According to the car accident statistics in the US, about six million car accidents take place in the US annually. These accidents take more than 90 lives daily. Nearly two million drivers get permanently injured in car accidents annually. According to the same stats, alcohol (40%), speeding (30%) and reckless driving (30%) stand behind the accidents that result in death. Ensuring fleet management security should be the top task of fleet managers and logistics proviers. Neglecting these values leads to the worst possible losses in human terms – deaths, injuries and health complications.
Major issues in modern fleet management nowadays are driver negligence, rowdy driving, vehicle maintenance issues, unforeseen critical situations, and client-related issues. All of them are more or less connected to fleet management security and safety of driving. For all of these reasons, prioritizing safety and security is no less but a must for every fleet management technology.
Why fleet management security and driver’s safety matter
Quite often, companies concentrate on incident management instead of prioritizing constant driver safety. Unfortunately, fleet managers focus attention on accident management and insurance policies instead of ensuring daily driver safety and monitoring their productivity using fleet management technologies. Sure enough, accident management is essential, but it should not shift the focus from continuous fleet safety and security.
Incident management programs are useful for managing car repairs and accompanying expenses, as well as allocating resources, needed in emergencies. Still, they have nothing to do with improving the safety of the driver, passenger and other road users in any way. It’s a good idea to establish an accident review committee and a risk management program. Making a safety program public and abided like an oath by everyone from top managers to drivers is a must. It will not only help you manage accidents better but will also boost overall driver security and safety.
If the ethical side of the issue isn’t pressing enough for some businesses, there is a legal one to make a stronger point. It is legally binding for a company to provide security to a driver employee and the public using the services as well. So instead of asking whether one should prioritize safety, you should be asking how you can ensure it in the best way.
What vehicle security issues technology solves
Quite often, the vehicles are not safe either. Vehicle security issues include car theft, vehicle breakdowns and loss. Vehicle theft prevention is one of the major pain points for every fleet manager. Incorporation of cutting-edge lost car tracking technologies can cope with the issue well. They allow monitoring the vehicles in real-time, store their location history, and even determine the areas where the car is supposed to travel. In case something suspicious happens, a fleet manager using fleet management technology will instantly get a notification with the incident description and the last location where the vehicle shared its data. Having this data at hand, fleet managers will have more chances to allocate the car and manage any issues quickly.
Modern tracking technologies can assist in imposing safety regulations as well. With the help of telematics and location based services, one can detect dangerous driving patterns before they lead to accidents. You can also track the vehicle performance indicators in live mode and get notifications in case anything breaks down applying digital twins of cargoes or the entire supply chain. A driver who gets instant alerts on running out of gas or having any other issue with the vehicle is more likely to address things before they cause problems.
How to keep vehicles roadworthy
Among all the other responsibilities, fleet managers also have to keep all the vehicles roadworthy. A poorly maintained car is a threat to the driver, the passenger and the rest of the road users.
To ensure that every vehicle is well-maintained and does not pose any threat, a fleet manager should provide:
- Scheduled vehicle inspections
- Hold routine maintenance (a straightforward scheme of reporting, dealing with and preventing any flaws)
- Provide driver training
Of course, the frequency and level of detail of such arrangements largely depend on the vehicle type and age, workload, distance, speed and operation environment. To ensure that your fleet is roadworthy, you need to keep close track of it with the help of the appropriate transportation software solutions. Modern GPS and IoT-powered technology offers opportunities for fully-automated vehicle management and gives you full access to the vehicle data 24/7.
How to protect drivers and road users
Modern fleet management should not only be about logistics. It should ensure driver and other road users protection at all times. Driver behavior monitoring is essential for this purpose. Utilizing the vehicle tracking technologies combined with GPS technologies gives a fleet manager full information about the behavior of the driver at all times. A fleet tracking system is a critical component of fleet management. You should always be able to track, see and hear each of your vehicles.
One should not overlook the benefits of GPS tracking technology.
Modern fleet management technologies and GPS tracking systems let fleet managers do the following:
- Improve driver behavior (driver knows their behavior is monitored and recorded)
- Track the vehicle location (instant vehicle allocation when needed)
- Monitor driver workload (check and distribute hourly and mileage workload, prevent slacking)
- Share accurate info with the clients (precise vehicle and driver data)
- Assign pickup requests to the best fitting driver (manage requests by distance, vehicle type and other requirements)
- Use the navigation to check the route progress (manage timetables and client expectations)
- Get alerts if anything goes wrong (client, driver and fleet manager notifications in case of a vehicle route change, breakdown, accident, etc.)
