PROPERTY company Slough Estates expects to make a 15% saving on its annual fuel bill by putting its company drivers through a new driver training course aimed at making staff more efficient.

The firm has signed up to Econo-Drive, a new product launched by driver training company Peak Performance Management.

The scheme is being rolled out to about half the company's drivers over the next year, following a successful pilot which achieved a cut in fuel costs, which currently run into six figures.

Slough Estates runs a fleet of 111 multi-make vehicles on an open choice policy for middle to senior managers, with vehicles ranging from the Volkswagen Golf GTI to the 4.0-litre Land Rover Discovery.

David Mullins, administration manager at Slough Estates, said: 'We have a large number of fleet vehicles, some of which consume considerable amounts of fuel, and we needed to make drivers aware that efficiency in this area has increasingly becoming a focal point for all drivers of our vehicles.

'As a responsible organisation we also wanted to ensure that drivers recognise that there are ways to emit less environmental gases, avoid traffic jams, drive less aggressively and also reduce driver stress.'

As part of its corporate environmental policy the company has introduced a green transport philosophy encouraging the use of more environmentally-friendly motoring. There has been an increase in the number of diesels on the fleet, following the launch of carbon dioxide-based company car tax , but because the fleet is user-chooser, Mullins' options are limited when it comes to telling his drivers which cars they can have.

As a result, he commissioned PPM to implement Econo-Drive. Mullins and company secretary John Probert were the first guinea pigs that went through the course to ensure it worked.

During the first training session, driving a vehicle that normally achieved 31mpg, Mullins managed to achieve 37mpg with three people in the car, making an overall improvement of nearly 20%.

He said: 'If we were to save that much on all vehicles in the company then we could achieve major fuel cost savings. I have now decided that in the next six to 12 months the majority of our drivers will be taking up the course.

'This should produce significant savings in terms of fuel consumption, emissions, drivers suffering less stress, and we are less likely to suffer accidents and time off as a result.'

The Slough Estates course involves in-workshop briefings and one-to-one on-the-road training with PPM trainers.

At the end of training, each participant is debriefed and given his or her 'Eco-Driver' score based on the overall performance during the challenges.

The following points are then awarded in a recognition scheme: 90% – 100% Gold Econo-Driver, 70% – 90% Silver Econo-Driver, 60% – 70% Bronze Econo-Driver. A driver who scores below 60% overall is considered uneconomical in their driving technique and requires further training.