How telematics helps manage your fleet drivers

Developing a solid safety culture, supported at all levels across the organisation, coupled with the right systems and processes are key to ensuring your fleet and drivers are productive, safe and compliant.

Using telematics technology, such as EROAD’s award-winning platform, can help you achieve that and more across your entire operation. It provides advanced data and insights that help monitor and enhance driver behaviour, vehicle safety and good maintenance practices as well as automating and managing a range of other critical fleet management and compliance processes.

The result is a leaner, more efficient, higher performing fleet that can continue to grow your business.

EROAD’s driver management software has been designed to nurture safe driving practices by helping coach and encourage positive behavioural change. In effect, it increases driver accountability, facilitates better driving choices at the same time as allowing you to reinforce and reward good driving habits.

EROAD’s geofencing and GPS capabilities provide you with an accurate overview of what your vehicles and assets are being used for and by whom, at any time. This includes vital data such as who the driver was, where they travelled to, how long they spent on site, what route they took and whether auxiliary equipment was used.

An EROAD study found that vehicles where the driver was logged in had 50% less speed events than vehicles with no identified driver.

Source: EROAD’s ‘The Power of Accountability’ white paper

EROAD’s driver login ensures you know who’s behind the wheel and where they are at all times, and unlocks valuable insights on individual driver performance.

EROAD’s Driver Login’s unique PIN system lets drivers identify themselves before they turn on the ignition – it’s a quick, intuitive and secure way to identify the driver and incentivise good driving, as well as eliminate unauthorised use.

Erratic driving, speed, harsh braking, cornering and acceleration not only create a higher risk of accidents or vehicle down-time, but also have a huge impact on your fleet’s fuel and maintenance costs given vehicles use more power and fuel when driven harder or at higher speeds.

The power needed to travel at 90 km/hr is 20% less than the power required to travel at 100 km/hr. Reducing peak speeds by just 8 km/hr can save 10% to 15% in fuel consumption. *

Studies have also shown aggressive driving can impact fuel efficiency by as much as 33% on open roads and up to 5% in built-up areas.**

*EROAD Red Paper – ‘Take a fresh look at your fleet’s fuel usage to deliver big savings and sustainability’

EROAD’s telematics platform can help reduce speeding and inappropriate driving behaviour by monitoring your drivers and vehicles at every turn.

EROAD’s in-vehicle Ehubo2 device captures essential information on driver behaviour as it happens and then provides real-time coaching feedback to the driver to remedy any issues immediately. This data is recorded and made available to your fleet managers via an online portal.

Managing and coaching your drivers in real-time can also help lower your costs on fuel, brakes and, lowering maintenance costs and, ultimately, reduce the risk of accidents.

EROAD’s telematics technology also provides your drivers with the most up-to-date road speed data available. Telematic devices have traditionally enabled companies to track speed against open road speed limits. EROAD has taken that one step further by tracking against posted speed limits.

An EROAD study found that organisations that pay consistent attention to EROAD’s driver behaviour analytics have 38% fewer speeding events than organisations that don’t view them at all. (EROAD study, June 2016, across 1344 organisations)

Driver fatigue is a key factor in ensuring workplace health and safety for any business using heavy vehicles. Ensuring your drivers work reasonable hours, aren’t held up unnecessarily and take proper breaks is now the responsibility of everyone in your chain – from senior managers running your operation, to schedulers, to those loading and unloading your trucks.

Managing driver fatigue involves recognising when fatigue events are actually happening and helping to mitigate them. It’s also important to proactively identify fatigue triggers before they occur and make sure drivers and their vehicles are safe before they even leave your depot.

EROAD helps manage driver fatigue by monitoring the distance and time a vehicle has been running. Fleet managers can easily monitor driving time on our desktop fleet management and reporting portal – Depot.

EROAD’s intuitive platform also helps mitigate fatigue risk through better trip planning so drivers and vehicles are safe even before they leave the depot.

Unnecessary idling is a leading factor in fuel waste. This can also prove expensive.

In fact, an EROAD study has found that, on average, 7%*** of customers’ fuel consumption is burned in non-productive vehicle idling.

*** EROAD Red Paper – ‘Take a fresh look at your fleet’s fuel usage to deliver big savings and sustainability’

Making your drivers aware of the issue so that they can cut down on unnecessary idle time each day can have a massive impact on your fuel bill – in some cases this could add up to thousands of dollars in savings per year.

EROAD’s telematics can identify instances where fuel has been wasted through excessive or unnecessary idling or a poorly tuned vehicle.

Determining the most efficient routes, even by a small percentage, can also make a big impact on fuel usage and costs

EROAD helps identify the most efficient (or direct) routes for your drivers to help cut down on fuel consumption which also reduces your carbon emissions (and your fleet’s overall carbon footprint).

EROAD’s Leaderboard helps you identify and reward great driving habits by using gamification to encourage proactive driver improvement with a bit of healthy competition. Drivers can be scored on key driver metrics, with rankings showing how your drivers compare with each other and against industry driver benchmarks.

What’s more, by installing EROAD in your vehicles, you may be able to reduce your insurance premiums and excess if you can show you are in the top 25% of drivers on EROAD’s Leaderboard.

EROAD’s advanced telematics technology goes beyond just tracking your drivers. It collects the right data to provide you with a deep understanding of your entire business to help manage a range of other fleet management challenges.

It helps create a ‘safety-first’ culture at the same time as ensuring your fleet is operating efficiently, productively and is compliant – all on one platform.