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GUEST BLOG: 5 ways to ensure a fleet stays safe on the roads

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By Rebecca, Technician at Dronsfields

If you manage numerous vehicles as a part of your business, you’ll understand the importance of ensuring their functionality and safety – as well as the safety of their drivers!

Here, I’ll explain how to easily keep your fleet safe and running as it should by offering up a few choice tips. By employing these practices, you’ll also keep your costs down and save yourself a lot of hassle.

  1. Make Sure Your Whole Fleet is Regularly Serviced

This sounds a lot more difficult than it actually is. There’s no need to arrange to have every single vehicle checked and tweaked separately – this is very time consuming and can really rack up the costs. 

A better approach is to invest in fleet servicing – something offered by some specialist garages and mechanics which means that all of your vehicles are managed in one group. This only requires one set of paperwork (making life much easier for you!). All units will be checked together, so you won’t have to worry about remembering when each one is due in for a service.

2. Invest in Visibility and Communication Methods

There are systems available that will allow you to track your vehicles’ locations, check for hazards such as roadworks and poor traffic conditions and to see how far each vehicle has to travel for the next job (on the off chance that you can assign it to someone a little closer to reduce wear and tear or fuel consumption).

This method will also help you to stay updated if any of your drivers get into any difficulty, so you can arrange for them to be assisted.

3. Use Telematics to Track Performance and Maintenance

The above features and more can be obtained as part of a telematics system. This is software that can be automated to whatever extent you require in order to help you manage the running of your vehicles.

An additional benefit of telematics is that you can log when your vehicles have last been serviced, and they’ll also tell you when they need maintaining in order to avoid breakdowns and elements of wear and tear becoming exacerbated.

4. Ensure Your Drivers are Fully Trained

It’s a good idea to make sure that your drivers are as knowledgeable about safe driving practices as possible. The software mentioned above can help you to keep an eye on the speeds at which they tend to drive, their fuel consumption and much more besides. However, speaking to them directly about how they as a team can improve their performance will also go a long way towards keeping them safe and ensuring that your fleet stays in good condition.

5. Make Sure Your Fleet is Properly Insured

Fully comprehensive cover is always the best choice for your vehicles – but it’s also possible to arrange fleet cover to ensure that all of your vehicles are insured as a group. Whatever combination of sizes, types and makes you utilise, insuring them all under one plan means there’s no danger of forgetting to renew – plus, it makes the process much more efficient.

So, in conclusion, you should opt for fleet maintenance and fleet insurance as a priority. Furthermore, it’s important to keep on top of driver training – plus, you may wish to invest in telematics and advanced communication software for a little something extra.

Image by Santa3 from Pixabay

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT: GPSi drives accuracy for UK fleets with RoadScout and FleetConnect

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GPSi is committed to data accuracy to ensure fleet decisions are based on real insight, not on estimates or averages.

Its RoadScout telematics device captures data every second to mitigate the errors resulting from sparse data sampling.

Vehicle and driver data is presented via FleetConnect; providing insight on the performance of individuals, teams or the entire business, and highlighting trends in driving behavior as they happen, every second.  

“RoadScout already connects vehicles in some of the world’s most challenging environments.”, commented Graeme Sandieson of GPSi UK. “We are confident RoadScout and FleetConnect, will also help UK customers make the right decisions.” 

For further information: www.gpsinnovations.co.uk

Changing driver behaviour through telematics: First step, safety culture

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By Nick List, Customer Success Director, Europe at eDriving

Telematics solutions are fast becoming commonplace among fleets. No longer valued only for their “track and trace” capabilities, telematics solutions are now able to provide a vast array of behavioural insights to help fleet managers improve driver safety and wellbeing. 

Fleet managers have the ability to see real-time driver safety performance and promptly identify trends, both positive and negative. However, for behaviour-based telematics to measurably impact on work-related road risk, it’s important for an organisation to already have a solid safety culture in place. 

A commitment to safety

Organisations that introduce telematics as their “driver safety solution” without first having a solid safety culture are less likely to experience a long-term reduction in collisions and incidents. By a solid safety culture, I mean having in place policies, procedures, risk assessments, training, and most importantly, effective two-way communication between the driver and their immediate manager; all in the wider context of an organisation-wide commitment to safety, including senior leadership.

Without policies that detail what is reasonably expected of drivers in terms of their behaviour – in relation to speeding, distraction, braking, cornering, for example – how do drivers know that they need to improve? And, even with telematics data, how do drivers know what behaviours they are aiming for? 

Don’t underestimate the role that line managers play in your safety culture or the influence they have on your organisation’s safety operational balance (i.e. maintaining the same level of importance for safety as for operations). As well as providing ongoing training to drivers, it’s equally important to train managers so that they too fully understand the influence they have in helping keep drivers safe as well as recognising how best to engage with drivers. 

