Fleets given accident hotspot data in new Teletrac Navman dashboard

Teletrac Navman has launched an interactive dashboard, which assimilates the data from the annual Department for Transport (DfT) ‘Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain’ report.

Available free of charge, the online tool allows users to drill down into the data, access insight on what influences road safety and become more informed about how to adjust driving behaviour based on road conditions.

The Teletrac Navman UK Road Safety Dashboard aims to showcase the data in an insightful and digestible format, enabling fleet operators to review the data easily and quickly.

The latest DfT report captures all personal injury, accident and casualty statistics on public roads across the nation, throughout 2020.

The findings showed that road accidents overall decreased in 2020 compared with 2019, with commercial-related accidents (casualties and fatalities) down by 18% over the same period. However, the severe accident rate increased by 14% in spring 2020.  

During this time, there was also a shift in travel behaviours due to the COVID-19 pandemic with a decrease in traffic volume, which varied by transport mode.

Utilising this large amount of data, the dashboard enables the breakdown of key statistics, to examine granular details such as, lighting and road conditions and level of speed and time of day as factors in road accidents, helping users gain greater insight into how certain conditions can lead to changes in driver behaviour and the safety of their drivers and other road users.

The dashboard, says Teletrac Navman, also provides a useful summary of accidents across UK regions. For example, Scotland had the highest severe accident rate (37%) for heavy and light commercial vehicles. In comparison, London saw the largest drop in severe accident rate (6%), with Wales, East Midlands, North East and Yorkshire & The Humber also declining.

The analysis also revealed that the severe accident rate is highest on single carriageway roads (24%) and 60mph speed roads (29%).

Peter Millichap, marketing director at Teletrac Navman UK, said: “Over the last year, commercial fleets have experienced a significant uplift in activity. This has totally reshaped today’s commercial fleet industry and the way they work.

“However, now more than ever it is vital to ensure that safety of fleets and other road users stays top of the agenda.

“The dashboard we have developed provides an easy-to-read and convenient way to digest this critical information.

“As data specialists, we thrive on turning data into actionable insights so that fleet operators can make fast decisions to improve their businesses and the industry as a whole.

“We believe that post-pandemic monitoring could be the key to improving the safety of all road users now and in the future.”

In addition to maximising the data from the dashboard, commercial operators who have visibility of their fleets via telematics are able to use real-time data at a granular level, to set meaningful KPIs for their teams and manage risk, says Teletrac Navman.

For example, by monitoring driver performance and behaviour – such as sharp cornering, rapid acceleration and harsh breaking - in alignment with the data, operators could then rank them to make impactful changes and improve safety.

Similarly, drivers’ hours and levels of fatigue recorded via a tachograph system, can be used to gain a good understanding of driver safety and wellbeing.

In addition, vehicle cameras placed internally and externally can help to provide additional evidence of behaviour, for optimised safety of drivers and others road users.