Kiwis love a long weekend road trip. But unfortunately, that means these long weekends become one of the deadliest periods on New Zealand roads. Speed is still the biggest factor in vehicle deaths, so it’s clear traditional ‘slow down’ messaging isn’t working, as once a billboard is passed, it’s often forgotten within seconds.

Kiwis love an Easter road trip. Unfortunately, this annual flooding of cars means the long weekend becomes one of the deadliest periods on NZ roads.

With a high number of road deaths year after year, it was clear that NZ Police’s traditional “slow down” messaging wasn’t really working.

It only takes a moment’s distraction for a fatal mistake on the roads, but a moment of safety messaging on a passing road sign isn’t enough to change driver behaviour.

To truly keep drivers safe we needed a way to influence their behaviour throughout the entire journey.

Research uncovered a demonstrable link between music and how we drive; everything from speed, fatigue, alertness, focus and more were intrinsically tied to the audio environment in the vehicle.

Using these elements we created our innovative solution, Survive the Drive FM and Playlists, promoting safe driving all the way from point A to point B.

Armed with this research, we knew a lot about how music could influence driving behaviours.

Working with Dr Charlotte Connell from Auckland University we further refined our understanding, identifying key factors to optimise driver safety.

Songs at the right tempo have been proven to influence speeding, high energy music can make us more alert, high valence music can keep us focused, and factors like danceability can further influence attention and fatigue.

Plus, if we expected anyone to actually listen, we’d have to overlay popularity and maximise appeal to all tastes.

Identifying top genres and driver missions enabled us to curate playlists for each to increase relevance across NZ.

We analysed and blended multiple data sources containing over 150 million songs, with hundreds of attributes, to find our safe songs and curate our safe driving setlists.

These were then targeted using historical incident data to our highest risk audiences.

Leveraging academic research, we uncovered a demonstrable link between music and how we drive.

Everything from driver speed, fatigue, alertness, focus and more were intrinsically tied to the audio environment in the vehicle.

Working with Dr Charlotte Connell from Auckland University we further refined our understanding, identifying key factors to optimise driver safety.

Songs at the right tempo influence speeding, high energy music makes us more alert, high valence music keeps us focused, and factors like danceability can further influence attention and fatigue.

We analysed and blended multiple data sources containing over 150 million songs, with hundreds of attributes.

Unifying these sources, and accessing additional APIs for enrichment, we harmonised a master dataset that included all the attributes we’d need to engineer the safest driving companion possible.

It wasn’t just the collection of songs, but the sequencing and interplay between them in each setlist that required curation.

E.G. Our Rock playlist

- consists of music between 60-80 bpm

- begins with low energy, low valance tunes to help you focus as you leave urban areas

- then intermittently inserted higher valance, happier songs to help combat driver fatigue

- overlayed with local popularity ratings to ensure people would want to listen

- screened for tracks unbecoming of the NZ Police

- targeted using historical incident data to our highest risk audiences via social

We even created playlists specific to urban road trips, and ones that worked better on monotonous rural roads.

Identifying top genres and driver missions enabled us to curate playlists for each to increase relevance across NZ.

Launching with nationwide radio takeover, and always-on Spotify playlists we reached over 52% of the NZ adult population.

We influenced driver behaviour without distracting overt messaging. As a result, we saw a 60% decrease in fatal car crashes year on year.

- We reached a total of 807,000 AP 25 – 54 across the long weekend, which is the highest crash weekend of the year in New Zealand.

- 1.98 Million drivers were reached with Survive the Drive.

- Targeted areas saw 75% less fatal crashes than last year

- NZ Police Spotify followers grew by 826%

- Fatal crashes nationwide reduced by 60%