Interpreting telematics data

The output from telematics can be overwhelming. That’s another reason why a solid safety culture is so important. If you know what your organisation is aiming toward, you can use telematics data to guide drivers towards your safety goals. Most telematics providers will issue manager reports that give insights into driving behaviours such as speed versus posted speed limit, braking, acceleration and cornering. At eDriving, our smartphone telematics programme, Mentor by eDrivingSM, also provides feedback on phone manipulation, whether that be a phone call (handheld or hands-free), text, accessing social media or even just moving the phone to view a notification. 

It’s important that the data supplied by your telematics provider is useful and relevant to your organisation, and that you are supported in acting on this data. eDriving’s Mentor programme does this automatically, prescribing micro training modules within the smartphone app, tailored to the driving behaviours that have been identified; including distraction, speeding, scanning, braking etc. In addition, Mentor’s manager dashboard can automatically identify the 10% of drivers most at-risk in any given month and assign Manager-Driver OnetoOnes®to discuss and develop action plans for improvement. 

Effective regular communication

Communication with drivers is fundamental… Consider this: a driver has telematics installed and regularly triggers warnings about their driving behaviour, If their manager does nothing about these warnings it won’t take long for a driver to realise that they can simply ignore them. Without analysis and discussion, risky driving behaviour will never be changed. 

Again, that brings us back to the importance of a solid safety culture. Drivers need to be aware of the interventions that will occur should they fail to meet the organisation’s safe driving requirements. And don’t forget to address how good driving behaviours will be rewarded as that’s equally important. 

Formal communication (as in the case of Manager-Driver OnetoOnes) will ideally be supported by regular informal communication, whether that be in the form of face-to-face chats, driver emails, newsletters, team discussions or posters. Feedback, feedback and more feedback goes a long way to maintaining a strong safety culture over time. 

Transparency for drivers

One of the biggest concerns drivers have about telematics is their privacy. But, a solid safety culture addresses privacy concerns at the outset. And, the subsequent introduction of telematics will only serve to reinforce your mission of ensuring drivers make it home safely every day, rather than triggering concerns. If your whole organisation is aware of your commitment to safety, drivers are more likely to view telematics in a positive light. Enabling them to see how they’re performing and areas in which they can improve will further boost their engagement. 

eDriving’s Mentor programme has full transparency for drivers and acts like a fitness coach in that it prescribes drivers with their own personal validated driving score that is recalculated after every trip and accompanied by feedback related to specific driving behaviours including acceleration, braking, cornering, distraction and speeding. Drivers can immediately see areas in which they could do better and can even join colleagues in competing for the best scores using the gamification feature, “Circles”. 

To summarise, if you’re considering a new telematics programme, or assessing the effectiveness of an existing one, first look to your safety culture. Could it be strengthened? If so, it’s worth investing your time in creating a solid foundation before focusing your efforts on telematics solutions. Yes, behaviour-based telematics can be a valuable tool for reducing collision and claim rates, but only when deployed into a company culture that truly puts safety first. 

Nick List is eDriving’s Customer Success Director for Europe. 

About eDriving

eDriving helps organisations to reduce collisions, injuries, licence endorsements and total cost of ownership through a patented closed-loop driver behaviour-based safety programme that reduces collisions by up to 67%. The risk management partner of choice for many of the world’s largest and safest fleets, eDriving has served over one million drivers in 45 languages and 96 countries over its 23 years in the industry and has been recognised through 70+ client and partner awards.

eDriving will be exhibiting at Safety & Health Expo in London from 18-20 June and presenting a panel discussion on Using a Closed-Loop Approach to Measure, Manage & Reduce Driver Risk at 2:00-2:30 p.m. on 19 June in the Operational Excellence Theatre. More information.

Visit www.edriving.com.

Mentor by eDriving identifies and helps improve fleet driver behaviour

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eDriving’s fleet management software helps to reduce collisions, injuries, licence endorsements and total cost of ownership through a patented closed-loop driver behaviour-based safety programme.

Having worked with fleets for almost 25 years, eDrivingSM has identified the key components required to achieve a crash-free culture®– and they comprise a closed-loop approach to driver safety that has helped eDriving’s clients successfully reduce collisions by up to 67%.

The company’s patented programme, Mentor by eDrivingSM, provides behavioural insights and actionable intelligence to help organisations build a holistic view of driver risk within a company-wide crash-free culture. 

