The installation of blind spot monitoring and tracking technology is a crucial step to ensure the safety of the public, vulnerable road users, and crews, and to reduce accidents, especially when vehicles are performing reverse manoeuvres.
The new fleet is equipped with a package of safety technology from Fleetclear, including:
- Cyclear, a safety solution for cyclists and vulnerable road users with an LED warning sign and audible speaker to alert cyclists when the vehicle is turning left.
- the RX Lite camera system provides 360° round vehicle surveillance to eliminate all blind spots.
The council has also adopted Fleetclear Connect, a web-based fleet management solution that connects vehicle safety technology and software, combining it with tracking, telematics including fuel and carbon analysis, driver behaviour and compliance monitoring.
Matt Sharp, waste information systems officer at Preston City Council, said: “We’ve been using Fleetclear for over eight years now and we’ve always been impressed by their products, customer service and responsive after sales support. The technicians are knowledgeable, useful, and accommodating. Nothing is too much trouble, and they always go the extra mile.
“The safety technology equipped to our vehicles continues to evolve and we like the fact that Fleetclear is dedicated to continually researching and developing its products and services. There are regular software updates and new features being added all the time. The new cloud-based system is a game changer and so easy to use.
“We can access the system from anywhere, perform searches and view specific footage from any vehicle at any point during rounds. The geo-fencing feature means that we can search by street or area. The system is a huge time-saver especially when resolving incidents or complaints from the public or crews. Previously, we had to download all the recorded footage first and then search through it. It could take days to find the relevant piece of footage. With Fleetclear Connect it usually only takes minutes.”
For Preston City Council, being able to track the whereabouts of every vehicle in its fleet is crucial.
Sharp added: “We are utilising the tracking features to ensure that vehicles are completing rounds and accomplishing the targeted number of collections, which is especially important when investigating missed bin reports. We can see if vehicles did attempt to make a collection and what transpired for a bin to have been missed, such as access issues or non-presentation of bins.”
The Fleetclear Connect system has a customisable dashboard, which offers a host of other modules for monitoring and analysis. These include data and reports on fuel efficiency and associated carbon footprint, by driver, vehicle, or round; route optimisation features using historic and live traffic data, and incident alerts to reduce the risk of accidents; and advanced driver behaviour monitoring features that score drivers for harsh braking and speeding alerts.
Fleetclear Connect can integrate with other software, equipment, and systems, such as weighing, tachograph and other back-office packages.
For Preston City Council, the next step in the roll-out of the new system is to integrate its Bartec waste management collective software with Fleetclear Connect. This will enable the collections operation to be viewed on one system, via one dashboard, and provide an overview of how the service is performing, highlighting any areas for improvement.
Sharp concluded: “By integrating round information and collection schedules we can close the loop and see how the whole operation works together, which will help us to further streamline our front-line services, improve safety standards, reduce costs and work more efficiently.”
