Report: SaaS-enabled fleet management solutions are critical to driver safety
Fleetmatics Group PLC, a global provider of mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), recently issued the third edition of its FleetBeat Report, which included an in-depth analysis of the driving behavior of fleets of customers across the United States, incorporating specific regions and industries that experience the most and least severe driving incidents according to the data analyzed.
To compile the third edition, Fleetmatics leveraged the more than 100 billion data points it has collected from its fleet management customers over the last decade. The company's SaaS-enabled fleet management solution has gathered data from approximately 177,000 of its customers' service-based vehicles with accelerometer tracking from October 2014 to October 2015.
A full copy of Fleetmatics' third edition FleetBeat report, entitled How's My Driving? A Comprehensive Safety Analysis, can be downloaded here.
According to leading market research firm Berg Insight, there are nearly 27.6 million commercial vehicles in use across the United States. These commercial fleets include businesses with Class 1– 5 vehicles, classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration, (e.g., leasing, construction, plumbing, heating, pest control, local government vehicles, taxis), and account for 1 in 10 registered U.S. vehicles on the road today.
As outlined in the latest FleetBeat report, the data analyzed from Fleetmatics customers suggests that fleets utilizing Fleetmatics' fleet management solutions to manage their vehicles improve their driving safety within weeks of implementation. For example, eight weeks after implementing Fleetmatics' fleet management solution, 29 percent of new customers experienced improvements in driving behavior. Existing customers that added the fleet management solutions to new vehicles in their fleets experienced similar safety improvements as customers implementing the solutions for the first time.
"Safety is a critical component in the operation of any business. By implementing and optimizing fleet management solutions, businesses have access to driving behavioral data that can help significantly improve drivers' habits," said Jonathan Durkee, vice president of product management at Fleetmatics. "Fleetmatics uses data-driven reporting tools to analyze fleet activity that can set regional and industry benchmarks for safe and efficient fleet management."
Fleetmatics' process for determining a safety score is based on the sum of key driving severe driving incidents that are recorded by its fleet management solution as they occur. These severe driving incidents include harsh acceleration, harsh braking, hard turns (cornering), and speeding over 80 mph. The more severe driving incidents recorded by a driver the more his or her overall safety score will be negatively impacted compared to their peers.
The latest edition of Fleetmatics' FleetBeat report also identified which geographical regions, states and industries in the United States experience the most and fewest severe driving incidents. For example, drivers of service-based vehicles in New Mexico, New Jersey and North Carolina recorded more severe driving incidents than any other states, and drivers of service-based vehicles in North Dakota, Delaware and Alabama recorded the least severe driving incidents. The public administration industry recorded the most severe driving incidents of any other industry and freight transportation and warehousing recorded the least severe driving incidents. The report also identified that there are, on average, 2.5 severe driving incidents that occur per every 1,000 miles driven by service-based vehicles in the United States.
By leveraging this data set, Fleetmatics examined how many times service-based vehicles recorded dangerous driving behavior per 1,000 miles driven. From there, an analysis was conducted to determine how many of these severe driving incidents were recorded by customers in each region, state and industry and how they compared to the national average, providing a new and unique perspective on the safety landscape for service-based vehicles.
