Of all the activities Johnson and Johnson employees are routinely engaged in during their working day, driving a vehicle on company business represents one of the greatest health and safety risks. In the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region alone the company operates over 13,500 field sales, service and management vehicles. For this reason, Johnson and Johnson has been one of the world’s most proactive organisations with regards to occupational road safety.

Its SAFE Fleet program has been in place for over 10 years and provides a worldwide standard framework for subsidiary companies to work to based on six key objectives:

· Senior management support, to ensure safe driving is part of the work culture in the organization, through leadership, monitoring and improvement, training and ongoing engagement.
· Field management support and involvement.
· Motivation, recognition and awareness for safe driving.
· Team performance. Local Safe Fleet teams are responsible for implementing measures like training new drivers, reducing cases of high-risk driving and hiring field safety coordinators.
· Driver development including orientation, home study and behind the wheel training.
· Health and safety.

Despite different cultures, languages, barriers and challenges across the world, SAFE Fleet has reduced injuries, accidents per million miles (APMM) and percentage of vehicles involved in incidents.

The company attributes its success to the many practical actions that emerged from its objectives and policies, including:

· Detailed quantification of value of employee road safety in direct and indirect costs of human and asset damage.
· Development of global standards, policies, procedures and processes.
· Strong involvement by executive and senior management and tireless work by operating company Champions.
· Setting clear targets for road safety performance, supported by standardised global KPI reporting and monitoring of APMM and other indicators. In the EMEA region a target has been set to reduce the APMM figure to 6.00 by 2010.
· Regular communications to help drivers avoid or minimise the impact of risky situations.
· A high-risk driver early detection system to identify drivers with the potential to drive unsafely.
· Sharing its best practices, including collision and incident reporting guidelines and definitions, which have been adopted by many other organisations.
· Leadership of pan-European fleet safety benchmark initiative and involvement in www.fleetsafety.net, to exchange cross-company best practices and experiences.
· Actively taking a leading role in external initiatives such as the European Road Safety Charter, WHO / UN fleet safety program and industry conferences.
· Constantly exploring innovative tools and technologies, including Virtual Risk Manager®, to identify risks in a proactive way and contribute to further decreases in APMM.
· Engaging drivers to take the road safety message home to their families and friends.

These initiatives have led to the following quantifiable road safety improvements 1997 to 2007:

· Worldwide APMM reduced from 8.7 to 5.3. EMEA reduced from 12.6 to 6.6.
· WW % of fleet in an accident reduced from 18.2 to 11.6. EMEA reduced from 27.9 to 15.6.
· EMEA total vehicle related lost work day cases reduced from 19 to 3.

Zurich Global Corporate is a leader in motor fleet insurance, which works closely with customers to help them understand and manage their risks, thus allowing them to operate more efficiently. This approach is the result of many years' experience combined with products which offer flexibility and a distinctive, innovative, risk-led philosophy tailored to anticipate the challenges faced by customers.

Zurich works with customers to better manage the many different aspects of motor fleet risk and has been a key player in the fleet safety benchmarking project, including:

· Attending project meetings.
· Providing data and insight regarding its own motor fleet.
· Supporting the publication of the Fleet Safety Benchmarking project report.
· Encouraging fleet clients to participate in the benchmarking program.
· Undertaking fleet audits and driver risk assessments to help clients benchmark their fleet safety both internally and externally.
· Zurich Risk Engineering global Centre of Excellence developing sophisticated, but easy to use, fleet risk grading tools for fleet benchmarking.

More details are shown at:

www.zurich.com
www.zurich.co.uk/RiskServices/riskengineering/Motorfleetrisk/FleetRiskManagement.htm

Royal Mail has one of the largest fleets in the UK, employing 90,000 people who drive as part of their job. In 2007, its General Manager Assets Phil O'Gorman developed a proposal to introduce mandatory risk assessments for every driver and to fit telematic devices (which track vehicle activities) on 8,000 of its fleet assets.

As part of the business case presented to the Royal Mail board to support this driver risk assessment and telematics project, comparative data from the Fleet Safety Benchmarking Project was used to position Royal Mail against other organizations. Royal Mail was already benchmarking its fleet safety progress internally, but doing little to compare its processes and outcomes against external organisations, as it was often difficult to find other companies with either a similar sized fleet or as diverse an operation. Through the Benchmarking Project, however, Royal Mail was able to find data on a small number of companies large and diverse enough to be relevant for comparison.

