Talking to… Colin Knight from Clancy Group

23 April 2018

There are many pros – and just a few cons – to life, when you’re responsible for fleet safety in a nationally-recognised firm operating 120 HGVs, 1,578 vans, 283 company cars, and a grey fleet of around 100.

Especially when you’re helping to drive a technological revolution that has placed the gathering and the analysis of immense amounts of data at the very epicentre of operations.

Colin Knight, 46-year-old Head of Fleet Safety Management and Compliance at Clancy Group, has helped pioneer an initiative under which ‘at risk’ drivers are equipped with a connected, forward-facing camera, monitoring their every move behind the wheel. And that means he never quite knows when a problem might crop up next.

“It’s fascinating,” says Colin, who lives near Ormskirk, in the North West. “The cameras monitor everything the driver does from g-forces on the vehicle, to braking and acceleration, even detecting incidents like a collision and the vehicle’s location. When something does occur, the camera software automatically sends out a report within minutes. It can show the 60 seconds building up to an incident, giving a clear picture of what led to the event. It’s highly instructional – even if the reports sometimes reach me when I’m not in the office!

“We make extensive use of that information not just to go over the incident with the driver, but as training material and intelligence for training others too. The big challenge is identifying precisely what data we have, how we are going to use it – and working out whether there are any additional data streams that we should be utilising.”

For the full story please click here.