23 February 2016
New fleet safety benchmarking online tool to launch with government backing
Fleets across the public, private and voluntary sectors are being urged to use a new online benchmarking tool to improve their at-work road safety, cut operating costs and boost business efficiency.
The tool is being delivered as a contribution to the work of the Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ORSA) by the team behind the Driving for Better Business (DfBB) campaign with backing from the Department for Transport and in collaboration with a range of fleet-related organisations.
The free-to-use benchmarking tool, which will gather information on what processes are in place to manage work-related road safety from fleets of all types and sizes and measure their outcomes, is scheduled to be officially launched at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents’ (RoSPA) Road Safety Conference on Wednesday, 2nd March.
A wide range of organisations have collaborated in the DfBB’s Fleet Safety Benchmarking Project including the Freight Transport Association’s Van Excellence programme, global provider of driver safety management solutions Interactive Driving Systems, RoSPA and TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) as well as Fleet Forum, an international interagency association whose focus includes sharing concerns about road safety and fleet efficiency. Support has also come from the Australian National Road Safety Partnership Programme.
Adrian Walsh, director of RoadSafe which leads the government-backed DfBB, said: ‘Benchmarking can be a highly effective way of improving road safety in a corporate setting, knowing what is being done well helps to maintain momentum, but equally important is for fleet decision-makers to understand what can be done better.
‘Identifying good practice comparing it across organisations is enormously valuable and encourages often simple but innovative solutions to what may appear to be complex problems. There is no doubt that by benchmarking, employers can develop sound business cases to identify where to invest to improve road safety.
‘Participating organisations will be able to identify areas of concern and draw on the knowledge and expertise of other employers that are excelling in that particular aspect of safe fleet operation, thus helping to drive continuous improvement, innovation and promote a shared responsibility across work-related road safety.
‘In developing the online tool, we have heard from numerous organisations that there is little understanding of where to start collecting road safety data, what information to collect and how best to analyse and interpret the information once they have it. This benchmarking solution is designed to assist these processes by proving standardised methods through a secure online platform.’
Work-related road incidents are calculated to account for around a quarter of all crashes with more employees killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads while driving on behalf of their employer than in any other employment activity.
When launched, the free to use Fleet Safety Benchmarking tool will be accessible at www.fleetsafetybenchmarking.net
