Balfour Beatty working with GreenRoad Safety Center to improve driver safety and reduce fuel consumption

8 January 2009

GreenRoad Technologies today (7th January) announced that Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions (BBUS), one of the UK’s leading utility solution providers, is deploying GreenRoad Safety Center. With GreenRoad Safety Center, BBUS can further enhance the skills of its drivers and reduce fuel consumption.

BBUS has a sophisticated balanced scorecard system to measure many attributes of its vehicles and drivers including location, speed and fuel consumption. GreenRoad will now provide an important new element: real-time driver risk and skill assessment. Drivers will have real-time feedback on their driving skills and coaching to improve their expertise. Managers will see the driver profiles and can access detailed historical reports analysed by driver, department, manoeuvres, trip, etc. On average, GreenRoad clients have reduced accidents by 54 percent, lowered accident costs by 65 percent, and cut fuel consumption by up to 10 percent or more.

“Accurately identifying skill gaps for every driver is just one of the benefits of GreenRoad Safety Center. We also want our drivers to drive more economically, so to achieve a 7– 8 percent savings in fuel from using Safety Center would be an additional benefit,” said Dave Washbourne, driver risk project manager for BBUS.

“Many of our utility clients are under pressure to show how they are reducing their carbon footprint and they expect their contractors to show a similar improvement. We hope this trial in 100 vehicles with GreenRoad will assist us in achieving all of our objectives - safety, risk and environmental. We look forward to analysing the results over the coming months.”

GreenRoad Safety Center will be installed across a selection of BBUS Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) and Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) at three locations - Bamber Bridge in Lancashire, Penrith in Cumbria and Worsley, Greater Manchester. The drivers in the programme typically cover 30,000 miles each year with some reaching up to 70,000 miles.

GreenRoad Safety Center includes an in-vehicle sensor that collects information on approximately 120 different driving manoeuvres to rate driving skills. These are constantly analysed to give the driver feedback about their driving and the areas that need improvement. Individual drivers have instant feedback from a small display on the dashboard. The driver and the fleet manager have access to more detailed analysis of driving skills and recommendations for improvement through a password-protected web site.

“For BBUS fleet managers, driver safety is paramount. The fleet managers and health and safety team work arm-in-arm to audit fleet vehicles and provide driver training with ADI-qualified instructors, both in-house and external,” said Aidan Rowsome, vice president, GreenRoad EMEA. “With the additional information and coaching from GreenRoad Safety Center, BBUS will be at the forefront of fleet safety.”