda Insight hybrid. The Insight’s dashboard has a crescent icon that changes color based on how fast the driver speeds up or slows down, glowing green when the driving is most fuel efficient, and turning blue as it becomes wasteful.

6). Fuel-Focused Social Networks: The latest pastime of hypermilers is hanging out on fuel consumption logs and bragging about their jaw-dropping MPGs. Check out fuel economy-focused sites like the logs on CleanMPG.org, or newcomer Fuelly. They’re not for everyone, but for those that go OCD over gas tanks, they’re a real find.

7). Web-Based Ride/Car Sharing: Using the power of the web to connect drivers, riders and cars, is a way to make transportation more efficient and take unneeded cars off the road. Whether its a car-sharing service like ZipCar or CityCarShare, a commuter carpooling network like RideSearch, or an event-based ride share like PickupPal, the web can unleash the power of information to make useful connections.

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