GreenRoad is setting its sights on the growing field service market in the UK with its driver behaviour mobile app.

In an era of deregulation and increased competition, field service companies are under more pressure than ever before to win and retain customers by providing prompt, reliable and efficient services.

At the same time they have to optimise returns on fleet assets and valuable technician time, by dense scheduling and having complete visibility of the location and availability of their technicians at all times.

Yet one aspect of a productive and cost-effective field service operation is often overlooked – road safety. Field service technicians spend on average more than one-third of their time at work on the road yet few are professionally trained drivers, says GreenRoad.

David Rodriguez, senior vice president of GreenRoad, said: “By putting field service engineers who lack professional driving training behind the wheel many companies are exposing themselves to the risk of dangerous, costly and reputation-ruining collisions.

There is always the temptation for field service engineers to cut corners and depart from safe, smooth, fuel-efficient driving in order to meet their busy schedules. Yet improving driver behaviour is merely an afterthought for too many companies.”

GreenRoad says its driver behaviour mobile app is ideally suited to field service fleets because it combines all the advantages of GreenRoad’s wired-in Software as a Solution (SaaS) system with extreme portability. No hard-wiring is required, therefore it can be readily deployed in fleets where technicians use their own, or leased vehicles, and no time is lost with vehicles being off the road for fitting.

All that drivers need to do is download, install and run the app onto a smartphone or tablet then place their mobile device in the cockpit of their vehicle. The GreenRoad app will then continuously monitor the vehicle movement, picking up unsafe driving manoeuvres such as sharp cornering, harsh braking and sudden acceleration.

GreenRoad aims to effect long-term, sustainable, positive change in driver behaviour because it allows drivers to take charge of their own improvement by alerting them in real time when they stray from safe, smooth driving, ingraining good driving habits on an on-going basis.

At the same time, it analyses data in order to present reports for fleet managers, enabling them to pinpoint hot-spots for accidents and wasteful vehicle idling, the performance of individual drivers and trends across the whole fleet, via a series of tabs on the app.

A tracking application allows fleet operators to see where and when their drivers are moving or stationary and route replay can help to eliminate any disputes over delays or non-arrivals.

Other tabs help drivers to search for nearby resources and assist managers to locate the nearest driver or technician with the most appropriate experience and expertise for a particular call out.

Rodriguez added: “Mobile technology is set to overtake traditional wired-in telematics as the technology advances and its advantages become apparent.

“Almost every field service engineer has a mobile device – whether smartphone or tablet – that will support the GreenRoad driver behaviour app.”