The UK’s largest independent fleet management services provider is setting out to ‘revolutionise the way the accident management industry operates’ by focusing on drivers rather than vehicles.
Huddersfield-based FMG says its new approach to business focuses on preventing accidents, rather than dealing with them after they have happened.
At the heart of its new approach is the ‘Ingenium Dynamics’ system that FMG has developed to ‘optimise driver behaviour and fleet performance’.
FMG’s Bob Holbrey said: “For too long our industry has been built on profit per claim. We’ve never really been comfortable with this – but it is the way that traditionally the accident management industry has operated.
“Under our new approach, we’ve switched the focus to helping our clients to reduce the frequency and impact of the incidents they suffer by improving driver behaviour. This makes perfect business sense, both commercially and ethically.”
Driver education and training has a big part to play in FMG’s new approach.
FMG’s Ingenium Dynamics collects key driving data and translates it into a simple ‘dashboard’ to allow drivers and fleet managers to monitor and improve driver behaviour and fleet performance. The system also allows comparison between users – for example, it can be used to produce a league table showing the best and worst performers in a group of sales representatives. FMG says that introducing a competitive element in this way often motivates drivers to improve their performance.
Ingenium has been developed by FMG in collaboration with leading transport research organisations including Loughborough University, Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) and the Driver Research Group at Cranfield University.
Bob Holbrey concluded: “We no longer see a fleet as a collection of vehicles – we see the people driving those vehicles.
“Some say we’re poacher turned gamekeeper. If that means we’re doing business responsibly and professionally, then yes we are.
“The current accident management model is flawed, it puts short term fix before business risk and employee safety.
“We’re not saying it will be easy to change the mindset of an entire industry, but we are determined to give it a go. And if we are successful, we will be helping to reduce the number of people killed and injured on the roads.”
The system is less than clear in this report, but it seems to be that various parameters such as speed, acceleration, braking etc will be recorded and later analysed. Perhaps a more detailed version of HVG’s Tachographs.
It has always been the case that 99% of drivers consider themselves to be “above average” and that criticsm more resented is that of driving ability, so I foresee significant problems in implementing this scheme, especially when finding new jobs is problematic!
Idris Francis Petersfield
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