Seeing the benefits driver risk assessments and telematics could bring to large companies, Royal Mail's board of directors signed off the project proposals. The company now plans to have all its drivers risk-assessed within a five-year period, and to integrate the assessment into its driver induction process. It is also installing telematic devices on 8,000 vehicles, which will eventually be used to measure aspects of driver behaviour such as harsh braking and sudden manoeuvres. Information from the telematics devices will be used alongside the risk assessment results to help build driver risk profiles, which in turn will be used to identify the necessary training interventions to improve driver safety and reduce collision number and costs.

CEVA Logistics signed up to the Fleet Safety Benchmarking pilot towards the end of 2005. Involvement in the project has enabled the company to identify opportunities for improvement in the monitoring of its fleet safety performance, when it discovered the information it needed to effectively benchmark against other companies was not always available. CEVA is now looking at ways of refining its methods for analysing crash data internally, for example by working with its insurance department to compare insurance data to driver performance data. CEVA is also collecting much more detailed data on crashes, including information on drivers, routes and vehicle types, to enable it to identify trends and investigate factors and causes thoroughly. Crash analysis results will be circulated to managers to discuss with drivers at staff briefings and displayed at depots.

CEVA’s fleet safety strategy also includes a ‘defensive and economical driver training’ course rolled out to drivers at three of its depots. The one-day training is delivered by Driving Standards Agency in-house instructors and is tailored to each of the vehicle makes and models CEVA uses. The course starts with a one-hour theory session, followed by an on-road session. These are designed to assess the driver’s performance and help them develop their manoeuvring, observation, planning and hazard perception skills. Their progress is evaluated and discussed after the course.

In addition, regular awareness-raising events are held at depots, on issues such as wearing seatbelts, checking mirrors, and taking regular breaks.

The number of blameworthy crashes occurring in 2006 among employees who drive for work at CEVA was more than 16% lower than in 2005 (meeting the company’s target).

Suckling Transport joined the Fleet Safety Benchmarking pilot project in 2004. The company realised the importance of collecting thorough data to enable it to benchmark effectively. As a result, it collects information on near-misses as well as crashes, using reporting cards which are filled in by drivers following incidents and given to their manager.

Suckling Transport also carries out internal benchmarking of fleet safety policies and driver safety records between its various client contracts. In general, it has found a link between the drivers’ safety records and the strength and content of fleet safety policies. Suckling Transport has used this process to identify best practice, which it recommends to its clients when contracts are first drawn up. For example, it has persuaded all its clients to agree to a ban on hand-held and hands-free mobile phones. Suckling is now rolling out a system to enforce this ban, using an electronic device which only allows phones to be used when the handbrake is engaged.

Benchmarking is just one of Suckling Transport’s fleet safety initiatives. For example, managers are trained to deliver regular safety talks on issues such as driver tiredness, driving on illegal and prescription drugs and drink-driving to all company drivers. Drivers are also encouraged to look out for the welfare of their colleagues by anonymously reporting any concerns about their driving or health to management. The company has also introduced an eyesight check as well as full medical examination for drivers.

Driver incentive schemes are run among drivers on different contracts, offering prizes to drivers who stay incident-free for a month.

A risk assessment programme, developed with Interactive Driving Systems, enables driver risk assessments to be made online, either to identify needs for further training among drivers or to use as a recruitment tool. After assessments, drivers attend meetings with their manager to discuss the results and any identified needs. About 100 new and existing drivers are assessed every year. The company is also looking at using crash data to compare crash involvement rates among drivers, which, combined with risk assessment results, will enable levels of crash risk for each driver to be identified.

Suckling Transport’s crash rate has been reduced from one crash every 150,000 km driven in 2001 to one crash every 230,000 km driven in 2006/07.

Roche Products Pty Limited of Australia (Roche) is a pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor which is dedicated to creating a safe fleet driving culture for its 650 staff. Benchmarking has helped Roche Australia to compare against others and develop its processes against best practice.

Roche has undertaken four key initiatives with support from its insurer Zurich Australia and Interactive Driving Systems.

1. Implemented Virtual Risk Manager (VRM) for all existing staff and new employees.
2. Policy improvement.
3. Communications program.
4. VRM program development.

