You can’t sit still in fleet. That’s the crucial lesson that Dermot Coughlan, operations director at Kelly Group, has learned during his 20-plus years in the industry.

“You have to try and improve all the time,” he says. “As soon as you stop, that’s when it will go wrong. We’re always trying to improve the safety of our fleet and keep our cost base down.”

It’s a philosophy that has served the Kelly Group well.  It has picked up multiple Fleet News Awards since its  first entry in 2005, the latest being fleet of the year – 1001-plus vehicles.

Technology has been instrumental in the Group’s most recent initiatives, with the introduction of three smartphone apps (a safe driver app preventing drivers from using their mobile phones while driving, an app for drivers to complete their daily vehicle checks and a monthly driver briefing app with a multiple choice test) developed in-house. 

All of its 1,731 vans have been eco-tuned and speed-limited to improve fuel economy.

It has also added four full-time driver-trainers to  its 50-plus fleet team, which includes maintenance bodyshop, administration, procurement, claims handling and parking fines handling staff. The team carries out  fleet management for external clients as well as managing the internal fleet. 

Fleet News: What is the impact of eco-tuning your vans?

Dermot Coughlan: It has made a big difference, because it not only limits the amount of revs drivers can do, it limits how fast they can accelerate. We also speed limit the  vehicles at 70mph, which reduces the risk of drivers having an accident on the motorway because of speed. With any initiative, if you take away the choice for the driver the chances are it’s going to work a lot better. Our average fuel economy has improved by 5.52mpg across the whole fleet. We did a lot of trials and some vans were getting even higher results, but the trials were controlled. Our driver-trainers are teaching the drivers to look further ahead so they can keep their speed consistent, cut down on gear changes and make the drive smoother. When the drivers do that we save money and reduce risk.

FN: How much did your fuel bill reduce by last year?

DC: We monitor the number of litres the drivers are using and calculate a pence per mile saving rather than focusing on the cost of fuel because the actual price of fuel has been going down. We had an overall improvement of 6% in our pence per mile for fuel last year. 

FN: Why did you introduce the safe driver app?

DC: My MD has always been a great advocate of not using the phone. We’ve had a no phone use policy for quite a few years, but it’s hard to enforce. We’ve looked at loads of systems in the US that block mobile signal in the cab.

But if you’re stopped at a set of traffic lights you can block the signal of pedestrians waiting to cross the road and that’s illegal in the UK. We were looking for something that would just stop our guys using their phones while they were driving so the IT department developed the app through discussions with our road risk management committee. 

FN: How easy was it to create the apps?

DC: Our IT department has expanded in the last two years so we have a lot of expertise in-house for developing systems. Trialling the apps and system integration probably took more time than programming the application.

With the app for the walk-around checks we ran it in tandem with the paper system before we rolled it out. There are apps out there that can do a similar thing but this integrates with our systems automatically. If you develop an app it’s important to check it’s compliant with the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency).

FN: How does the safe driver app work?

DC: It switches the phone straight into airplane mode when the vehicle is moving and as soon as it stops the phone kicks back into the network again and any missed calls come up as text messages. Drivers can’t tamper with it because you lock it down with a code. But it doesn’t stop the driver having a personal phone as well as a work phone so you need to educate drivers too.

FN: How have drivers reacted?

DC: The majority of drivers are quite happy. It reduces their stress because no one is going to ring them when they’re driving. As long as you let them know why you are doing something they take it on board.

FN: What would say to the sceptics who argue a total ban on mobile phone use while driving can impact productivity?

DC: All big fleets are being asked to be safer – by customers or by society in general. If you’ve got the opportunity to do something about it and you ignore it you’re condoning poor behaviour. When we had the opportunity to do something my MD drove it hard and got agreement across the board.  A lot of our drivers travel short distances between jobs so they are never out of service for long periods of time, so it hasn’t really affected productivity.

FN: Your accident rate rose when your fleet size increased from 1,300 to 2,000 vehicles, how did you tackle that?

DC: The new employees were getting stressed behind the wheel, thinking too much about their engineer job and being late for appointments, rather than their other job as drivers. One of the things we try and push through now when we recruit people and we’re training them is that they have two jobs: being an engineer and being a professional driver. They’re getting paid to do both jobs and they’re both intrinsically linked – if you can’t do one then you can’t do the other. We’ve set up a buddy system so that a new recruit goes out with someone experienced for a few days or a week. As a result our accident rate reduced by 15% last year. 

FN: What are you focusing on in 2015?

DC: We’re concentrating on driver behaviour with  telematics, which we’re rolling out to the entire van fleet this year following a successful trial. We’re aiming for reductions in harsh braking and speeding in 20mph and 30mph zones. That will have an effect on our two biggest costs, which are accidents and fuel, and a knock-on effect on maintenance costs. An important thing for us was that the unit was not hard-wired, so we’ve gone for plug and play units.

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