The introduction of GPS tracking has gone a long way to helping fleet managers get a clearer picture of driver behaviour through reporting on speed – but there is more to safe driving that just holding off on the revs.

One company running a fleet of ready-mix concrete trucks wanted to try to understand their drivers’ behaviour better as aggressive driving and accidents were significant contributors to the cost of running the fleet.

Having already installed GPS vehicle tracking, the company had been collecting data on driver behaviour when it was approached by Trimble for help with developing a new product, DriveSafe.

Using data recorded by the in-vehicle hardware, DriveSafe recorded the acceleration of the trucks during manoeuvres, i.e cornering and stopping, to understand the weight and pressure being put on the vehicle and its likelihood to be involved in an accident through turning over or skidding.

With such detailed information being gathered it was easy, over a short period, to collate enough data to understand what constituted a safe manoeuvre and set benchmarks for the drivers.

Watching accident figures reduce and estimating that an out-of-action truck could cost up to £50,000 a month in lost revenue, the owners have signed up to DriveSafe following its development.

Now Trimble has decided to offer DriveSafe as an add-on to its recently-launched vehicle tracking solutions, hoping it can give other fleet managers the power to improve worker safety and cut down accidents through superior knowledge.