Balfour Beatty Rail Projects (BBRP) is an industry leader in rail engineering projects throughout the world, with operations in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.

It was looking for a way to mitigate the risk faced by its drivers whilst delivering this diverse range of projects.

The business currently has hundreds of company cars and commercial vehicles operating all over the UK so required a solution that was both far-reaching and centrally managed.

It was decided that initially, the target audience would be its 262 company car drivers. Driver Risk Index (DRI) and company driver e-learning courses were rolled out with each driver receiving their own unique login details.

It was decided that those drivers highlighted as high risk would attend a driver development course at the Driver Risk Management Centre in Derby.

Those that were identified as medium or low risk would attend a ‘Drive Safe, Arrive Safe’ seminar being delivered at various locations across the UK.

During four months, 90 high risk drivers attended the driver development course which uses its driving simulator.

The results were startling; a 41% reduction in company car incidents recorded between June and October in comparison to the previous five months.

Based on the average cost of repair to their company cars of more than £1,400 this equated to potential savings of more than £33,000. Not to mention the intangible costs such as time off work and vehicle down time.

Health and safety manager Paul Whitehead said: “The driver risk management programme has been well supported throughout its implementation and has received very positive feedback from participants.

“It will benefit employees from every part of our operation and is key a component for raising road vehicle driving standards within the business on our journey to Zero Harm.”

Balfour Beatty has committed to ‘Zero Harm’, by which the company will cause no harm to its workers, suppliers, customers and members of the public by 2012.

The policy extends to upwards of 500,000 people – staff, sub-contractors or partners – across the globe.

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