Since starting the program in January 2005, Roche has successfully implemented VRM Driver Profile, RoadRISK, One More Second and RoadSKILLS modules and the MIS that supports these tools. This approach enabled Roche to carry out risk assessments, and to monitor and improve the safety of its employees. Roche also took the opportunity to roll out its Vehicle Safety Policy and Driver Licence Checks as part of VRM, allowing a seamless process for driver risk assessment, monitoring and improvement – achieving almost 100% compliance on each of the four modules for existing staff. New recruits undertake the program soon after joining the organisation as part of their extended induction.

Roche has also developed, implemented, monitored and improved its policies, procedures, processes, driver manual and on-going communications including initiatives on collision reporting and investigation, anti-lock brakes, speed, seatbelts, alcohol, mobile phones, fatigue, holiday driving, back pain, journey management to minimise employee kilometres, vehicle checks and driving whilst pregnant.

One of the key reasons for adopting VRM was the availability of extensive university and industry-based proactive evaluation data. Based on the first 422 Roche drivers to complete RoadRISK a clear correlation between the assessment outcomes and driver crash history was identified.

The ultimate reactive measure of the success of a program is in relation to ROAD SAFETY OUTCOMES. Based on data provided by Zurich insurance underwriters, Roche has reduced all its major collision types, improved its loss ratio from 69% to 48% and cut its costs.

Roche is now working on steps to:

• Sustain and maximise the use of VRM for all existing employees and new starters.
• Develop new initiatives to reinforce Corporate Policy.
• Design and implement new VRM modules, including the Safe Driving Pledge, Risk Foundation policy assessment, version 2 of the RoadRISK Profile, RiskCOACH, bespoke KPIs and CrashCOUNT.
• Engage in external programs such as benchmarking and road safety outreach through best practice case studies to help other organisations learn from its initiatives.

Fleet size: Ryder - 10,000 vehicles across Europe, Wolseley - 5,000 Vehicle type: Ryder - trucks and vans, Wolseley - 2,500 cars, 1,200 vans, 1,150 rigid trucks and 150 articulated trucks and trailers.

Paul Gallemore, head of health, safety and environment, has implemented fleet risk management procedures at both Wolseley UK (December 2004 to present) and previously Ryder (July 1999 to December 2004). At Wolseley he formed a Fleet Safety Steering Group along with various health and safety, transport, operations and fleet managers, as well as representatives from Zurich Risk Services, Willis and Interactive Driving Systems®. The group has led the development of a fleet safety policy, driver focus groups and many other critical initiatives to reduce crashes. The group also evaluated a risk assessment programme to identify ‘at-risk’ drivers, currently being rolled out to 1,000 company car, van and truck drivers.

At his previous role at Ryder, Paul identified that up to 70% of Ryder’s drivers failed an eyesight check. So at Wolseley UK, he has introduced free eyesight checks for all drivers, with money given toward the purchase of a first pair of glasses. The company is now looking into introducing a free re-test every 12-24 months.

Under Paul’s management, the company has also worked closely with its risk management advisors, insurance broker and insurer to improve their data collection and use. Using the CrashCOUNT system, provided by Interactive Driving Systems®, allows the company access to a wide range of detailed information on company crashes, for example, driver involvement, vehicle type, location and a wide variety of other issues.

‘Safety alerts’ are issued following a serious incident. They detail the circumstances of the crash, for example, the physical features of the location, hazards, road and weather condition, and also the consequences of the crash, such as the injuries and vehicle damage - as well as giving clear advice points on how to prevent similar crashes in the future. They are posted on noticeboards at each premises and also included in the quarterly fleet newsletter and the Company ‘Connections’ magazine, issued to all employees.

After each crash, the fleet department in Ripon contacts the relevant line manager of the driver involved. Interviews with drivers are conducted for serious, preventable incidents. The company is currently looking into introducing a standard interview procedure across the fleet, and ensuring all drivers are interviewed, regardless of crash severity. The department also circulates a monthly report to each Operations Manager within the company highlighting this information. This process ensures that collision information is effectively communicated to senior management, and has led to a number of one-to-ones occurring with drivers to raise issues and concerns.

Analysis of the crash data has led to development of targeted risk management strategies. For example, agency drivers were identified as having, on the whole, higher crash involvement than other drivers, so the company’s Fleet Safety Steering Group is looking at ways of reducing the risks they face by having a standardised agency driver recruitment policy across all 1,800 Wolseley UK premises, and using only accredited agencies. A high level of reversing crashes was also identified, so it is currently trialling the use of reversing cameras within a cross section of the company.

