For any company managing a fleet, driver behaviour has a direct impact on the bottom line. From sharp acceleration, braking and cornering, to excessive idling and speeding, the actions of drivers can affect cost and productivity, as well as an organisation’s safety record and reputation.
In light of today’s rising fuel prices and strict safety legislation in some parts of the world, it’s harder than ever for companies to control costs and grow profits. Thankfully, technology is changing that: with real-time driver monitoring, your clients can save on fuel, maintenance and operational expenses, while managing a safer, more responsible fleet.
Evolving fleets for the future
The role of fleet manager has evolved over the past 10 years. Along with monitoring productivity levels and vehicle health, businesses have a moral and legal obligation to keep drivers safe. This means that your clients need to be able to manage the challenges affecting driver and vehicle downtime such as:
Human error – which leads to road accidents
Road traffic deaths continue to rise, and the latest reports confirm a global figure of around 1.35 million fatalities every year. Most of these accidents and injuries are caused by human behaviour factors such as speeding, distracted driving and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Bad driving habits - which leads to shortened vehicle life
Actions such as aggressive acceleration, harsh braking and rapid cornering affect the quality and longevity of any fleet, and increased wear and tear means higher maintenance costs.
Poor driving - which wastes fuel
Acceleration, speeding, and idling waste fuel unnecessarily, rather than optimising usage through maintaining a reasonable speed.
Efficiency as a result of good behaviour
Good driving habits are good news for any business. As well as the obvious cost advantages, your clients will be better able to get the most out of their people and their fleet. By using technology to proactively ‘detect and correct’ driver behaviour, companies are better able to roll out more efficient driving practices, while supporting more driver accountability and safety.
Whichever way you look at it, if your client is able to monitor driver behaviour in a multi-driver fleet, it’ll also help to: lower insurance premiums, identify accident hotspots, provide evidence for any injury claims, prevent car abuse by drivers, improve safety reputation, support investment in driver training and even lower CO2 emissions - which is good news for the planet too.
Active monitoring for immediate action
Technology gives companies a direct view of driver actions behind the wheel. Through active monitoring, driver and vehicle data can be presented in real-time, or as historical reports for tracking trends.
Through wireless devices and sensors, and integration with vehicles’ onboard computers or OBD/CANBUS, managers are able to identify specific actions that might point to poor driving behaviour or vehicle abuse. For older vehicles, retro fitted sensors can give fleet managers new insights into the health of their fleets.
3Dtracking’s customizable interface monitors driver actions such as speeding, idling, harsh braking, excessive acceleration, and rapid turning. Smart tailored algorithms collect this data and take it one step further by turning them into usable insight into driver and fleet performance.
For clients, this means greater fleet control through real-time alerts that help address risk and stop costly driver behaviour in its tracks. With easy-to-use management dashboards, organisations can use and analyse the data in a range of creative ways to set targets, calculate driver scores, encourage improvement and reward good driving behaviour.
Using insight to encourage good driving behaviour
By taking responsibility for their drivers, your clients have a duty of care to provide every person with the equipment and knowledge they need to do their jobs to the best of their ability. For organisations, the combination of technology and training is powerful in achieving a return on investment.
For drivers, ongoing behaviour management programmes can even help boost morale and offer professional development opportunities for drivers. And through targeted training, incentives and scoring cards, your clients can proactively change behaviour to improve overall fleet safety.
Real-time driver behaviour tracking can help your clients achieve their cost and safety goals. Contact 3Dtracking to find out more about their tailored fleet management solutions.