News

It's been a little while since we last shared updates on Roundtrip milestones but we're excited to announce that we have a new milestone to celebrate.

🥳 Over 2.5 million trips have been logged by NSW learner drivers using Roundtrip! 🥳

This is a huge milestone, especially given the difficulties that learner drivers and instructors have faced over the last couple of years due to the pandemic.

With things returning to normal Roundtrip has had some of the biggest growth we've seen in terms of new account signups in the last month which is exciting.

If you're a NSW learner driver and you're looking for an officially accepted learner logbook app that's easy to use and will save you time then download Roundtrip for iOS here, or download Roundtrip for Android here.

The Roundtrip Learner Logbook app is an officially endorsed replacement for the NSW paper logbook.

Roundtrip will be turning 5 this year, and our app continues to grow with more trips being recorded each year and more users signing up for Roundtrip than ever before.

In the last year the number of people using our app has grown by 23.5% and 2022 is set to be an even bigger year based on some of our largest growth in January alone. 🙌

Last year was obviously a year unlike any other so let's have a look back at how learners used Roundtrip learner logbook in 2021.

Younger people are using our app

In 2020 the average age those using our app was 17, but interestingly in 2021 we saw this average drop to 16 years old. Maybe learner drivers are getting their learner licence earlier?

Mums are still the number one supervisors

Mums supervised the most practice sessions (47.9%) in 2021, followed by dads (33.6%). Interestingly driving instructors only accounted for 1.4% of all trips recorded in 2021.

Average trip duration increased by just 1 minute in 2021

The average trip duration was 40 minutes in 2020 and we saw this grow only by 1 minute in 2021. So learners on average are spending more than half an hour out on the road when they practice driving.

Our most popular postcodes

We have learners from all over NSW using our app. But we do have a few postcodes which are more popular than others. Here are our top 5 most popular postcodes where trips were recorded in 2021:

1. 2155 - Beaumont Hills and 4 other suburbs
2. 2650 - Wagga Wagga and 53 other suburbs
3. 2800 - Orange and 33 other suburbs
4. 2640 - Albury and 15 other suburbs
5. 2250 - Gosford and 33 other suburbs

Learners still feel great about their practice sessions

When asked to report how they feel their practice went, most learners recorded great (43.7%) or good (37.20%) good practice sessions. Just 0.41% sessions were reported as being bad and 0.17% as being awful (don't worry, it does get better!).

If you're a NSW learner driver and you're looking for an officially accepted learner logbook app you can download Roundtrip for iOS here, or download Roundtrip for Android here.

The Roundtrip Learner Logbook app is an officially endorsed replacement for the NSW paper logbook and it's now three years old! 🥳

To celebrate we're sharing insights into how learner drivers in NSW practice.

In this fourth and final article, we're focusing on Roundtrip record holders that demonstrate some impressive achievements by learner drivers using our app. Find the other articles in this series below.

Let's do this!

---

Practice beyond the required hours

120 hours is the minimum required practice needed to submit the logbook before going for a driving test but it doesn't mean learners should stop practising there. It's important to get as much supervised driving practice as possible as it can help better prepare learner drivers for when they're driving on their own.

Most hours and trips recorded

120 hours is the minimum, but we have had one learner driver record 497 hours in Roundtrip! That is an impressive amount of supervised practice. The most number of trips recorded was by a different learner driver with a total of 628 trips to their name. 😲

Most nighttime driving

20 of the required 120 hours needs to be night driving, as it can be totally different driving at night than during the day. The learner with the most night-time hours has done over 10x the requirement, logging 227 nighttime hours!

---

Practice in different weather

Okay, onto the weather records! It can be difficult to predict the weather, but it's important to practice in different types of weather conditions to help prepare you for when you're stuck in traffic during a storm!

Most trips in the rain

The most number of trips done in the rain by one learner driver is 88 trips! I hope they brought an umbrella with them!

Most trips in icy weather

Driving while it's icy can be dangerous! One learner driver has managed to log 93 icy trips, which should help them be better prepared!

Most trips in the snow

What about the snow? It can be rare to find snow in Australia, but one learner driver managed to log 17 trips in snowy weather. Sounds like SNOW much fun!

---

Traffic and road records

Finally, let's look at a few different traffic and road types that learners have records in.

Most heavy traffic trips

Who loves traffic? Well, apparently one learner who managed to record 235 trips in heavy traffic does. Yikes!

Unsealed and multi-laned records

Finally, let's look at two very different road types. The most trips logged on a multi-laned road by one learner is 552 trips. And the most trips on an unsealed road is 410 trips (by a different person).

---

I think you'll agree those are some impressive records set by learner drivers using Roundtrip!

