Fleet managers must balance ever-shifting routes and customer needs — all while keeping drivers (and the public) safe. Three fleets are applying technology to better serve their customers, improve their efficiency, and boost the bottom line.
Concho Valley Transit uses fleet management technology to improve driving behavior
The Concho Valley Transit District in West Texas serves 12 counties with a fleet of 62 vehicles. In 2015, after the district’s fleet was involved in 13 major collisions, leaders set out to better integrate safety into the organizational culture with the Lytx® Driver Safety Program.
The video and telematics data uncovered previously missed risky driving behaviors. Officials hadn’t realized how frequently drivers were speeding until they reviewed the data. Focused coaching propelled a dramatic drop in traffic violations, and 95 percent of drivers eliminated the behavior after a single coaching session.
The team also focused on encouraging and celebrating safe driving behaviors.
“Whenever someone does something right, I make sure to point it out,” said Operations Manager Ryan Herrera. “We show those videos at our monthly driver meetings. It’s valuable training, and our drivers are proud when they do something well.”
Concho Valley officials also trained drivers to manually activate the cameras by pushing a button on the device when they observe hazards. “We’ve had videos of big potholes, road construction, police blockades, deer, dogs, you name it. Each time there’s a manual recording, I can immediately look at what’s happening and, if necessary, re-route our vehicles to avoid damage or delays.”
Smart Care leverages fleet tracking to improve operations and efficiency
Smart Care Equipment Solutions is the nation’s largest commercial kitchen equipment maintenance company, servicing restaurants, hospitals, schools, and universities in all 50 states. The fleet’s 600 vehicles make more than 30,000 service calls each month. Before Lytx, they had an existing GPS system that delivered data about driver location, but no information about driver behavior.
In 2018, Smart Care implemented Lytx’s video telematics solution to better understand driver behavior — such as hard braking and driver distraction — by adding video capabilities.
Video has helped improve these behaviors. As Kevin Kelley, Safety and Health Manager noted, “Videos translate to a much more effective two-way coaching conversation with our technicians.” As a result of driver coaching, collisions dropped by 74 percent in the first quarter after implementing the Driver Safety Program.
“The fleet tracking piece is paramount to our business. We could not survive without it.”
Kevin Kelley
Safety and Health Manager, Smart Care Equipment Solutions
In addition to safety, profitability was a key driver for installing Lytx GPS fleet tracking technology. Smart Care wanted to improve its technician utilization rate, which measures how much of a technician’s time is spent directly helping customers. Routes were planned to meet the goal of 68 percent utilization, but emergency calls required re-routing technicians. The improved fleet tracking capabilities enabled dispatchers to re-route drivers more efficiently and achieve a 72 percent utilization rate — effectively paying for the cost of the system.
As Kelley said, “The fleet tracking piece is paramount to our business. We could not survive without it. Our dispatch team uses the fleet tracking portion of Lytx to know where our technicians are at all times, route the ones capable of performing required work from nearby areas, and use geofencing to really understand where everyone is.”
Durham Coca-Cola uses video evidence from its fleet management solution to help exonerate drivers from false claims
The Durham Coca-Cola Bottling Company has 140 vehicles that carry a high-profile name on their sides, sometimes making them a target for false claims.
Each claim consumes significant time and effort, even when proved fraudulent. Before installing the Lytx Driver Safety Program, Durham Coca-Cola was spending nearly $100,000 in annual claims costs. “When you’re an independent bottler, those claims can eat you alive,” noted Safety Coordinator Donahue Holloway.
Less than two hours after installing the Lytx system, a Durham Coca-Cola driver was involved in an incident. Holloway explained, “[The driver] was on his way back from the install when another vehicle collided with him…. After the event, he called us and said, ‘This is what happened.’ I went in to check the video footage and saw that it happened while he was making a turn and it showed clearly that it was not his fault.”
Other incidents followed. Holloway said, “We had two companies go after us when they thought we hit them….In fact, video clearly showed they hit us. Once we mentioned that we had Lytx, [the false claims] went away.”
In a little more than a year after installing Lytx, Durham Coca-Cola’s claims costs have dropped by 92%. The results were so impressive that the company’s insurance carrier highlighted the safety program for its other customers.
Source: https://www.lytx.com
CUT COTS OF THE FLEET WITH OUR AUDIT PROGRAM
The audit is a key tool to know the overall status and provide the analysis, the assessment, the advice, the suggestions and the actions to take in order to cut costs and increase the efficiency and efficacy of the fleet. We propose the following fleet management audit.