Paul has also used the crash data to persuade its board and senior managers to invest time and money in safety - as it shows explicitly what can be achieved. A fleet safety audit by Zurich Risk Services found a significant improvement in the crash reporting and recording procedures in place between October 2004 and April 2006. For example, the crash analysis procedures received a score of 33% in 2004, but in 2006, this increased to 78%, which also compares favourably with the Zurich benchmarking figure (obtained as an average from all the companies undertaking a fleet safety audit).

Paul has a successful track record. While at his previous employer Ryder, Paul was in charge of the European fleet, among which the crash rate reduced from about 35 collisions per million miles in the year 2000 to about 7 collisions per million miles in December 2004, when Paul left the company.

Crash and insurance data for the company also shows the number of incidents per month and the insurance costs have both decreased since Paul joined Wolseley UK. For example, the numbers of incidents per month have reduced for the car and commercial fleets, insurance premiums have decreased by a five-figure sum and uninsured loss recoveries have increased substantially over the past 18 months.

Bob Mason, HR Director at Wolseley UK, says: "Paul takes a holistic approach to all aspects of Health and Safety and engages all areas of the company as well as external experts in improving performance and reducing accidents. He fully understands the need to audit and quantify his results. He has a strong grasp of risk, communicates his ideas and plans with clarity and is totally committed to the cause."

Fleet size: 9,465 vans, 2,700 company cars, 12 trucks, 1,300 cash for car drivers (13,477) Vehicle type: vans, cars, trucks.

Under the management of fleet compliance manager Jon York, Centrica has introduced a range of fleet safety initiatives to help keep its drivers safe.

The company has looked at national and company crash data and identified their younger drivers face high risks. It developed a ‘young driver’ induction programme for trainee engineers to tackle the problem. The one-day programme includes an on-road risk assessment with feedback, a vehicle, eyesight and licence check and a paper-based risk assessment (provided by Interactive Driving Systems®) that relates more to drivers’ experience, knowledge and attitude. After this, trainees receive two briefings, one on vehicle issues such as maintenance, repairs and what to do in a breakdown and one on driver safety, including the Brake Pledge to Drive Safely. The drivers’ performance following the training is being monitored, so the company can establish how effective the programme is. The data analysis has also showed a significant increase in crash rate for drivers aged 50+, so the company is currently looking at initiatives to develop for this age group.

The company has been developing a fuel monitoring program, to identify fuel efficiency among its fleet and is currently looking at ways to combine the fuel data with crash data, to analyse any possible relationships and ways the two issues can be tackled together. This has been developed in conjunction with Fuelmasteronline, a company that can help fleets monitor and manage their fuel use.

The company has also taken the decision to restrict 3,000 new British Gas vans to a maximum speed limit of 70 mph from May 2006. These are vans that are reprogrammed with the maximum upper speed limit, produced by Vauxhall and Ford. The initiative aims to have a positive impact both on road safety and the environment by reducing the probability of high-speed collisions and improving fuel efficiency.

Centrica considers speed restriction particularly important for its 'young drivers' who travel long distances to and from its training academies. The company has received complaints from customers and managers relating to their driving habits, so it introduced the initiative to help enforce its 'young driver' induction programme. The company aims to have all future vans reprogrammed with the maximum speed limit of 70mph too, within the next four years. Jon hopes that, because Centrica’s buying power is considerable, the initiative will encourage vehicle manufacturers to offer this as a standard option.

In addition all engineers receive driver development shortly after delivery, to help them develop their forward anticipation and planning skills, as other road users may approach them at higher speeds.

Risk assessment is also important at Centrica. During 2006, it is committed to ensuring more than three thousand engineers receive in-vehicle assessments, plus more than two thousand online assessments for company car drivers. The in-vehicle assessment includes driver development and fuel-efficient driving techniques.

Jon York has also personally worked hard to educate his drivers. He has undertaken free training from the Brake and FedEx Road Safety Academy on delivering awareness-raising presentations on a range of issues affecting people who drive for work. By June 2006, he had delivered 23 presentations to 288 company drivers since August 2005. He also facilitated the training of two colleagues, who had delivered another 15 presentations to 154 drivers by June 2006. In 2006, the focus is on delivering presentations to all the young engineers that attend the young driver training, but they are also delivered to all adult recruits as the programme has a hard hitting message which Centrica hope will positively change driving habits. Young drivers who have attended the training programme have no reported vehicle collisions so far for 2006.

