As a Fleet Manager or Safety Director, it’s your responsibility to watch over the safety of your fleet. Having the right tools, systems and processes in place to monitor your operations is key to ensuring that you comply with state and federal regulations.
Here are 6 ways telematics can help your fleet stay safe, efficient and compliant:
1) Helps monitor and reduce speeding
Speed is a leading factor in causing accidents. Choose a telematics system that alerts you when drivers hit a maximum speed threshold or go a certain number of miles over the posted speed limit. Understanding which drivers are speeding, when and where can help with training.
2) Supports a culture of safety and accountability
The data from your telematics can be powerful in the hands of your drivers too. When a driver sees his driving stats on the computer screen or printed out in the break room, he/she is more likely to understand current behaviors and impacts.
Features, such as the Driver Insight Report and Driver Leaderboard, give valuable insights on speed, harsh braking, and excessive idling. With simple, easy-to-understand reporting, you can take your driver training to a new level. Driver specific summaries that map risk zones and outline specific areas for improvement can be a great tool for driver coaching.
3) Combats driver fatigue
Accounting for driver hours-of-service is not just to stay in line with the law. Driver fatigue is a key factor in road safety for any fleet. Ensuring your drivers work reasonable hours and take proper breaks is part of your responsibility.
Managing driver fatigue involves recognizing when fatigue events are actually happening and helping to mitigate them. It’s also important to proactively identify fatigue triggers before they occur. Telematics solutions help manage driver fatigue by monitoring the distance and time a vehicle has been running. With EROAD, fleet managers can easily monitor total drive time, miles, and hours-of-service violations on our desktop fleet management portal.
4) Holds drivers accountable
Driver accountability has been proven to have a very real impact on speed and road safety. With an easy-to-use driver login on the in-cab device, the driver’s name can be clearly identified and linked to the vehicle they are driving. As a result, each driver is associated with personalized reporting in the system which includes all historic event data. Having this type of accountability built in has shown to increase productivity and improve safe driving.
5) Ensures a well maintained fleet
Daily safety checks should be a key part of your routine when it comes to keeping your vehicles safe and on the road. This should involve pre-trip inspections before each driver leaves the yard and post-trip inspections after their shift, so you may quickly identify and report any defects.
EROAD’s electronic DVIR – Inspect, tracks vehicle defects by capturing them during vehicle inspections and displaying them on the Defect Board — ready for you or your team to take action. There’s no need to wait for paper copies or worry the DVIRs get lost in translation. Everything is available through the online portal. This makes access easy for your mechanics, who can see what types of repairs are coming up and schedule appropriately.
On top of easily reporting defects, the right telematics solution should provide automated maintenance reminders and a full service history. As long as you’re doing DVIRs on a regular basis, you’ll be on your way to a proactive fleet maintenance program.
6) Benchmarks against other drivers in the wider network
We’ve found that consistent monitoring of driving behavior analytics is key to improvement. The best analytics are based on big data analyses resulting from access to billions of driving miles, allowing you to compare your driving behavior against the wider driving population. Customers who regularly interact with EROAD’s Leaderboard, which ranks drivers throughout the organization as well as the whole EROAD universe, see reductions in unsafe driving events, a drop in fuel costs and even lowered insurance premiums. You can also encourage friendly competition and even reward drivers for their performance or changes in behavior.
With a reliable fleet management solution, telematics can play a key role in helping keep your fleet safe, efficient and compliant.
Make the road to compliance an easy one with a smart, reliable fleet telematics solution. Contact EROAD today for a free demo.
