Connected vehicle data for any road, anytime, instantly -- a multi-award-winning Road Intelligence company helping transport professionals build better cities.
Compass IoT is an award-winning Australian Road Intelligence company that uses connected vehicle data to help governments and organisations improve road safety, infrastructure planning, and city development. Founded in September 2018 by Angus McDonald and Emily Bobis while they were university students, the company initially started as a cow-tracking venture before pivoting to connected vehicle technology after meeting Nick, a traffic engineer who introduced them to the possibilities of vehicle-generated data. The company aggregates anonymised data from 64 car manufacturers -- including Toyota, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen -- processing billions of data points to provide granular road intelligence without requiring any new roadside hardware. Compass IoT's Road Intelligence Platform captures data points including speed, acceleration, g-force, braking, steering, roll, pitch, yaw, location, and trajectory at intervals ranging from four times per second to once per minute. This data is run through machine learning algorithms to yield insights on road surface condition, near-miss events, friction loss, origin-destination patterns, and freight classification. On a normal day, Compass monitors roughly 700,000 vehicles on Australia's roads, scaling to over 1.5 million at peak. The company has expanded internationally through a partnership with global engineering firm GHD, with deployments now spanning Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. In New Zealand, Compass IoT and GHD are jointly transforming how road networks are managed, with applications including school zone safety, level crossing analysis across 1,200 crossings, and freight network efficiency. In the UK, Compass IoT is piloting its platform with Transport for London as part of the EIT Urban Mobility-funded Road Intelligence for London Mobility (RILM) project. The company is 100% employee-owned and has won numerous awards including a Google Cloud Customer Award (2022), Australasian Best Data-driven Startup (2019), and the International Road Federation Asset Management Award (2024).
Cloud-based platform providing vehicle-generated insights for any section of road, any time period, instantly. Captures data on speed, acceleration, g-force, braking, steering, roll, pitch, yaw, location, trajectory, freight classification, and vehicle make/model. Delivers insights on road safety, near-misses, friction loss, pavement condition, and origin-destination analysis without requiring roadside hardware.
Identifies hard braking events, swerving, rapid deceleration, and near-miss clusters across road networks. Used in Transport for London's RILM project to identify 14,170 near-miss clusters from 2023-2025 data, complementing TfL's 22,748 recorded collision clusters.
Detects road surface deterioration using friction loss and vehicle dynamics data. Proved its value during the 2022 Lismore floods by identifying a 50% drop in road quality, enabling targeted maintenance prioritisation for the affected community.
Reveals travel times, trip distribution, route selection, speeds, and freight movements. Supports rat-run analysis in residential areas, freight movement modelling, and infrastructure investment justification.
Delivers connected vehicle data every 5 seconds via real-time API, with passive traffic analysis available in under 60 seconds. Bespoke dashboards provide customised analytics for transport authorities.
Compass IoT launched in September by co-founders Angus McDonald and Emily Bobis, who met on a university exchange trip. The company initially tracked cattle before pivoting to connected vehicle data after meeting Nick, a traffic engineer.
Named 'Best Data-driven Startup' at the Australasian Start-up Awards, validating the company's connected vehicle data approach to road intelligence.
Won the University of Sydney Student Startup Innovation Prize. Established data strategy partnership with the Government of the Australian Capital Territory.
Won UTS Startup of the Year. Expanded monitoring from initial 200,000 connected vehicles toward national coverage across Australia.
Won Google Cloud Customer Award (Cross Industry) for using connected vehicle data to map road deterioration during the Lismore floods, identifying a 50% drop in road quality. Emily Bobis named Innovator of the Year at Women in Digital Awards. Won Startup of the Year at Smallbiz Young Hero Awards.
Dataset grew to over 2.2 million trips and billions of data points. Demonstrated that a new Sydney tunnel halved accident numbers and justified a $73 million bridge widening investment through harsh braking trend analysis.
Won International Road Federation Asset Management Award. Expanded internationally through partnership with GHD into New Zealand, UK, and North American markets. Began Transport for London pilot (RILM project) co-funded by EIT Urban Mobility.
Operating across five countries: Australia, New Zealand, UK, US, and the EU. Presented at T-Tech 2025 (ITS New Zealand annual conference). Geographic coverage includes metro, regional, and rural areas with GDPR-compliant European data storage.
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Co-founded Compass IoT in 2018 with Emily Bobis. Previously co-founded Airbike, Australia's first owned-and-operated bike-sharing company. Met Bobis on a university exchange trip.
Co-Founder
Named Google Cloud Data Champion and Innovator of the Year at the 2022 Women in Digital Awards. Previously worked with McDonald on Airbike. Identified the core problem: insufficient reliable and scalable data about urban mobility.
Compass IoT is primarily a road intelligence and safety analytics company rather than a direct RUC technology provider, but its connected vehicle data platform has significant relevance to New Zealand's RUC modernisation agenda. Through its partnership with GHD, Compass IoT is actively operating in New Zealand, providing road network analytics to support transport decision-making. The company's ability to aggregate anonymised data from 64 OEMs across vehicles already on the road -- without new hardware -- aligns with the kind of connected vehicle data infrastructure that could underpin future distance-based charging systems. Compass IoT presented at the ITS New Zealand T-Tech 2025 conference and is expanding its New Zealand presence.
Compass IoT received the Google Cloud Cross-Industry Customer Award for using connected vehicle data to assess road damage during the catastrophic 2022 Lismore floods. The platform analysed swerving, roll, and pitch data from thousands of vehicles to establish a 50% drop in road quality.
GHD partnered with Compass IoT to bring connected vehicle data analytics to New Zealand, integrating data from both OEM vehicle manufacturers and EROAD's heavy vehicle telematics to achieve coverage of approximately 8% of the national fleet.
GHD and Compass IoT published an article outlining how connected vehicle data could move beyond simple road user charges billing to reshape how New Zealand funds, manages, and invests in road infrastructure.
628 913 155
Australian Private Company
19 Sep 2018
NSW 2063, Australia
Source: Australian Business Register · Last checked February 2026
View on ABN Lookup
