The decision was made after Reynolds saw a reduction in collisions of almost one third and made fuel improvements across the fleet of almost 2 mpg, thanks to improved driving.
“We have enough data now to say that SmartDrive has made a considerable contribution to enabling us to reduce collisions, save fuel and proactively work towards minimising our associated direct and indirect costs,” says Steve White, head of fleet at Reynolds.
SmartDrive, he adds, has become “an integral part” of Reynolds’ day-to-day operations, and helps to drive its ‘safety first’ culture across the business.
“The proactive management of the fleet through improving driver behaviour is one of the key areas where a continuous focus on safety has had a significant and positive impact,” says White.
SmartDrive Assurance incorporates forward and interior facing recordings, with sophisticated triggering algorithms. These capture detailed video and vehicle data of triggered events, which typically encompass distracted or dangerous driving incidents such as harsh braking, swerves, collisions and unsafe turning.
The triggered event videos are offloaded and automatically sent to SmartDrive’s team of professional safety reviewers, who categorise and score events against more than 75 safety observations. These are fed directly into the SmartDrive Response Centre, an easy-to-use online portal, for Reynolds to access.
Safety or compliance-critical events are prioritised and automatically placed into an online coaching suite, which is used by Reynolds’ two ROSPA-certificated driver trainers to coach drivers, improving fleet performance and overall driving safety.
Reynolds has found, through the SmartDrive data, that agency drivers are six times more likely to have an accident than employed drivers, so it now has a zero agency driver policy.
Last year, the company launched a driver development scheme, recruiting staff with no HGV driving experience and supporting them through training for licences and Driver CPC – a move that has shown “fantastic results”, according to White.
Another benefit of SmartDrive has been reduced insurance premiums: “I’m convinced that if we didn’t have SmartDrive, we’d have twice the accidents and would waste much more time and money in investigating and settling claims.
“The video-based programme is a key enabler in the proactive management of risk across our fleet and the results are clearly seen in the ongoing safety, operational and financial improvements,” White concludes.