Fleet safety in focus - Key takeaways

We have attempted to summarize a very insightful presentation by Chris Connors , (Head of Fleet & travel at ISS, previously with Countryside) - on challenges, key things that happened on his journey, lessons learned all pertaining to fleet safety.

Initial Challenges at Countryside

1. High levels of driver and vehicle downtime
2. Cost of insurance increases, including excess
3. Impact on brand, Countryside branded vans, how drivers were behaving, speeding, etc
4. Reactive recharge approach
5. Driving was not seen as a risk by the rest of the business

Lightbulb moments

1. During a meeting with the insurers discussing about?rising premiums, their claims experience being poor, accident stats were worse than comparable fleets (they were late in reporting, not managing incidents well, more accidents etc.)

"...we were what I would call a standard fleet. So there must have been something that we werent doing that other fleets were doing better than us"

1. Counstryside site visit - Health and safety was prioritized by the business in all other areas such as construction

"..the business gets safety and I am in a business that prioritizes safety" and "...we might be able to do something about this"?

Initial actions

1. Talked to the business about risk related to driving
2. Stakeholders (internal and external) provided insight into what they were doing and what other fleets were doing - being a sponge in collecting all that information
3. Policy covered only procurement and a few other aspects. Put together a robust enough policy? that includedDriver and vehicle safetyWhat were the behavioural expectations from peopleProper way to communicate this (most were site based staff without access to a desktop and couldnt access intranet)Framework of how they wanted people to behave and getting the message out
4. Making fleet safety as part of the company wide risk management reporting - quarterly reportingHelped focus the business on how important this was
5. Proactive and preventative approachMaking sure vehicles were checked before allocating to peopleMaking sure people got information about the vehicle they receivedImproving the handover process
6. Putting in minimum safety requirements in the vehicles

Approach to safety

Education and training

1. Focus on education and training - Mandatory online training for all
2. Additional training - Added a governance mechanism to training. Identified people that need additional training based on data Insurance claims. Serious accident, 7 or more points etc.
3. Regularly issued guidance - 2 page quarterly newsletter - with a page on reminders, policy items, Seasonal issues (winter)
4. Focus on vehicle checks - Especially things that couldnt be pickup automatically using tech (e.g. tyres)
5. Working with line managers - How to support the driver, What they could do to influence and manage that risk, What they could do to give early indications if they saw any risk

Using data - a lot was available

1. Collecting and delving deeper accident information from insurers - What type of accidents, how serious, cause of the accidents, underlying trends
2. Rolling out telematics - Using telematics data to understand speeding behaviours across seasons. (Telematics business case - mainly on account of fuel efficiency/savings)
3. Vehicle information - from leasing providers, understanding why people were not checking tyres, Communicating to drivers regarding missed services, Return vehicle condition etc gave insights into how the vehicle was driven
4. Driver information - Types of offences, behaviours

Measures and KPIs

1. Put in place measures and KPIs - to focus the efforts and see whether what was put in place was working
2. Accident record - Total number vs. number of vehicles, frequency, Seriousness, Trends and linking it back to the information being provided to people
3. Cost - Focused the business since measures that were being put in place were resulting in savings
4. Intangibles -very difficult to quantify or measure. Includes driver downtime - spoke to drivers and business, got a feel for what was going. Fleet support - finding fleet team's efforts on safety related initiatives

"...when you talk about safety... Cost is a bit of dirty word, but actually it focused the business, .... the measures were putting in place were actually saving the business money"

Transparent process for dealing with behaviour

1. Training and educating, in-person was found to be very effective, people saw the positives around it
2. Telematics to understand how people were driving, if behaviour warranted the extra measure
3. Restriction on which vehicles were provided based on offences, incidents
4. Involve line management,
5. Removal of vehicle or permission to drive temporarily or permanently
6. Disciplinary route - clear transparent policy

"...most people generally dont want to drive in a bad way, they just need help, information and we need to educate them on what they need to do"

Successes

1. Changed everyone's perception of driving as a risk
2. Reduced accident rates and all benefits that come with it
3. Reduced rises in insurance premiums
4. Improved experience for all stakeholders

Lessons learned

• Talk to other fleet managers - every single fleet manager will help
• Dont forget the grey fleet - accident is an accident
• Engage with all business stakeholders especially involve the drivers
• External stakeholders can help on the journey, share comparative data
• Data and stats help but dont be slave to them, look at the context behind them
• Accept that things will happen
• It takes time, its a continuous improvement process
• Measure success and impact delivered
• Celebrate wins, improvements

Other insights from the panel discussion

• Just because it is legal, is it the right thing to do?
• Remember to thank people, send appreciation notes when someone exhibits good driving behaviour
• Grey fleet is as important from a safety perspective

Full video here https://youtu.be/hvWEQhHZczw