Royal Mail Group has invested more than £10 million and trained in excess of half of its 90,000 drivers as it aims to reduce its fleet road risk.

Details of the scale of the investment were revealed as Royal Mail Group, which encompasses Royal Mail, the Post Office and Parcelforce Worldwide, was named as a business champion in the Driving for Better Business campaign organised by Roadsafe.

In what has been described as ‘one of the world’s largest occupational road risk management programmes’, the group has spent the past 18 months risk assessing 50,000 of its 90,000 drivers and spent more than £10 million investing in fitting speed limiters and in-vehicle telemetry to its fleet of 30,000 parcel vans.

Melvyn Hodgetts, technical safety manager at Royal Mail, said: “With such a large and distinctive fleet, we have a responsibility to make sure we provide a safe environment for our people and the communities in which we operate.

“Royal Mail Group is one of the first fleet operators in the UK to show road safety programme leadership on such a large scale.”

As a result, the group has cuts its accident costs by £5.5 million and the incident rate has dropped by more than 25%. The telemetry devices have also recorded a 70% reduction in harsh braking and a 61% cut in incidents of speeding.

Among the initiatives implemented are:

• The largest electronic driver licence validity programme in Europe with 11,500 checked to date, in additional to six-monthly physical checks.
• All new vans speed limited to 70mph with more than 18,000 having limiters retrospectively fitted.
• Employees taking a safe driving pledge and being put through risk assessment modules.
• All 90,000 employees who drive on business (including grey fleet drivers) completing a risk assessment.
• 8,000 drivers completing a driver training course.
• The establishment of a transport safety steering group to ensure a consistent approach to safe driving.

Caroline Scurr, director of the Driving for Better Business campaign, said: “Royal Mail Group has made huge strides in recent years to raise awareness of the importance of safe driving across the organisation.”