Altrad Services won't soft-pedal when it comes to driver safety

Altrad Services may have a proven track record for driver safety, but fleet manager Sarah Turner (left) refuses to rest on her laurels.

“Driver safety has to remain a focus,” she says. “I don’t want to be in this role and have somebody get hurt while driving on company business, especially if there is something I could have done to prevent it.”

Turners’ commitment and passion for driver safety is likely inherited from her former boss Matt Hammond, who left the company last year to take up a head of fleet role at M Services Group.

It was Hammond’s submission that won the company the Excellence in Fleet Safety title at last year’s Fleet News Awards, but Turner was a member of his team, having joined Altrad as a fleet administrator in 2015.

“I had no idea what fleet was about when I joined,” she admits.

“What I love about the industry is the learning aspect – I’m someone who has to continue to learn as they go along.”

Turner is responsible for cars and vans while HGVs are under the remit of colleague and transport manager Mark Walker. The team is bolstered by two administrators, but is likely to expand to seven by the end of this year.

A provider of industrial services to the oil and gas, energy and petrochemical sectors, the company operates around 800 vans, 90 cars, 100 HGVs and has a grey fleet of 250 vehicles. The fleet is spread across the UK, from Shetland to the Solent. Cars are leased and vans and trucks are a mixture of flexible rent, lease and owned.

Replacement cycles

Generally, cars are on 42 months/80,000-mile contracts and vans 48 months/60,000 miles, although supply difficulties faced by the automotive industry because of the global semiconductor shortage have forced some individual leases to be extended.

“We’ll be looking closely at our fleet policies this year, particularly with the commercial fleet,” Turner says. “Because of supply issues, I think we need to stabilise it a bit more, get rid of flexi-rent and move these vehicles over to lease or owned, but we need to do a wholelife cost exercise first.”

The company car scheme has been under scrutiny over the past couple of years because of benefit-in-kind costs and only high-mileage drivers (25,000+ miles a year) now receive a company car.

Other drivers have been moved to a cash scheme but it is expected they will migrate back into the car scheme once Altrad has an electric vehicle (EV) policy in place – a priority for Turner and her team this year.

On the company’s longer-term EV plan, Turner says:

“In the next 24 months, we’ve got around 200 vehicles whose lease will end, that’s a mixture of cars and vans. Hopefully, those drivers can be moved on to an EV scheme by then.”

On the van side, half of the fleet is larger vehicles which can’t be replaced with like-for-like electric alternatives, so these will remain as they are for now.

Data analysis

For the remainder, tests and data analysis will be carried out on the six other electric vehicles the company runs to work out which vans can be replaced by electric and still perform their functions.

An added complication is that many of the vans are stationed at client sites around the country, meaning digging up concrete and installing charge points at those sites is not likely to be an option.

Instead, the HSEQ (health, safety, environment and quality) department on behalf of the fleet team will find out what charging infrastructure exists at or is planned for client sites and whether Altrad vehicles can utilise it.

The fleet team will focus its attention on whether charging infrastructure can be installed on sites it owns or leases throughout the UK.

It’s fair to say that the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent vehicle supply issues have delayed Altrad’s plans to go electric. An order for 60 EVs was cancelled by the manufacturer at the tail end of 2021.

It’s a ’problem’ that Turner and the fleet team are turning into a positive, saying the cancellation offers them more time to continue their feasibility studies into which vehicles can be replaced by electric and to get a better understanding of charging requirements.

“I think it’s done us a favour,” Turner says.

“Over the next 12 months it will allow us the opportunity to sit back and look at how we get the infrastructure in place and other things like charge cards and policies.”

Fortunately, this is the main impact of the vehicle supply shortage on the fleet.

Turner says: “We’re lucky in that we ordered 250 vehicles on lease just before the shortage hit and they’re filtering through now; we completed 100 just before Christmas.”

Safe Fleet of the Year

It’s Altrad Services’ commitment to driver training and reducing incident rates that won it 2020’s Safe Fleet of the Year and last year’s Excellence in Fleet Safety award in the Fleet News Awards.

Its driver training programme consists of three key elements: an e-learning course, one-to-one driver training and a classroom course. This is for all grey fleet and company car drivers as Altrad says it has a duty of care for anyone who drives on company business. MOT expiry dates are logged and monitored too.

