Development of Real-Time Alerts on Accident-Based Detection for Car Rental Owners

Abstract

Car rental agencies encounter major difficulties in handling vehicle accidents, frequently depending on slow or imprecise manual reports that impede operational efficiency and raise financial risks. This project showcases the design and creation of a real-time accident detection and notification system designed specifically for car rental companies. The system is grounded in a hardware-software co-design framework, integrating Internet of Things technologies and mobile alert platforms to establish automated, real-time safety monitoring. The system design employs an Agile methodology, utilizing a NodeMCU ESP8266 and an Arduino Uno R3 compatible board with a CH340 Universal Serial Bus interface, a vibration sensor, and a global positioning system module. Although the exact sample size of the test fleet is not explicitly stated in the manuscript, the prototype was experimentally validated under simulated collision conditions to measure response time and notification accuracy. The experimental results demonstrate that the integrated hardware platform triggers automated short message service alerts via web hook services in less than 40 seconds. While the core prototype successfully detected all simulated crash events, on-board diagnostics integration represents a non-significant operational limitation that was excluded from the initial prototype evaluation. Related vehicle telematics evaluations show that similar Internet of Things architectures achieve a median end-to-end latency of approximately 680 milliseconds and a 98.8 percent first-attempt upload success rate under urban conditions. The originality of this system lies in providing a low-cost, secure, and customizable edge-buffering architecture designed to maintain tracking continuity during intermittent cellular network outages. Practically, car rental operators can deploy this platform to significantly improve incident response, minimize vehicle idle time, and simplify insurance claims processing.