- Manage accidents (automated collision detection, immediate report on accident location and strength)
- Assist the driver (plan routes, manage pickup requests, driver assistance request button in the car)
- Collect and share live vehicle data (like fuel consumption, engine operation and any other data from the vehicle computer)
Knowing exactly where your cars are at a given moment is a must for every fleet management system. With the help of GPS vehicle tracking, you can react to any unpredicted circumstances quickly and effectively, as well as plan your daily activities in the best possible way.
How car insurance industry can embrace GPS technologies
With the help of modern GPS technologies, you can protect your business from insurance fraud. Such a system can give you precise information on the vehicle location. It can also provide information on how the vehicle and the driver behaved before the accident. Some GPS solutions come with in-vehicle cameras for observing driver behavior. Installing such a device, you will be sure that a driver does not perform any fraudulent cash transactions.
Having full collision information at hand, you’ll be able to give police and the insurance company full details on it. Identifying the guilty ones and the victims gets easier.
How to reward and encourage safe driver behavior
It’s essential not only to detect, handle and prevent dangerous driving patterns but also to reward and encourage safe and proper ones.
You can implement it into your fleet management technology in many ways:
- Hold training (correct bad habits and form good ones)
- Give instant prompts on correcting dangerous or inefficient driving behavior
- Track driver performance and make it public
- Reward drivers for proper and safe behavior
A fitting fleet management system can help you improve driver behavior quickly and effectively. It lets you measure driving behavior by criteria like smoothness, safety and cleanness. It enables you to compare the behavior of different drivers as well. When the drivers see their scores and know how they affect their career and salary, they have more motivation to do their best.
How navigation systems ensure safety in fleet management
Every driver uses a navigator from time to time. Essential navigation system features and efficient. Among them are route planning, turn-by-turn directions, and detailed offline maps.
Turn-by-turn directions with visual data and voice instructions are beneficial as well. Though they could be annoying at times, they help the driver to keep their attention on the road and thus assist in safe driving. Also, let’s not forget how useful offline maps are. They are lifesavers when it comes to poor or no connection. They can help a driver navigate along the route safely until the network is back.
The route planning feature should offer different routes based on various criteria like the trip duration, traffic congestion, vehicle specifications, cargo type and so on. Other navigation features that can promote driving safety include rest area prompts, gas station prompts, notifications on restricted routes, traffic jams, and accidents.
How GPS can help in lost car tracking
Vehicle theft is a massive problem for fleet management security. Modern fleet management needs superior tracking solutions to get a lost or stolen vehicle back before it becomes resold or taken to parts. A car finder tracker is a must-have device for successful theft prevention. GPS and GSM connections provide instant, highly accurate real-time location as well as travel history. Knowing the last spot where your vehicle was detected makes finding it simpler.
With the help of GPS-powered tracking devices, you can monitor your vehicles 24/7 and get immediate alerts when the location changes unexpectedly, or the car loses connection. When you track the path of your vehicles in real-time and monitor its directions, allocating a lost vehicle gets easier. Without it, you would have to rely on the driver’s words or pickup information.
The role of GPS tracking devices for fleet security and driver safety is huge. There are many modern tracking devices (like Tile and Trackimo) that pair your vehicle with an app and store a history of the paired device’s location. Such devices come with apps that save a spot where the device was last found in the lost vehicle.
Some GPS-enabled vehicle monitoring systems can even block the engine if a driver does not respond for a while or takes a vehicle to an unwanted suspicious area. Remote vehicle disabling systems warn the driver in notifications that the vehicle is about to be slowed down or disabled so that they can respond accordingly. Such systems usually have a panic button that lets a driver send an emergency alert and request urgent help.
Final thoughts
Before making your clients and drivers happy, make them safe. Modern fleet management should put safety and security first. The adoption of telematics technology makes fleet management security easier and more effective. GPS-powered systems can track all the needed criteria from driving habits and vehicle location to gas consumption and engine condition in live mode. A proper fleet management solution can help you simplify fleet management and make it more efficient and safe. With the help of smart reports, visualization and timesheets, you can find ways to optimize costs. What’s more, a modern fleet management system can help you with planning and scheduling.
Users care more about their safety than about the cool features a car offers. People have safety concerns regardless of whether we are speaking of driver-operated cars or autonomous cars. With the help of modern fleet management solutions, you can monitor dangerous driving, nurture safe driving habits and keep your vehicles roadworthy.
