Benchmarking: Road safety can learn a lot from our railways

The UK’s rail network has taken great strides forward in eliminating incidents. There are pointers for the new Fleet Benchmarking tool. David Williams reports on behalf of Roasdsafe, a Driving for Better Business partner

A new Fleet Benchmarking tool hopes to emulate the safety success achieved in the rail industry by drawing on lessons learned from rail’s experience of benchmarking, including data-gathering, analysis, decisive action and effective collaboration.

April marks the first opportunity for UK businesses to test the new tool, which officially launched at the end of March following months of behind-the-scenes development.

Funded by the Department for Transport (DfT), in partnership with Driving for Better Business, Fleet News and Roadsafe, the new tool overhauls the way that fleet managers, company directors and business owners measure their individual road safety and environmental performance against other organisations.

The rail experience

The rail industry put extensive benchmarking procedures in place decades ago, delivering huge improvements in safety. 

Tavid Dobson, lead safety management systems specialist at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and a key member of the new Fleet Benchmarking advisory panel, says there are lessons to be learned for the fleet programme, including the importance of obsessive data-gathering, laser-sharp analysis, acting decisively on the results of the analysis and, above all, promoting effective collaboration. 

“Railways are years ahead of roads on safety, but they had one major advantage,” says Dobson. “It’s a closed system. Unlike the road network, we know about every movement of every train.” 

It is revealing that between 2009 and 2019, there were 20 workforce fatalities in the UK rail industry – and half of those occurred on the roads.

“It’s very rare that trains collide because, as a result of extensive data gathering and analysis, safe systems were put in place,” Dobson says. “That closed system meant we could develop and bring maturity to how we capture events that occur on railways. Now it’s the turn of the roads.”

At the heart of that maturity is SMIS (Safety Management Intelligence System), a risk and evidence-based approach to safety management run by RSSB. It’s rail’s equivalent of benchmarking.

SMIS provides the rail industry with a rich evidence base that it uses to better understand risk and take safety-related decisions – before incidents happen. New SMIS went live in 2017, replacing a system built in the late 1990s. At the heart of its success is a duty – applying to all infrastructure managers and rail undertakings -– to input data into SMIS. More than 250,000 records have been entered since 2017.

When there is an incident, SMIS facilitates analysis into how often similar events occurred in the past. RSSB uses this intelligence in its ‘Learning from Operational Experience’ programme. Specialist risk groups constantly study the railway risk profile, routinely reviewing SMIS intelligence. They set in motion further work aiming to steer the industry in the right direction for effective risk management.

Dobson says it is trusted safety intelligence that allows this approach and he believes the new Fleet Benchmarking tool, supported by DfBB’s Online Gap Analysis tool, can deliver similar gains in road safety if fleets act on the findings.

“What is key to rail’s benchmarking – and this applies to benchmarking for fleets – is that it is not only analysing events. We also analyse ‘activity data’, or ongoing human behaviours that might lead to future events. You look at another organisation’s performance and you use that as a common denominator to measure what your performance is like, where you might be at risk. That is how the rail industry developed its safety systems and it’s how the road sector can now do the same,” says Dobson.

“I’m not saying it’s not important to measure events, but we found on the railways that as events and incidents reduce, you get less data to analyse. This means you must find better data, which you use to prevent incidents occurring in the first place. It’s an important distinction”

Tavid Dobson, lead safety management systems specialist at the Rail Safety and Standards Board

Closer analysis of data

By copying the rail industry’s rigorous self-analysis, the fleet sector will be in a “far better position than it’s ever been” – not least thanks to closer analysis of data flowing from wider use of telematics.

“For the first time, the road industry will find itself leading research and development of performance measurement, using activity indicators. It’s a fantastic opportunity that will influence the way organisations manage risk and a big change of emphasis,” Dobson says.

If there’s one overriding lesson that road can learn from rail, it’s the need for collaboration. 

“It’s the biggest factor in creating change because it lets people learn from each other. With benchmarking you’re not just investing in safety on your own; you’re teaming up with people trying to achieve the same goals with mutual benefit for all. Smaller organisations, with a few vans, will no longer feel they’re on their own – they will be part of a bigger club.” 