That's it for this series of articles looking at learner drivers using Roundtrip.

If you're a learner you can download Roundtrip for iOS here, or sign up to be the first to hear when the Android version is released (we're in the test phase for it at the moment).

---

The sample is from verified NSW learner drivers using Roundtrip. Verified refers to users who have an account with Roundtrip, have been successfully recognised as a valid learner driver by TfNSW through the app, and have added at least one trip to their logbook. Weather information is determined automatically for each trip using location. Road type and traffic type data are required self-reported data for each trip.

The Roundtrip Learner Logbook app is an officially endorsed replacement for the NSW paper logbook and it's now three years old! 🥳

To celebrate we're sharing insights into how learner drivers in NSW practice.

In this next article, we're focusing on practice diversity to help answer the question, do learners get enough driving practice in the rain?* Find the other articles in this series below.

Why is diverse practice important?

It's super important for learner drivers to not just log 120 hours, but to practice in as many different conditions as possible so they're more prepared for all the different contexts they'll be driving in unsupervised when they get their provisional licence.

Take the weather with you

One of the trickiest contexts is driving in different types of weather. 92.3% of all trips recorded by verified learner drivers were driven in fine weather.

But what about some of the trickier weather conditions? Are learners getting the chance to practice in these other contexts?

Let's start with rain.

---

Do learners practice in the rain?

Of all the learner drivers in our app, 80% have practised in the rain, which is pretty good! On average learner drivers have just under 10 trips where they have driven in the rain.

What about other weather types?

Other than fine and rainy weather, learners can record three other weather conditions: snow, ice and fog. These are often harder to come by and as such, 1.6% of all trips have been in fog, 0.25% in ice, and 0.08% in snow.

---

Off the beaten track

Okay, onto road types! Driving on different road types is important as it can drastically change how you control the car.

Note with the following stats, a single trip can have multiple road types.

Sealed vs unsealed roads

We looked at all the trips recorded and found that 77% include driving on a sealed road, while only 10% were driven on an unsealed road.

Quiet streets, main roads and multi-laned roads

41% of all trips included a quiet street road type, 72% included main roads and 61% included multi-lane roads.

---

Bumper-to-bumper

Finally, learner drivers note down the types of traffic they encounter in each practice session.

Traffic type

49% of all trips had some light traffic, 54% of all trips had some moderate traffic and 17% of all trips had some heavy traffic.

---

Next week join us for our last article in this series where we look at some of Roundtrip records set by learner drivers using our app.

If you're a learner you can download Roundtrip for iOS here, or sign up to be the first to hear when the Android version is released (we're in the test phase for it at the moment).

---

The sample is from verified NSW learner drivers using Roundtrip. Verified refers to users who have an account with Roundtrip, have been successfully recognised as a valid learner driver by TfNSW through the app, and have added at least one trip to their logbook.

* Weather information is determined automatically for each trip using location. Road type and traffic type data are required self-reported data for each trip.

The Roundtrip Learner Logbook app is an officially endorsed replacement for the NSW paper logbook and it's now three years old! 🥳

To celebrate we're sharing insights into how learner drivers in NSW practice.

In this next article we're focusing on the real MVPs, those unsung heroes sitting next to learner drivers from first ignition to the driving test dropoff. The supervisors. Find the other articles in this series below.

Mums and dads top supervision

Mums supervised the most practice sessions (49.1%), followed by dads (32.9%). Talk about SUPERvisors.

Who else supervises learner drivers?

Although mums and dads supervised the majority of sessions, there were others who helped out. This included driving instructors (1.1%), partners (1.0%), friends (0.8%), sisters (0.6%), brothers (0.3%), and other (2.6%)*.

Let's take a moment to focus on driving instructors, those legends who experience more 3-point turns in a week than most of us will drive in our lifetime.

Do learners use driving instructors?

Yes! If we look at all the verified learners who have submitted their logbook, we found that 79.2% have had at least one lesson with an instructor.

What's the average number of lessons?

If we look at all the verified learners in our app, regardless of where they are on their learner journey, 40% have used an accredited instructor on average 1.93 times.

Top 3 driving schools

Currently, in Roundtrip the top 3 driving schools used by Learners are: LTrent Driving School, NRMA Driver Training, and Nods Driving School.

If you're a learner you can download Roundtrip for iOS here, or sign up to be the first to hear when the Android version is released (we're in the test phase for it at the moment).

---

* Note: 11.6% of learners didn't report supervisor relationship data.

Roundtrip Learner Logbook is now three years old! 🥳

To celebrate we thought we'd share some insights into how learner drivers in NSW are practicing over a series of articles.

In this first article we're going to look at how learner drivers are using Roundtrip.

