Damian Penney, VP EMEA at Lytx, gives his opinion on what fleets need to prioritise in 2024
Many fleets are considering how they can incorporate more sustainable practices into their business operations in 2024 – whether through phasing in low-emission vehicles or trialling alternative fuel sources.
Any initiative to improve sustainability must also bring wider benefits for the business, however. Fleets need to remain efficient and profitable, while also ensuring that their drivers, and other road users, are safe.
I’ve picked out four key areas on which fleets should focus in order to achieve a balance between safety, efficiency and sustainability:
- Driver enablement
The biggest impact on the sustainability and profitability of a fleet comes not from any hardware or machinery, but from its people. Drivers are a fleet’s most valuable asset and can play a vital role in helping it to achieve efficiencies that reduce emissions as well as costs.
It’s crucial, therefore, that they feel empowered to make safe and correct decisions when they are behind the wheel. Driver focused tools, such as intelligent dash cams, have a role to play in ensuring this. These dash cams can alert drivers to risky driving behaviours and enable them to self-correct in the moment, before an incident occurs.
Fleet managers can also use the data that they collect in these dash cams to provide targeted coaching, which helps to prevent future incidents and keeps both the driver and other road users safe in the long-term.
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Image: Lytx
Faster insights
Traditional telematics technology has been very helpful in providing information about incidents that have already happened, but it is unable to offer insight into what might have led to them. However, intelligent dash cams placed inside cabs are reducing the time and effort required to extract meaningful data. Also known as ‘time to insight,’ this is providing fleet managers with the whole picture and allowing them to take action faster.
The technology behind these cameras uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to capture video footage and instantly analyse, learn and become smarter as more data is collected. Recording can be triggered according to specific criteria, so managers are not obliged to view hours of irrelevant footage. In this way, fleets gain data-backed insights that help them to understand driver behaviour and analyse how patterns and trends can affect risk.
The data collected from these dash cams will bring a whole host of other benefits to fleets in the future too – from improved driver wellbeing and reduced repairs to lowered insurance premiums.
- Efficiency as a route to decarbonisation
In striving to hit lower emission targets, the natural focus for many fleets is on how they can switch to greener sources of fuel and implement more EVs.
However, most of these solutions are still in the early stages of development. For example, an electric charging infrastructure is yet to be fully developed and it’s not clear what the impact of vehicle weight has on load capacity and range in electric vehicles.
As part of an extensive research project, which involved scenario-based modelling of commercial road transport in Europe up to 2050, the International Road Transport Union (IRU) concluded that an “Efficiency Focus” scenario is the most cost-effective, pragmatic and effective approach to achieving sustainability objectives.
These incremental improvements include regular vehicle maintenance and monitoring, better route planning and incident prevention – with telematics and advanced connectivity set to play a crucial role in achieving efficiency gains in these areas over the next decade.
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Image: Lytx
Finding common ground
Organisations and fleets are collaborating more closely to make the industry greener and reach global emissions targets set by governments. However, there’s also a recognition in the fleet industry that consistent international safety standards can make a positive change.
Globally, the UN General Assembly has declared a Decade of Action for Road Safety between 2021-2030, with the aim of reducing road traffic deaths and injuries by at least 50% during that period.
On a local level, Transport for London’s new Direct Vision Standard (DVS) is providing fleets with a method for objectively assessing a HGV driver’s visibility and the size of their blind spots while looking through their cab window.
Fleets will also need to consider the impact of the EU AI Act and EU GSR initiatives. In the case of the latter, active safety features will be mandatory in European vehicles. As such, intelligent dash cams will have a significant role in ensuring that fleets are not just compliant with this latest legislation, but that they are going the extra mile to prevent collisions and keep all road users safe by taking a proactive approach to incident management.
Author: Damian Penney, VP EMEA at Lytx
