Top 10 essential ways telematics can improve fleet safety and your Chain of Responsibility compliance
Top 10 essential ways telematics can improve fleet safety and your Chain of Responsibility compliance
According to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR), operating heavy vehicles is one of the most dangerous occupations in Australia.
In the year to September 2018, 169 people never made it back home to their families because they were involved in one of 152 fatal accidents with heavy vehicles on Australia’s roads.
These sobering statistics, whilst lower than previous years, are a reminder that there is still more work to be done to keep your drivers and everyone else on the roads safe.
Telematics can play a key role in helping keep your fleet safer, more efficient and compliant with Australia’s recently widened Chain of Responsibility laws.
Creating safe, compliant fleets
On 1 October 2018, amendments to Australia’s National Heavy Vehicle Laws (NHVL) came into force to make everyone involved in the transport supply chain responsible for safety.
While Chain of Responsibility legislation has been around for a while, its powers were widened to better recognise that every person involved in the heavy vehicle supply chain shares in the primary duty to ensure the safety of the business’ transport activities.
This means that every time your business transports goods using a heavy vehicle (of more than 4.5 tonnes) everyone, not just the driver, involved in the management and operation of that vehicle is now part of the chain and has a shared safety management responsibility to prevent injuries and breaches of the law.
Good systems and accurate data make for good fleet compliance and safer roads
The key to fleet safety and your Chain of Responsibility compliance is having the right tools, systems and processes in place to be able to monitor your operations to ensure they comply with these four key areas.
- Fatigue: ensuring drivers don’t work excessive hours and take breaks when needed
- Mass: ensuring loads do not exceed a vehicles’ mass and configuration limits
- Vehicle standards: ensuring vehicles are maintained and are roadworthy at all times
- Speed: ensuring vehicles and drivers do not exceed the speed limits
Telematics gives you access to accurate, reliable data on your vehicle network, and your partners’ activities, to not only help you proactively manage compliance against each of these areas effectively, but to also better understand your operations and help run your business more efficiently.
Here’s 10 ways EROAD’s award-winning fleet safety management software can help ensure your business operates safely and is Chain of Responsibility compliant.
1. Helps reduce speeding
Speed is a leading factor in the cause of accidents on Australia’s roads. Australia’s heavy vehicle regulations and Chain of Responsibility legislation requires drivers to abide by the specified speed limits to ensure the safety of those on the road and the wider community.
Telematics has traditionally enabled companies to track speed against open road speed limits. EROAD’s intelligent fleet management solution, Ehubo2, has taken that one step further by tracking against posted speed limits and making driving event data available to fleet managers via an online portal.
Driver accountability has been proven to have a very real impact on speed and road safety.
A recent EROAD study found that vehicles where the driver was logged in had 50% less speed events than vehicles with no identified driver.
EROAD’s Ehubo2 enables you to identify not only vehicle activity, but also which driver was in the vehicle at the time via an onscreen driver login. Better visibility, analytics and driver engagement mean safer drivers and safer roads.
2. Proactive management of vehicle safety
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 a visual inspection before each vehicle leaves the yard, depot or carpark to quickly identify and report any defects for effective management or rectification.
EROAD’s Inspect gives you the ability to track vehicle defects easily by capturing them during vehicle inspections and displaying them on the Defect Board — ready for you or your team to take action.
Drivers can carry out a vehicle inspection either using EROAD’s app on Android and iOS mobile device or via the in-vehicle Ehubo2 device to record the inspection and actions required.
3. Helps manage driver fatigue
Managing 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’s Ehubo2 helps manage driver fatigue by monitoring the distance and time a vehicle has been running. It allows fleet managers to monitor driving time on our desktop fleet management and reporting portal – Depot.
EROAD’s smart, intuitive platform helps mitigate fatigue risk through better trip planning so drivers and vehicles are safe even before they leave the depot.
4. Assists in changing driver behaviour
The key to creating a safer driving culture is to not only monitor driver behaviour – but to also use the data and insights gained to make your drivers more aware of issues and help coach them to be safer.
EROAD’s award-winning telematics solution bridges the gap between after-the-event management reporting and in-cab, behind-the-wheel influence on driver behaviour.
Our in-vehicle Ehubo2 device captures essential information on driver behaviour – and then provides real-time coaching feedback to the driver to remedy any issues immediately. It also transmits and records the data for viewing on our desktop fleet management and reporting portal – Depot.
EROAD’s smart telematics platform provides you with multiple ways to enhance your driver and fleet safety and compliance with its:
- Advanced in-cab driver behaviour coaching
- Driver Leaderboard and ranking
- Driver Insights
- Virtual Speed Camera
- Overspeed dashboard
- Max speed alert
- Trip Investigator
5. Provides visibility across your fleet
Most businesses using heavy vehicles engage sub-contractors in some capacity. Visibility of your partner and sub-contractor fleets is, therefore, essential in order to manage your obligations under the Chain of Responsibility legislation.
Share is a unique feature of EROAD’s platform that allows you to have the same visibility of a partner or sub-contractor’s fleet as you have of your own. This gives you the ability to continue to deliver a high-quality service to your customers, whilst ensuring the safety of all drivers working for you.
6. Gives access to advanced driver analytics
Telematics data not only helps you manage your compliance proactively, it also provides greater visibility of your business and creates a culture of safety and accountability.
EROAD’s Leaderboard allows you to compare your drivers with other fleets and vehicles in the EROAD network. You can also reward drivers for their performance or changes in behaviour.
Being able to see, and show your drivers, how they compare with others is a simple way of demonstrating what they can do to improve their safety performance on the road.
7. Connects drivers with vehicles
Driver accountability has been proven to have a very real impact on speed and road safety.
A recent EROAD study found that vehicles where the driver was logged in had 50% less speeding events than vehicles with no identified driver.
With an easy-to-use driver login on the Ehubo2 in-cab device, the driver’s name can be clearly identified and linked to the vehicle they are driving, with personalised reporting available via a driver portal.
This removes the need to issue and keep track of key fobs and cards and ensures all drivers, including temp drivers, are tracked.
8. Provides advanced in-cab driver behaviour coaching
The beauty of telematics is that it allows you to leverage data insights to confidently operate the most effective fleet possible.
EROAD’s combination of Ehubo2 and Depot software delivers a single, consistent platform so you can monitor live vehicle behaviour, such as seatbelt use and speeding, and provide coaching and scoring to a driver directly in-cab. You can also benchmark your drivers against their industry peers and compare them to over 60,000 other ANZ vehicles using the EROAD platform.
9. Ensures responsible mass to load constraints
Under Chain of Responsibility, everyone is responsible for what is loaded on to a truck. Failure to adhere to the required regulations when it comes to mass, weight and load restraint may result in heavy penalties such as a fine or even vehicles being impounded.
EROAD’s Depot gives schedulers a single view of current and scheduled jobs combined with full vehicle details, through our Partner Gateway and integration with key job management platforms like ICOS live and MyTrucking
10. Helps run a well maintained fleet
A well maintained fleet is a high performing fleet as it reduces the risk of breakdowns and time out of service.
EROAD’s Service and Vehicle Maintenance simplifies maintenance with automated service scheduling based on time lapsed, distance travelled or engine hours, plus a full service history archive.
Accountability and transparency around your vehicle maintenance is an essential part of operating a successful fleet as well as ensuring compliance with the NHVL.
Scheduling periodic and systematic vehicle inspections helps to keep on top of the health of your fleet and avoid unexpected repair bills.
