Benchmarking gives the opportunity to make like-for-like comparisons

New benchmarking project launched for 2021. David Williams reports on behalf of Roadsafe, a Driving for Better Business partner.

2021 is set to become a landmark year for all involved in driving for work safety as a major new benchmarking project is officially launched.

Funded by the Department for Transport, in partnership with Fleet News, Driving for Better Business and RoadSafe, this project will overhaul the way fleet managers, bosses, business owners – and drivers – measure their individual road safety and environmental performance.

An online tool will, for the first time, allow organisations of all sizes to compare and contrast their achievements against others in the same sector, giving them the ammunition to dramatically improve their own performance. 

Benchmarking will provide participants with important new comparative data to support internal business cases and provide valuable sources of information for their sustainability reporting programmes.

Experts in the field of road safety have long been concerned not only about levels of basic compliance across some industry sectors, but also a lack of awareness as to how efficient record-keeping, driving-for-work policies, effective communication with the workforce, driver checks and management leadership can significantly boost safety and performance.

Here we speak to three organisations which seized the initiative early on and which are throwing their weight behind the new benchmarking project, to discover why they decided to be involved – and how they went about it.

 

Auto Electrical Services (AES), including a fleet consultancy business 

Fleet: Nine LCVs, three company cars and a pickup, in addition to responsibility for thousands of clients’ vehicles via its consultancy.  

We spoke to: Richard Stansfield, director of business development, and vice-chairman of UK Logistics’ Van Excellence Governance Group. 

Background: AES formed in 1952 and achieved Van Excellence status six years ago. Still a family firm, it now looks after 10,000 vehicles’ telematics and camera systems for other organisations, in addition to up to 3,000 vehicles via FleetCheck and WebFleet. 

Ethos: “Like many firms, looking after vehicles and drivers used to be a back of cigarette packet job” says Stansfield. “All changed a decade ago through our involvement with Van Excellence, then FleetCheck and WebFleet. It took at least nine months to get everything in place with driving for work policies, drivers’ handbooks, driving licence checks and making sure everything was exactly right.” 

How should benchmarking move forward? “Big fleets are easier to control; it’s the little SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) that make up the majority of people on the road in vans. You would be astounded how many times we’ve engaged with new clients and found they don’t check licences, or that vehicles are taxed or even have an MOT. They don’t have a driving policy or know much about their own drivers. Out of about 10 visits we do, eight won’t have a clue – this is what benchmarking must help tackle. 

“Benchmarking will depend on whether we can convince the SMEs, Joe Bloggs the plumber, to get involved, and that’s going to depend on good publicity.

"Procurement restraints won’t affect the SME market, the trader with nine vans, so persuasion will be key. The ultimate goal is that everybody gets home alive at night – that is what must be communicated”

Richard Stansfield, AES director of business development

 

JHMC Logistics and sister fleet management firm HH Driveright

Fleet: JMHC 700 vans; HH Driveright is responsible for – among other clients – 11,500 Amazon vans. 

We spoke to: Co-founder Rebecca Hall, who runs both with partners James (her husband) and Ian Hewitt. 

Background: JMHC founded in 2011, with one van. It now has 27 depots and up to 700 drivers seasonally. After charting impressive gains in company performance, safety and wellbeing following driving for work policies and introduction of telemetry in 2016, they decided to offer similar services to others. 

Ethos: “Organisations often focus on customer targets to the exclusion of safety and compliance, remaining unaware of the risks they face. We discovered how to tackle both simultaneously and this is what we now practise and offer,” says Hall.

How: Driveright uses telemetry including reporting systems that constantly monitor vehicle and driver behaviour. Its systems can collate data points before and during and incident. Drivers report directly to the insurance company via an app, which guides them through the reporting process. A log can be examined at head office within 20 minutes.

“Next we will see companies asking for evidence of benchmarking when you engage with them. It happens in rail and soon, fleets will approach clients and say ‘I can provide a service of this quality – it’s been benchmarked’”

Rebecca Hall, SMHC co-founder 

 

St John Ambulance

Fleet: 650 including ambulances, first aid units, treatment centres, vans, cars.

We spoke to: Mick Coley, regional manager for fleet, based in Norwich. He manages the north region including East of England, East Midlands, North-east, North-west, comprising about 180 vehicles.

Background: St John Ambulance originally had a fragmented approach to its fleet, with 43 individually managed county regions. Today, however, following extensive overhauls, it has just one centrally-managed fleet, split into two sections, north and south. Strict licence-checking was initiated more than 10 years ago and today St John has a contract with FleetCheck.

Ethos: “We have always taken our fleet responsibilities very seriously; we can’t let ourselves down by not having all the rules and regulations in place,” says Coley. “Our primary function is providing first aid and care for the community; it goes hand-in-glove with doing the best we can with our fleet and drivers.”

How: For years, St John relied on an internal web-based database but record-keeping is now administered by FleetCheck, holding precise data including drivers’ records.

“In addition to legislative requirements other organisations have, we must comply with strict CQC (Care Quality Commission) inspections and criteria governing care of patients. That has a big influence on how we look after vehicles, not just mechanically, but for cleanliness, and all equipment on board,” says Coley.

St John has 3,000 volunteers who drive, each with accreditation for different vehicle classes. Accreditation lasts five years, after which it must be renewed. 

All driving incidents are investigated and recorded, with appropriate action taken. 

“We are always looking to improve further. Benchmarking will help us achieve that”

Mick Coley, St John Ambulance regional manager

 

---

How the expert sees it

“When I worked in the insurance industry, one of the questions fleet and risk managers frequently asked was ‘how do we compare with others?’,” says fleet safety specialist Andy Price, one of a panel of experts developing the new online benchmarking process.

He adds: “It could be very challenging; each organisation, typically, had a different type of insurance programme, was operating different types of vehicles; there could be different age profiles or different costs of vehicles and then there were different journey types.

“For the individual firm, benchmarking was invaluable, it allowed them to monitor their performance over time. But, as far as the wider industry was concerned, it was not comparing apples with apples; a set of figures for one organisation would not necessarily be helpful for another for comparison purposes.

“We benchmarked their management systems in depth. It took at least a couple of days once we had spent time with the customer looking at their management systems, policies and procedures. This did allow one organisation to compare how it managed fleet safety against others.

“Now, with the national benchmarking project, we have a big opportunity to allow all fleets to benchmark their performance against others, to analyse data from a wide range of fleets across industries, and provide a system that really works for everyone, that does most of the work for them.

“One of the questions that will come back from management, is ‘how do we compare with other fleets?’. Most of the time fleet managers have to shrug their shoulders and say ‘actually, we’re not sure’. Once benchmarking is up and running it will allow organisations to have that conversation with more gravitas.”

There are other reasons that firms need benchmarking – the same reasons that have already driven many to go beyond legal requirements, as our case studies show.

“The prime motivation for one MD I worked with was he didn’t want to have to knock on the door of one of his employees’ family and say the worst had happened. But he is the exception,” says Price.

“Most organisations that keep proper records, have driving for work policies, communicate well with their workforce do it because, financially, they know it makes sense. It really is driving for a better business. Benchmarking will help others understand the need to improve and start them on the journey to improve their fleet safety management and realise these financial benefits too.”