On the 17th & 18th of September, Fleetcare took part in the National Roads & Traffic Expo at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The National Roads & Traffic Expo is Australia’s largest trade show for the entire roads transport ecosystem. The event featured free information sessions and demos, as well as a free-to-attend exhibition. Market leaders and experts from across the country attended to network and get up-to-speed with developments in the fields of infrastructure, traffic management, smart mobility, parking and safety.
Fleetcare were proud to be Gold sponsors for the event as well as sponsoring a coffee stand for the all-important caffeination requirements of attendees. We also offered a safe driving simulator on our stand where attendees could compete to get to the top of the Fleetcare safe driver leader board. Congratulations to Peter Dixon from Spectran Environmental Management who was our safest driver at the event.
Our Duty of Care
As fleet managers, Fleetcare believe that we have a duty of care to improve the social, economic and environmental impact of vehicles on Australia’s roads. The National Roads & Traffic Expo was our opportunity to showcase how we plan to do this by:
- Social: Using our telematics product to proactively monitor, measure and improve driving behaviour, offering tailored driver training opportunities to reduce to social impact of crash events.
- Economic: Launching our R&D project on true fleet utilisation modelling, offering our clients in-depth utilisation analysis and improvement recommendations to lower total fleet numbers and reduce the operating costs for fleets across Australia.
- Environmental: Using telematics and driving behaviour to reduce emissions while driving as well as assisting our clients transition to an electric vehicle future
Presentations
Fleetcare’s CEO Nigel Malcolm was part of a number presentation and panel discussions over the two days of the expo.
Achieving real cost reduction through utilisation modelling
Presenting the results of our R&D efforts with leading Australian universities, Nigel outlined our approach to building a true utilisation model for fleets, using a cost-reduction strategy rather than the standard approach based purely on km travelled. Our objective of this research was to lower the fleet operating cost via optimal fleet usage by:
- identifying asset-specific utilisation of individual assets within the fleet
- ensuring the total cost of ownership is minimised
- while maintaining the same level of usage requirements overall and at cost centre level
The latest advancements in fleet management
Fleetcare moderated a panel discussion focusing on the latest technological advancements within the fleet management industry both domestically and globally.
Panel included:
- James Dixon, GM Transport & Aviation at Australia Post
- Christine Del Duca, Coordinator Business Improvement at Blacktown City Council
- Steve Nuttall, Head of Automotive Research at ACA Research
Telematics was the key topic of conversation, particularly how it will be used to improve driver safety and drive customer experience initiatives. The overall digitisation of vehicles, freight and infrastructure connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) is leading to the creation of new products and software solutions that enable fleets to increase business efficiency, productivity and safety, while reducing costs.
Using telematics to improve driver behaviour
Our second panel of the Expo was moderated by Steve Nuttall, Head of Automotive Research at ACA Research. Nigel Malcolm, Fleetcare’s CEO shared the panel with:
- Raphael Grzebieta: Emeritus Professor (Road Safety) TARS Research Centre, UNSW & Adjunct Professor, Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Monash University
- Russell White: Founder of Australian Road Safety Foundation & Managing Director of Driver Safety Australia
Nigel started by presenting the results of our Fleetcare safe driving simulator which saw an overall improvement of 11% in driving behaviour between two laps. Our driver trainers from Driver Safety Australia provided proactive and tailored advice which saw specific improvements in:
- 24% improvement in speed control
- 22% improvement in priority / give way management
- 17% improvement in steering
In discussing the results of the driver simulator, the panel made some great correlations between the age of drivers and their ability to improve through small changes in behaviour. The panel agreed that telematics and other in-vehicle monitoring devices will become more prevalent in training the next generation of safe drivers.