Dobson adds: “Rail took masses of data and turned it into common standards everyone can use. It will be the same for road, for organisations of all sizes.”

Gaps and weaknesses

Not every organisation constantly delivers the best in road or rail. Benchmarking will enable fleets to measure themselves, identifying gaps and weaknesses, by precise data gathering and analysis. 

“That is what benchmarking is about; it’s how we achieved safer railways,” Dobson says.

“The great thing is that in future nobody will be doing this in isolation – everyone can pull together. But its success will be directly proportional to how well organisations work together. 

“It’s all about collaboration. You can’t collaborate on your own!”

Tavid Dobson, lead safety management systems specialist at the Rail Safety and Standards Board

How benchmarking will help fleets

Peter Fenton, finance director at Marine and Industrial Transmissions, says the biggest benefit will be the ability to pool resources with thousands of other organisations.

He believes it will help in areas including management, safety, maintenance and cost control, for the Kent-based company, which runs 17 vans and six cars.

COST: “It’s difficult finding reliable data on mpg or maintenance costs. I dip in and out of running the fleet which takes about 5% of my time; I have little feel for what I would consider good, bad or indifferent. Seeing simplified data from many other firms will make a huge difference.”

SAFETY: “Understanding other firms’ safety records will make it easier to have informed conversations with our drivers. It will help us on issues like driver training.

MANAGEMENT: “We are going through a lot of health and safety improvements and want to get ISO 45001 this year. Benchmarking will help me focus on the drivers and give us a number of KPIs we can target.”

Fenton adds: “There are lots of things we’d like to do to improve, but when you begin, you feel ‘where do I start on this process?’. Benchmarking will really help. It’s not the end result but the start of a journey towards lots of changes; fleet performance, maybe the longevity of vehicles, driving capability, for example. 

“The ultimate goal is to save money while reducing our on-road risk, by comparing statistics with other organisations and seeing where and how we can improve.”

Peter Fenton, finance director at Marine and Industrial Transmissions

Peter Kelly, group compliance manager at Elis, which serves the hospitality, healthcare and workwear sector, knows more about benchmarking than most, having launched the company’s own internal system five years ago. It’s resulted in Elis winning prestigious accreditation plaudits.

With 370 HGVs, 200 other vehicles and 5,000 employees across three divisions and 32 sites, Elis had ‘no clue’ on basic data including fuel consumption and ‘event’ rates. Elis had diverse working practices and telematics providers, making comparison and measurement impossible. 

With CEO backing, all data – and communication via management to drivers – was unified, enabling direct comparison, right down to individual driver level. Truck cameras were also installed. Being able to compare data was, says Kelly, “transformative”.

MANAGEMENT: “The first milestone was seeing how divisions performed comparatively from a fuel consumption and driver behaviour perspective. We didn’t just install telematics, but analysed the data, which was sent, monthly, to depot managers, regional managers and the UK MD. Everyone saw how everyone else performed in the league. Nobody wanted to be bottom! It introduced competitive fun; everyone was engaged which was vital.”

DRIVERS: “Before benchmarking, drivers rushed to finish more quickly. After analysing the data – and drivers saw it on their tablets – that stopped. Depot managers had benchmarking data to coach individual drivers needing attention. Drivers became less stressed, safer, and sick days improved 20%.”

FLEET: “The UK MD sees how regional directors perform, and we know more about our fleet than ever, letting us manage it better. For regions not performing so well there’s a reason; we can find out why through benchmarking and address it.”

COSTS: “Thanks, in part, to the cameras and, in part, to benchmarking, insurance costs are down by £1 million per annum. Fuel savings are £250,000 pa.”

TELEMATICS: “It’s not about installing telematics; it’s what you do with the data; benchmarking it makes the difference.”

"National benchmarking will be transformative, taking safety and cost savings to the next level. Just as our league tables have done, benchmarking will encourage everyone to do better. We’ve never had an opportunity to see how other firms perform; sharing data will let us all improve. We shall certainly look for new ways of improving, using data from other companies”

Peter Kelly, group compliance manager at Elis