What is the issue here?
In the latter part of the 20th
century, we saw a dramatic rise in the use of contract hire as a way of
acquiring motor vehicles for business.
The reason was not just because it was off-balance sheet but because in
one monthly payment, the fleet could buy an integrated solution that included
acquisition, disposal, funding and maintenance.
As we now view the need for safety compliance in fleet
risk as well as the drive for reduced
accident claims, it is hard not to draw a parallel with the contract hire
industry. This is because fleets are
again faced with a multi-faceted hurdle in checking licences, profiling and
training drivers, controlling grey fleet and optimising claims handling.
To further complicate matters,
whilst fleets are perfectly capable of buying these services (from lease
providers, insurance companies and other providers), very often the fleet is left on its own when faced
with deciding which to buy, how much to buy, at what price, for what reason and
with what results.
Why is this an issue?
Clearly, different fleets have
different resources in this area depending on their size and their appetite to
engage in a program designed to reduce road risk. Despite these variations, common needs of all
fleets are:
1.
to integrate all risk data into one,
visible, accessible location,
2.
to be able to test risk data inputs
instantly for severity using consistent parameters,
3.
to quickly implement pre-agreed
remedial actions arising from higher risks,
4.
to check if the action taken
achieved the overall program objective.
Given all this work, on top of
implementing the risk services themselves, it is easy to see that for a fleet
to achieve its overall objective to reduce road risk, demands a sophisticated integration of several
sources of dynamic data. Regrettably
for the fleet, reducing road risk via the tools above, represents a relatively
new concept and therefore not easy to do in-house via an off-the-shelf software
application. As a consequence it becomes a manual and time-consuming job that
creates delays and thereby, perversely, increases risk!
Even if systems were available, the
fleet would need expertise to decide
how to interpret levels of risk and indeed what to do about them. This falls within
the scope of skills of a risk co-ordinator that knows what has worked in the
past and without that knowledge, a fleet is left only with the option of experimenting in the hope the type of remedial action
taken does in fact reduce risk.
Another challenge for fleets is in
making sure the integration of risk data occurs
consistently throughout the year because the time delay between a risk
being identified and the cure being applied does have an impact on how
effectively the cure works. For example
if a driver that has a blameworthy incident due to poor roundabout technique,
receives training on that problem more than three months after the incident,
its relevance (and the longevity of the training message) is lower than if it
were carried out two weeks after the incident.
The solution?
- The fleet should seek advice as to where it sits in terms of safety initiatives and what would be necessary to raise that level to a point that is compatible with the organisation’s aspiration
- The fleet should then create a solution-led (as opposed to product-led) road risk reduction program in partnership with a specialist risk management supplier that focuses on raising safety culture amongst drivers
- The fleet should select a single supplier that can offer all the risk tools as one cohesive solution (including claims) supplied by one accessible team that appoints one personal risk manager to every driver.
- The supplier should offer reliable advice on how to interpret multiple sources of driver profiling data so as to maximize the effectiveness of any remedial action
- Connections between principal causes of risk and potential remedial action should be pre-empted and defined so there’s a pre-set matrix that takes in all eventualities
- The lead time between risk causation and remedial action needs to be shorter so as to increase the effectiveness of the curative measures.
At RVM Fleet Services our integrated approach
allows us to help fleets to implement effective safety policies, analyse trends
and identify high risk drivers. Our Driver Training program is targeted, timely
and appropriate. The result is lower
accident rates, improved driver safety, and reduced costs.
