Case Study

BT

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BT halves collision rate and cuts costs by £10+ million per annum

BT, which operates one of the largest motor fleets in Europe, has recently revised and updated its occupational road risk policy and programs – in part to allow for improved privacy management and detailed data integration through its DriverINDEX® and risk data warehouse.

To date the company has cut its collision rate from over 60 per thousand vehicles in 2001 to 30 in 2009, reducing costs by approximately £12 million per annum in the process.

This has been achieved through a range of initiatives including:
  • Policy and communications based on the latest research from around the globe.
  • Management development and engagement.
  • Europe’s biggest ever driver risk assessment, monitoring and improvement program touching over 65,000 people.
  • Improved vehicle selection and management.
  • Effective journey planning and management.
  • Community engagement through its family and friends road safety initiative.
  • Thought leadership though participation in fleet safety benchmarking, government initiatives, industry events and best practice programs such as Driving for Better Business and the NIOSH global road safety for workers project.
We have made great improvements in our fleet safety performance over the last eight years as a result of this program. In the last 12 months the collision rate reduction has reached a plateau, which has led us to further enhance our program through the ongoing development of our innovative risk data-warehouse and risk data warehouse which has been run and managed by eDriving these past 8 years, collision data, Driver Index and a renewed push on our Starting Point driver risk assessment, monitoring and improvement project.
Tony Holt

BT’s Travel Safety Subject Matter Expert

BT risk assesses 50,000th driver

British Telecom has recently risk assessed its 50,000th driver using the Virtual Risk Manager® (VRM) validated RoadRISK™ assessment tool by eDriving.

BT’s Fleet Risk Management program, which has been rolled out at a rate of just over 10,000 people risk assessed per year since the initial trials took place in 2002, has been a great success, with collision rates and costs reducing by approximately 40% during that time.

As well as risk assessing more than 50,000 drivers, BT has also undertaken targeted training – with more than 30,000 drivers having completed One More Second®. Some other key outcomes from the program include:
  • Almost 15,000 completions of VRM’s RoadSKILLS™ program covering urban, rural, motorway and general driving.
  • 6,000 drivers received in-vehicle training.
  • 32,000 drivers have signed BT’s Road Safety Pledge since its launch in November 2005.
  • 2,000+ first line managers have completed the Whose Risk is it Anyhow employee development course.

This program represents occupational road safety on an unprecedented scale, with the total solution being controlled, allocated and monitored online by BT and eDriving. Most recently BT has added the sophisticated VRM OneToOne process to the system, which allows first line managers to access detailed information on all their drivers, send them task-alerts and monitor their collisions as well as organise, undertake, record, review and sign-off appropriate road safety improvement actions.

eDriving’s ongoing work with BT is providing detailed visibility on its collision data using VRM’s CrashCOUNT module, which in turn will lead to the creation of a Driver Index that to help managers target their most ‘at-risk’ drivers. As part of this program, BT is also rolling out VRM across its 7,000 European-based drivers in a range of languages, and developing a Risk Foundation program to ensure that all drivers understand and comply with safety critical policies and procedures.

BT has also successfully used One More Second®, VRM attitude and behaviour focused driver development tool to provide family members and friends with a safe driving program.

We are delighted by the take up from family members and friends, but are still encouraging a wider participation in this program, which we think could eventually affect the safety of more than 100,000 people in the communities in which we operate
Given our scale and scope, VRM has allowed us to assess and reduce the risks faced by our people when they are out on the roads in the most cost effective way. The results achieved so far have repaid our investment several times over and the ongoing system development will allow us even better visibility and linkages of all our risk assessment, training, collision and hopefully licence data streams.
Dave Wallington

BT Group Risk Manager

eDriving helps BT improve its road safety performance by 30%

A recent study by Napier University has validated the ability of eDriving’s VRM to identify at-risk fleet drivers. The study found that 5% of the sample were responsible for 45% of the crashes. It also found drivers with the worst scores were at least three times more at risk than those with the highest scores.

The on-going study is being carried out on 13,000 van and company car drivers from BT’s fleet using VRM, winner of a Brake Safety Forum Award.

The university applied a logistic regression analysis to the sample measuring driver attitude, behaviour, knowledge, hazard awareness and personal exposure and then compared it to drivers reported collision rates. The study was able to demonstrate a clear link between high risk drivers and collisio involvement.

Since the study, BT has put a further 12,000 of its 70,000 driving staff through the VRM assessment.

A conventional approach to defensive driver training is unrealistic for the number of drivers we employ. We needed something that could filter those drivers assessed as being at high risk. We can then look at the identified areas of weakness and tailor courses. Virtual Risk Manager® offers us a cost-effective solution to driver assessment, rather than the usual generic approach of on-road training.
Dave Wallington

BT Group Safety Advisor

Dave Wallington said BT’s collision rate had reduced by 30% over the past four years as part of an on-going commitment to improved driver safety. Wallington said Napier University was also undertaking a much bigger study based on BT’s historical data. ‘Results suggest there is a strong correlation between driver scores and collision rates, so we’re correct in using VRM as a tool in collision reduction’.

Andy Cuerden Managing Director of eDriving Europe said: ‘The Napier Study shows that you can take steps to identify at-risk individuals before they get into the vehicle. We see this being particularly relevant to large organisations who want to be able to identify their ‘at-risk’ drivers for further support and training. VRM is also very helpful for establishing the training needs of new recruits and will help organisations fulfill their health and safety obligations’.

Additional Information

Detailed case studies of BT’s program can be seen at:
www.fleetsafetybenchmarking.net
www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com

PhD and other research involving Edinburgh Napier and Loughborough Universities is also ongoing to further evaluate and enhance the program.

A good example of a recent paper is:
Wallington D, Murray W, Darby P, Raeside R & Ison S. Work-related road safety: Case study of British Telecommunications (BT). Edinburgh Napier School of Accounting Economics & Statistics research paper series. RP048 / 2011, February 2011.

Please contact us for a copy.

We recently published the following research paper describing the BT work-related road safety program in detail. For a free copy, please contact Andy Cuerden.

Murray W, Darby P, Ison S & Wallington D. Sustaining work-related road safety in the supply chain: Case study of British Telecommunications. Paper presented at the Logistics Research Network Conference, Harrogate, 8-10 September 2010.