The Mentor platform integrates data from telematics, collisions, incidents, and licence checks to provide a complete 360-degree view of driver risk. It also provides managers with tools to reduce risk and sustain driver behaviour improvements over time. The result is reduced collisions, injuries, licence endorsements and total cost of ownership. And, most importantly, the assurance that drivers return home safely to their loved ones at the end of each day. 

Broad appeal across industries and vehicle-types

At the heart of the MentorSMprogram is an innovative telematics-based app that uses smartphone sensors to collect and analyse driver behaviours most predictive of risk including acceleration, braking, cornering, speeding, and uniquely, distraction. 

As a result of eDriving’s partnership with predictive analytics and data science pioneer, FICO®, drivers are awarded an individual score that enables both drivers and managers to see positive and negative trends in performance. Poised to become the industry standard for safe driving, the FICO® Safe Driving Score has been validated to predict the likelihood of a driver being involved in a crash or incident.  

Mentor’s gamification features, such as Circles(personal groups for sharing scores), promote engagement and friendly competition among drivers, while its unique closed-loop training makes it the only safe driving programme that goes beyond scoring to focus on improving performance. Short, engaging training modules are automatically prescribed in-app for users to view any time, any place, employing a customised continuous improvement model for lasting risk reduction. 

Because Mentor requires no hardware installation, it has broad appeal across types of drivers, vehicles (motorcycles/two-wheelers, cars, trucks, and vans), applications (service, sales, and delivery fleets of all sizes), and location (currently available in 14 languages with both right-hand drive and left-hand drive training modules).

For more information email: fleet@edriving.com or visit: www.edriving.com. 

What does the future of electric vehicles look like?

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What can we expect from our electric automobiles? Well, the concept of the electric car may have been around for over 100 years, but it’s only now that it is becoming a driving force in the car industry. With so many technological advances, cars are rapidly changing, with fully autonomous cars set to be rolled out by 2020. Lookers, who provide Mercedes Benz Serviceplans, take a further look… 

How possible is an all – electric future?

Last year, there was an 27% increase in purchasing electric cars compared to the previous year.  However, if the government is to reach its target of three out of five cars being electric in just over 10 years, it’s argued that more must be done to make this a reality. 

An all-electric future is likely to happen in the near future. Ministers were informed earlier this year that most new cars would have to be electric by 2030. 

In fact, the buzzword was ‘electrification’ at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show. This meant that every car of a certain brand will be available in an electric version. While there are currently models, such as the smart caravailable under its umbrella, Mercedes, parent company, Daimler, announced at the German event that they too would have electric versions of its own fleet by 2022. There’s plenty available! 

However, this didn’t necessarily mean that they would be a fully electric battery-powered vehicle, as the term could also refer to hybrid models. 

Why are electric cars so popular?

Electric cars need a lot less maintenance care, as they have 10-times fewer moving parts to cars powered by diesel or petrol. Also, the prices are steadily coming down, making the initial outlay a lot less hefty. Another perk is that since electricity is a renewable energy, there will always be power available to utilise.

Why is an electric future becoming increasingly likely to happen? 

Protecting the environment has become a worldwide issue – and rightly so. Whether it’s cutting back on unnecessary plastic usage, or cutting back on emissions, creating a greener environment is at the forefront of our plans. 

Electric motors are widely seen as a way for us to improve the quality of our air and meet climate goals, and the production of new diesel and petrol cars is planned to cease by 2040. It has been proposed that these vehicles will be off the roads altogether 10 years later. With emission charges already in place in London, other major motorways, including the M4 and M32, are expected to start holding pollution taxes by 2020, meaning that you’ll need to switch to electric cars to avoid these costs.

Purchasing an electric car can personally save you money in the long term and Go Ultra Low also claims that a full charge could cost as little as £3, meaning it may cost approximately 3p per mile. 

What is being done to help with this?

It was reported in February last year that there were approximately 12,000 electric car charging points across the UK. By July this year, that figure had risen to over 17,000 across 6,000 locations, according to ZapMap. 

Worldwide, there are over two million ports, but for the public to go fully electric, this number will have to dramatically increase. Not only that, but there will have to be a lot more batteries produced, and the power to charge them would have to be generated somewhere.This highlights that EV charger installationis now a big part of the action plans for power companies as they bid to provide a low-carbon connection gateway.

It’s clear that, one day, there will be an all-electric future. Whether it happens in the time frame proposed, we will just have to wait and see!

Sources

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41268513

http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-apple-tesla-race-to-develop-driverless-cars-by-2020-2016-7?r=US&IR=T

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42709763

www.alphr.com/cars/1008121/electric-and-hybrid-car-sales-hit-record-numbers-in-2017

https://www.goultralow.com/category/ownership/savings/

https://news.sky.com/story/petrol-and-diesel-cars-banned-from-uk-roads-by-2040-10962075