London’s iconic red double-decker buses give both visitors and locals an adventurous way to see the city. Now the bus drivers themselves are working hard to make that adventure safer, thanks to the Lytx DriveCam video telematics program.
London Sovereign, RATP Dev’s North London bus company operating the iconic double-decker buses (as well as single-deckers), has entered into a five-year contract with Lytx, the global leader in video telematics, to help improve safe driving behaviour on their fleet. During a 90-day trial, the DriveCam program helped London Sovereign reduce collisions by 43 percent.
The Lytx DriveCam safety program is a comprehensive video telematics solution that combines video capture of road incidents such as hard braking or sudden swerving, data analysis of those incidents, and personalized coaching insights to enable fleet managers to improve driving behavior to help prevent those incidents. The net result is reductions of collision-related costs by up to 80 percent.
Mission to Measure Bus Driver Performance Unveils Root Cause of Driving Events
With its previous “red light/green light” limited-data telematics solution, the London Sovereign team would only know if an erratic driving incident occurred, making it difficult to generate an accurate score of safe driving performance.
“Telematics alone was only telling part of the story,” said Amanda Massingham, garage manager for London Sovereign. “We knew that a driving event happened, but we didn’t know why it happened, or what to do to prevent it from happening again.”
London Sovereign trialed the DriveCam program, and found the trial data surprising.
“We sought to understand our drivers’ behavior better, but wound up learning that the unpredictable behavior of pedestrians is a frequent cause of collisions,” said Amanda. “We were pleasantly surprised to see how many drivers were doing everything right, and taking appropriate action to avoid a more serious collision.”
Rapid Improvements in Safe Driving Behavior
Another surprise Amanda found was the speed with which the drivers improved once they were aware of their behavior.
“With the DriveCam video, we have clarity and certainty about what happened, and with their coaching insights, we have the right information at the right time to help our drivers improve.”
London Sovereign had additional objectives to reduce collision claims and decrease passenger complaints, the latter of which could have lasting impact on the London Sovereign brand. During the initial trial alone, passenger complaints decreased by more than one-third.
“Now that we can see first-hand the challenges our drivers face on a daily basis, we’ve been able to create proactive and precise coaching programs to mitigate them,” she said. “The data resulting from the DriveCam programme has also helped us pinpoint locations that often cause problems, allowing us to better prepare the drivers on those routes.”
Amanda credits the success so far to the quality of the Lytx DriveCam solution, and the service and the support they’ve received. “This is a true collaboration in making London’s roads safer.”
Sister Company Epsom Coaches Now Protecting its Fleet with DriveCam, Too
London Sovereign’s sister company under the RATP Dev, Surrey-based Epsom Coaches, also uses the DriveCam video telematics program to protect its award-winning fleet of buses, coaches and support vehicles.
“The DriveCam program removes the operational burden of having to sort through hours of footage to find a specific driving event,” said Epsom Coaches General Manager Jon Ball. “It’s a fully developed program, and the results are easy to put into our driver training.”
The Epsom team found that even the fleet’s best drivers had room for improvement.
“We’re now able to deliver personalized coaching on the small things, like wearing a seatbelt, as well as larger issues like following distance, which makes each of our drivers, the passengers they carry, and the roads they travel, safer,” he said.
