Driver safety remains a priority for fleet management solutions

With more transportation and logistics companies emerging across the world and existing companies adding more vehicles to their fleet, ensuring the safety of drivers is becoming tougher. COVID-19 made this even more difficult as essential transport and logistics employees couldn't work from home. As economies recover from the pandemic, supply chain and logistics are under renewed pressure.
 
Every fleet owner's biggest goal is getting everyone home safely at night. Studies from The US National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence (NSTSCE) have shown that 87 percent of commercial vehicle crashes are due to driver error, meaning they could be prevented. 
 
Fleet management solutions are essential for accomplishing this as they enable fleet managers to identify and prevent high-risk driving behaviors. With an optimized combination of high-precision hardware and smart algorithms, these systems can help fleet owners significantly minimize the risks to their drivers.
 
As the US observes national safety month in June, we explore how exactly managers can take advantage of fleet management solutions and why more organizations should consider using them.

Driver monitoring and feedback

Webfleet Solutions, formerly known as TomTom Telematics, provides both the fleet manager and drivers with detailed driving behavior information. Everyone is empowered to act before, during, and after each trip. A range of driving indicators provides consistent feedback that can help drivers improve their performance.
 
"To help drivers improve their driving style, we developed OptiDrive 360," said Jeroen Berendsen, Strategic Project Manager at Webfleet. "We offer one of the most complete approaches to continuously improve fleet's driving performance. OptiDrive 360 allows drivers and operators to learn, get coached, evaluate, and compare on a wide set of driving performance indicators. Drivers get direct feedback and predictive driving advice while driving, and Webfleet clearly presents the savings potential to the fleet manager."

Detecting fatigue

Fatigue management is also an important aspect with regard to improving safety on the road. At times, knowingly or unknowingly, drivers may work more than their permitted time, increasing the chances of fatigue and, in turn, accidents.
 
"The data provided by our fleet management solution will show if drivers are complying with the maximum hours they are allowed to drive per day and taking the breaks they are mandated to take so they are well-rested during long drives," Berendsen said. "If drivers fail to follow these regulations, their fleet manager and the driver will receive a notification."

Vehicle safety

For a fleet organization, the safety of the vehicle is also essential to ensure the driver's safety. It may not be possible for drivers to check every aspect of a vehicle before each journey physically, but fleet management solutions make this easier. Sometimes only when they are on the road do the drivers realize that there is a problem with their vehicle, which could have been detected, if they had the right technology at their disposal.
 
In February, Webfleet Solutions launched the Vehicle Check app, which helps drivers do a workaround check of their vehicles before starting a trip, which in the case of heavier vehicles is often mandatory.

From reactive to proactive action

Another company that has been at the forefront of this sector is Samsara. Speaking to asmag.com, Suyog Deshpande, Sr. Director of Product and Partner Marketing at Samsara, explained that the company’s comprehensive fleet management platform helps customers move from a reactive to a proactive approach to safety. The company uses proprietary AI embedded in its IoT dash cams to identify real-time safety events on the road.
 
"By detecting risky behaviors like distracted driving, harsh braking, or tailgating, our system can alert drivers with in-cab audio alerts while the video is stored in the cloud to provide personalized driver coaching," Deshpande pointed out. "The step-by-step coaching based on real driver behavior improves the effectiveness of live coaching sessions. Our data also helps organizations establish recognition programs to celebrate their drivers and promote safe driving. Samsara's Driver Leaderboards can enable healthy competition among drivers to become the safest on the road. Leaderboards rank drivers by their Safety Scores and show them how they stack up against their peers."

Chalk Mountain Services, a customer of Samsara, can attest to this. Using Samsara's video-based safety solutions, they achieved a record milestone of over 20 million miles without a DOT-recordable preventable accident. Proactive coaching significantly improved driving behavior, leading to an 86 percent decrease in avoidable accidents. Samsara's approach doesn't just provide better visibility into safety–it enables behavioral change that ultimately saves lives.

Conclusion

Safety is a primary concern for fleet owners, and various factors make drivers and vehicles safe. Fleet management solutions can ensure that companies and their drivers have the best technology to minimize risks and improve operations. With a comprehensive set of tools, these suites enable proactive measures to ensure that vehicles and drivers are in their best condition before and during a trip.  
 
Demand for suitable fleet management solutions is only set to increase in the coming years as the global trade and transportation industries become even more active. Businesses worldwide are vigorously trying to make up for the time they lost to the pandemic, and competition is on the rise. Fleet management companies that have the right technology and solutions can stand out from the rest in the market.