Drivers of large vans undergo a half-day driver training course before they are allowed on the road. This involves training in vehicle familiarisation, load security and safe loading, both face-to-face and via e-learning modules. The driver is then shadowed for the rest of the day.

All drivers are assessed through telematics and those deemed to be high risk are given priority, with areas of concern discussed initially between driver and fleet or line manager. Those drivers will sit a targeted e-learning course, focusing on where their driving style can improve.

Those who are found to have not improved will sit an in-house classroom course, which is followed by further monitoring.

Company HGV drivers undertake six-monthly driver assessments. These involve being accompanied for a shift to assess driving style and overall vehicle management.

All other drivers are assessed annually, either one-to-one or online.

Every car and van driver undergoes a licence check at least every 12 months and for HGV drivers it is every six. Any driver identified as high risk through telematics has their licence checked every three months.

Courses are guided by telematics findings and regular licence checks. The telematics device records and communicates all instances of higher risk driving then collates these into percentage scores, with 100% representing zero infringements.

Altrad also uses a traffic light system of green for good driving, amber indicating room for improvement, and red for driving which increases road risk.

'Very few' high risk drivers

Turner believes the company’s approach to driver safety has paid dividends and is proud to say that on a fleet of 2,000 drivers ‘very few’ have been classed as high risk.

Most at-work driving accidents are classed as ‘prangs’, perhaps where a driver has reversed into a bollard for example. In these cases, it could be that a hazard perception e-learning course is offered if felt necessary, although Turner says most drivers are not repeat offenders.

An in-house virtual reality driver training system, a latest addition to the company’s training portfolio, is currently being rolled out across all sites.

This aims to immerse drivers into the cab of a vehicle and allow real-life scenarios to play out as though they were there. Part of it also shows the impact a fatality can have on families and the driver responsible.

Turner explains: “It’s to make drivers understand the ripple effect their driving can have on a wider circle of people.”

It’s not just the fleet team that uses this information to shape how drivers are trained and educated. A newly launched in-house fleet committee meets regularly with regional managers to discuss such facts and figures and to share best practice and information about driver behaviour.

Turner says: “The managers come back to us and, for example, ask us to get quotes for in-cab cameras. We’ve given some of that ownership back to the regions, so they feel valued in our suggestions.

“We also work alongside other central departments like HSEQ, HR etc. to have an open discussion about where we think we can improve as a business going forward. It’s always important for us to hear opinions from elsewhere within the business.”

---

Turner on... driver engagement

Sarah Turner firmly believes drivers should not be beaten with a stick every time they commit a driving misdemeanour and wants her team members to be seen as friends rather than foes. She prefers a lighter touch rather than heavy-handed approach.

Many staff members who get behind the wheel of an Altrad van are not professional drivers – they might a scaffolder, a painter or a lagger, working on a customer’s site.

Turner says: “When we first installed telematics about five years ago, I think we took the wrong approach with our drivers by  penalising them for every speeding offence. I don’t think it should work like that.

“It should be persistent speeders that you work with, rather than penalising every single driver for every negative event. Overall, I think drivers now realise that we’re not patronising them, it’s all about safety.”

Turner says it’s also important to inform drivers how telematics can work in their favour, potentially absolving them from blame in the event of an accident.

Reluctant at first

Although perhaps a little reluctant to embrace the use of telematics systems in work vans at first, drivers now accept that it serves as a valuable tool for both themselves and their employer.

She believes her initial role as fleet administrator has stood her in good stead with drivers and says: “It helps that, as fleet administrator, I would speak to drivers and they got to know me. They know I’m not doing this just for the sake of it. Communication with our drivers is key.”

Regarding the virtual reality (VR) offered, Turner says: “If you get a group of 20 scaffolders in a room during VR training then you open it up for discussion, people make points you may not have considered.”

But make no mistake, although the team wants to work with drivers rather than against them, persistent offenders will be dealt with – the worst-case scenario is their keys are taken off them.

“We’ve got a performance policy in place where we make drivers more accountable for their vehicles,” Turner says.

---

Judges’ comments

Excellent use of data and a progressive attitude has helped last year’s safe fleet of the year retain its title. Altrad showed clear evidence of continuous improvement with innovative use of virtual reality and strong root cause analysis to get to the heart of the issue. Safety is at the heart of the business.