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Infrastructure is the foundation that connects US businesses and enables communities to thrive. Today, America’s aging roads and bridges are in poor condition, chronically underfunded, and in urgent need of rebuilding.
Better infrastructure and efficient transport network will improve our economy, lower energy consumption, support our quality of life, and ensure public health and safety. CoreKinect, a platform-based technology provides access and tools to real-time transportation data, will enable local, regional, and the federal government to observe the metric of transportation, execute Mileage-Based Fee initiative, and allocate funding based on accurate data. This powerful platform creates a network and ecosystem that connects the private and public sectors to reshape local and regional transport systems. CoreKinect will shape the future of Mobility.
Coretex has been collecting 150 million worth of Road User Charges in New Zealand each year, for the last 9 years. The pay as you drive scheme collects all the off-road mileage and automatically rebates that distance back to the driver or company. You only pay for actual miles driven. These funds are used to build and maintain the roading infrastructure. CoreKinect a new company spun off from Coretex mission, is to build a safer, cleaner more productive society using the internet of transportation.Infrastructure spending funded by fuel tax is not sustainable as a funding source due to the growth of fuel-efficient engines, hybrids, and electric vehicles. A new source of funds needs to be established .. QUICKLY!The system today is broken and the facts speak volumes on how serious the funding issue is. There is bipartisan agreement at the Federal and State level to review an alternative collection method(s), with a road user charge system being the most popular. California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, and the I95 Corridor (11 additional states) have all conducted pilots on a mileage-based user fee system so there is a lot of knowledge and experience here in the US on this funding methodology.The Federal government has passed legislation to approve a national pilot on a mileage-based user fee system. CoreKinect plans to leverage our experience in creating a system that exists today in New Zealand that can be adapted in the US. We would participate in the national pilot with an initial focus on commercial vehicles. We will lead the way in creating a new modern system for collection and payments.CoreKinect creates value by establishing an ecosystem that manages the vehicles on one side, which have to pay a mileage-based fee to the public sector, which is on the other side. The benefits on both sides are significant. Indirect value is also created for services related to both sides of the value chain e.g. insurance, repair, and maintenance, carbon footprint analytics, etc.The market is large. Over 275 million vehicles travel over 3.4 trillion miles annually and based on the rates used in Oregon, which has a mileage-based system today, could generate over $93 billion in State and Federal funding from mileage alone. There are a number of other revenue sources that touch on vehicle insurance, vehicle maintenance, advertising, etc.A fee would be applied to each mile traveled, much like a credit card commission, and would have a rate set based on vehicle type. The rates used are based on very conservative measures and would be proven out in a national pilot. The revenue is projected is annual and is based on a 7.5% market share which would be aimed to be achieved within 48-60 months. This does not include any additional value capture opportunities that have been identified e.g. breakdown services, insurance, advertising, etc.To establish a national program to modernize the system for infrastructure there are five critical steps (based on first-hand experience in New Zealand). You need to build a robust collection, payments and reporting platform that is tamper-proof, secure and scalable; you need to have a national approach that addresses interstate interoperability; a national and state compliance and enforcement framework need to be established with private and public interests groups all at the table; federal and state policies need to be written (a number of states have this already) and approved into legislation; the revenue raised from this system needs to be hypothecated (ring-fenced) for infrastructure spending only.Road mileage collection is received from CoreKinect, 3rd party and OEM devices, into a serverless scalable hosted environment. An encrypted secure payment gateway service, in escrow, collects the Mileage based tax and is distributed to DOT and DMV. AI and machine learning software processes the data on top of the data lake with a data analytics engine layer for internal and 3rd party API access. Users have access to the mileage system via a mobile or cloud based interface. Other indirect suppliers have access to the enriched data available via API’s (application programmable interface).There are four competitors – one that is focused on commercial vehicles, Eroad, two that are focused on light vehicles (emovis, and Azuga), and one that has focused on payments. None of the providers bridge across all vehicle types. Given the experience of CoreKinect we are in a strong position to compete. We also have experience of having done this before in New Zealand.Phase 1 capital raise of $5M to be applied in the National pilot implementation*. This phase would ensure the value creation (initially targeted to commercial vehicles), and operating model are aligned. We would expect the pilot to run 12-18 months and the deliverable in this phase one would be platform implementation. Phase 2 would take the learnings from phase one – from the national pilot, raise an additional $15m in the capital for the commercial rollout. The crowdsourcing platform for public/commercial outreach would be established as a hub network. The key deliverable in this phase is platform expansion. In Phase 3, the focus shifts to light passenger vehicles and an additional series c raise of $15M to meet the deliverable of building out the platform “hub” also advancing development in AI/ML capability and the crowdsource “hub”. This allows additional value creation and captures with indirect partners including insurance companies. The final phase 4 would be triggered when the network effect in both passenger and commercial vehicles is established and indirect partners are on board using the platform. This would allow value capture to really accelerate and then an IPO would be an option to raise additional capital for the hub expansion. *In August 2020, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed a $287 billion highway bill including pilot programs, $15 million per year for state pilots, $10 million per year for a national trial.The team is made up of over 30 years in the telematics and payment gateway industry, operating in a SaaS (software as a Service) and cloud environment. Craig Marris is on the advisory board of the Mileage-Based User Fee Alliance, a Washington DC lobby group and think tank. The team is very experienced in capital raising, having raised over $84 million dollars in six separate raises. Nini brings strong integrated marketing expertise and design engineering discipline to organizations in scaling their efforts through collaboration. The company is backed by a very experienced Board. https://www.coretex.com/company/about-coretex/Thank you and we invite you to join us on the CoreKinect journey.
Hi Suresh, for commercial vehicles they have to file quarterly fuel tax (IFTA) – which is based on where they purchased fuel and the distance they traveled in each state, they can claim back the miles that were traveled back on the toll roads. What our platform does is recognize those miles and automatically calculates the distance using some clever algorithms. But today the tolls in the US are not mileage based for passenger vehicles. Our technology would allow you to remove all the expensive infrastructure to support tolls roads as you are continuously monitoring where vehicles are. It would also allow to apply cheaper rates for travel in non peak periods and higher rates for peak periods. Credits would also be applied to non public road travel e.g. truck stops, large warehouse facilities, farm roads etc. In reality, a mileage based user system would work with tolls roads as they won’t go away soon.
A great idea. Moreover, learnt a lot about our road Infrastructure. Aren’t toll roads already mileage based ?
Hi Suresh, for commercial vehicles they have to file quarterly fuel tax (IFTA) – which is based on where they purchased fuel and the distance they traveled in each state, they can claim back the miles that were traveled back on the toll roads. What our platform does is recognize those miles and automatically calculates the distance using some clever algorithms. But today the tolls in the US are not mileage based for passenger vehicles. Our technology would allow you to remove all the expensive infrastructure to support tolls roads as you are continuously monitoring where vehicles are. It would also allow to apply cheaper rates for travel in non peak periods and higher rates for peak periods. Credits would also be applied to non public road travel e.g. truck stops, large warehouse facilities, farm roads etc. In reality, a mileage based user system would work with tolls roads as they won’t go away soon.