From AI-driven fleet intelligence to predictive risk management, SambaSafety’s Nicola Wright discusses the technologies and trends reshaping fleet services…
Tell us about your company, products and services.
SambaSafety is a global provider of driver risk management software, helping fleets, insurers and service providers identify, manage and reduce driver risk through data, analytics and targeted training. In the UK, SambaSafety positions itself as the most comprehensive driver risk solution, aggregating multiple data sources into one central platform to support safety, compliance and risk reduction initiatives including vehicle-specific ‘pro-defence’ eLearning.
What have been the biggest challenges the Fleet Services industry has faced over the past 12 months?
Fleet service providers have faced sustained pressure from multiple directions at once, with operators facing ongoing driver shortages, rising operating costs, increasingly complex regulation, tougher insurance conditions, and heightened scrutiny around safety and sustainability.
And what have been the biggest opportunities?
Data‑driven fleet and driver risk management is now embedded across the UK market, partly driven by insurers who are leveraging telematics, licence data, claims history and behavioural insight to shape underwriting and commercial outcomes. Telematics is now table stakes for mid to large fleets, but a high proportion of those still don’t have a system to pull that data into a form that they can share with insurers, so there’s a huge opportunity there. The real value lies in software‑led optimisation that delivers real‑time visibility of vehicles, utilisation and driver risk, supports predictive maintenance, and improves operational efficiency. As a result, the market continues to shift away from hardware toward integrated, software‑first platforms.
What is the biggest priority for the Fleet Services industry right now?
Providing fleets with solutions for controlling total cost and risk while maintaining operational continuity. Operating costs and uptime are consistently ranked as the top focus area, ahead of electrification.
What are the main trends you are expecting to see in the market next year?
Faced with rising cost, risk and operational disruption, fleet operators are abandoning fragmented cost initiatives in favour of joined‑up solutions. With multiple cost lines under pressure at the same time, isolated interventions fail to address the root causes.
Sustainable control comes from connecting decisions across the fleet ecosystem, supported by automation, predictive insight and disciplined lifecycle management to protect continuity.
What technology is going to have the biggest impact on the market this year?
AI and data‑driven insight will help fleets replace firefighting with foresight and manual processing of data—cutting cost, reducing risk, and preventing disruption before it happens.
Next year we’ll all be talking about…?
Predictability of risk over transformation – risk becoming a financial discipline.
You go to the bar at the Fleet Services Management Summit – what’s your tipple of choice?
You’ll find me enjoying a glass of Pinot seeing as I won’t be driving.
What’s the most exciting thing about your job?
Knowing that the work we do is creating safer drivers on our roads, for business and communities across the UK, is always fulfilling but what’s really exciting is being able to demonstrate to organisations that we can actually help them to predict and mitigate future road risk. It’s great to see how fleets go on to use our insights to create safer risk policies, better mitigation and actually translating that into reduced costs, driver and vehicle down time, and to hearing about how they’ve gone on to secure better terms from their insurers.
And what’s the most challenging?
Discussing data and insights with already stretched fleet and transport operators, against a backdrop of rising business costs, is always challenging. However, as AI‑led and data‑driven risk intelligence becomes more widely understood, we’re confident that it will enable more constructive and informed conversations with key fleet decision‑makers.
Peaky Blinders or The Crown?
I’m from the West Midlands so it’s got to be Peaky Blinders!