But first, for those of you who haven't tried Roundtrip, here's a quick overview of the app!

What is Roundtrip?

The Roundtrip Learner Logbook app is an officially endorsed replacement for the NSW paper logbook.

This means learners don't need to carry a paper logbook with them again when they practice, they can just use Roundtrip instead.

We've made Roundtrip super easy to use; learners just have to tap the record button in the app before they start their car. Once that's done they can put the phone away and focus on learning to drive.

Okay, on to the interesting insights from the last 3 years!

---

How many KMs recorded?

Verified NSW learners using the app have driven over 22,800,000 km. That's equal to 568 times around the world!

How old are learner drivers?

Those using Roundtrip are on average 17.6 years old. The oldest learner driver we have is 52 and the youngest is 16 (which is good as we'd be worried if there were any younger considering it's the law!).

What's the average practice length?

The average trip duration for all verified learner drivers using the app is 37.6 minutes. The shortest practice trip recorded is just 1 minute long. Every minute counts!

How many trips were added?

A total of 1,037,434 trips have been added to the app by verified NSW learner drivers so far. 77.3% of these trips were recorded using our automatic Record Trip feature. The rest were added manually (most likely transferred from the paper logbook).

How do learners feel about their practice?

When asked to report how they feel their practice went, most learners had great (43.04%) or good sessions (39.30%). Just 0.2% of sessions were reported as being awful (don't worry, it does get better!).

In the next article, we'll look at some of the record holders, including the most trips, most logged hours and most heavy traffic trips logged (we don't envy this record holder!).

If you're a learner you can download Roundtrip for iOS here, or sign up to be the first to hear when the Android version is released (we're in the test phase for it at the moment).

We're excited to announce that after 1 year on the App Store we have had over 250,000 trips logged using our app!

This is a huge milestone for us, and we're excited to be able to help make it easier for NSW learners and their supervisors spend more time practicing and less time filling out a paper logbook.

Interested in more stats?

Well, the total number of trips recorded in the app add up to about 150,000 hours of practice from over 13,000 learners.

In the last 28 days we've had over 31,000 trips added, and this number continues to grow.

What's in store for 2019?

We're working hard on updating the app and have a number of new features that we're looking forward to releasing in 2019. This includes adding account synchronisation, as well as working on an Android version of the app.

If you have any questions about our app, don't hesitate to get in touch!

If you're a NSW learner driver and aren't using our app yet, then just click here to download it for iPhone.

We released our NSW Learner Logbook app Roundtrip last year in August 2017.

Since we released it we've had over 160,000 trips added by registered users! 😲

That's a lot of kilometres driven!

Roundtrip is an officially endorsed replacement for the NSW paper logbook - meaning learners never need to carry a paper logbook with them again when they practice.

Learners just have to tap the record button in the app before they start their car. Once that's done they can put the phone away and focus on learning to drive.

Beyond making a logbook app that is super easy to use, part of our mission is to contribute to research on learner driver safety as well (our company has a research background). Our aim is to research anonymised driving behaviour that can be used to inform policy and to help design interventions that promote safer driving.

Here's some interesting insights we found from the first six months of the app's release.

---

How old are learner drivers?

16.9 years old was the average age of verified learner drivers using our app in the first 6 months. The oldest learner driver was 39 and the youngest was 16.

What's the average practice length?

The average trip duration for all verified learner drivers using the app was 37 minutes.

The shortest practice trip recorded added was just 1 minute long!

How many trips were added?

A total of 47,103 trips were added to the app by verified NSW learner drivers in the first 6 months. 67% of these trips were recorded using our automatic Record Trip feature. The rest were added manually (most likely copied from the paper logbook).

What's the weather like?

Nearly all learners (99.5%) had practiced in fine weather and 63.1% of learners had practiced in rain. The majority of learners had not driven in fog (87%), icy weather (98.1%) or snow (98.8%), probably because this weather is less common in NSW!

Who's supervising learners?

Mums supervised the most practice sessions (47.9%), followed by dads (31.7%). Only 16.8% of verified learner drivers used an accredited driving instructor. Accredited instructors were used on average twice by these learner drivers.

How do learners feel about their practice?

When asked to report how their practice session went generally learners had good (42.4%) or great sessions (35.3%). Only 0.2% of sessions were reported as being awful (don't worry, it does get better!).

---

What's next for Roundtrip?

Pretty interesting right? We can't wait to see how learners continue using our app in the future.

Our focus from here on in is to keep updating the app, making it better for learner drivers and their supervisors and look at adding new features to better support the learning process.

We've also launched ads for NSW driving instructors and businesses to help us keep the app free for learners.

If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions for future features let us know.