Colin Marriott, Centica's fleet operations manager says: 'Jon has developed so many important initiatives since becoming fleet compliance manager at Centrica. His hard work and commitment has transformed the company’s approach to fleet safety'.

Raising safety and environmental issues among all employees and their families will result in a cultural change with major benefits for companies and the wider community.

That’s the view of Nestlé Waters Direct, a subsidiary of Nestlé Waters, which in turn is part of the global Nestlé Group, which employs more than 250,000 people in over 50 countries and operates a total fleet of 30,000-plus vehicles.

Nestlé Waters Direct, which supplies water in containers that fit on coolers in offices and businesses in 11 countries in Europe, including the UK, has pioneered a multi-faceted road risk programme.

Core to the programme is the KISS (Keep It Safe and Sustainable) communications initiative, which has been designed to provide an easily understood acronym and platform for launching various safety and environmental initiatives throughout Nestlé Waters Direct.

The first KISS week was held this year with special programmes each day designed to involve workers and their families with an emphasis on the environment and health and safety. These included a day highlighting safety in the car - with messages on vehicle maintenance, always wearing seat belts, never drink and drive, drive defensively and protect children all conveyed - and an eco-driving day.

Nestlé Waters Direct Analyst Andy Whyte took part in the eco-driving day and said: “My usual driving borders on the aggressive and was probably not the most economical. I tested the KISS eco-driving guidelines for a week as I travel 100 miles a day to and from work. I was amazed to discover that by adopting the techniques such as: controlling my braking/acceleration, keeping my top speed down to the legal limit and changing up gears as soon as I could. I was getting another 40 miles out of every tankful of petrol. With at least 2,000 miles travelling a month, this worked out at £20 a month in savings.

“An added benefit of adopting these driving techniques is that I’m a calmer driver and that’s helping me to relax on my long journeys and not suffer from the odd bout of mild road rage. This has only added five minutes to my journey time.”

Joe Kirby, General Manager, Nestlé Waters Direct, said: “Awareness and attention to safety and our environment is as important at home as it is at work. If we behave and carry out activities in the KISS fashion at home and we become teachers and role models to others, then we are more likely to become consistent practitioners at work.”

“There is no substitute for carrying out activities safely and in a sustained manner as part of our daily routines, especially in high-profile businesses. Neglecting the environment and safety can on result in negative consequences for everyone around us and for us personally.”

Building on the KISS principle, which also sees cards and posters being distributed to staff in 10 languages, Nestlé Waters Direct has developed a programme called SHARE, which is based on the premise that ‘Sharing is Caring’ through responsibility, recognition and sustainability. It involves SHARE visits to locations by trained facilitators to discuss, reinforce positive elements and set improvements where needed for safety and environment.

Nestlé Waters Direct began its road safety focus with a pilot scheme in late 2004 and since then the company has seen insurance savings in the UK market.

Across its 11 European markets - the safe driving project started in the UK and is being rolled out across all countries with Poland the latest to embrace the initiative - the company operates almost 1,600 vehicles and last year they clocked up 30.2 million kilometers.

Since the launch of the programme Nestlé Waters Direct has recorded a 13% reduction in reported incidents. Simultaneously the number of reported incidents per one million miles driven has dropped.

Managing road safety, which the company identified as one of its biggest societal, environmental, business, legal and financial risks, also embraces the use of Interactive Driving Systems’ Virtual Risk Manager, which includes online risk profiling of at-work drivers; an assessment of driver attitude and behaviour through an initiative called ‘One More Second’; the use of CrashCount - an online crash analysis took to understand collision data; and the introduction of an online management information system to monitor and improve driver safety.

Next year will see Nestlé Waters Direct have a major focus on eco-driving - the company has already been involved in the Department for Transport’s Safe and Fuel Efficient Drivers (SaFED) project (RoadSafe: summer 2006). Additionally, a detailed country-by-country collision reporting system has been established to allow benchmarking and year-on-year comparisons.

Inder Poonaji, European Environment, Safety, Risk and Internal Comms Manager , Nestlé Waters Direct, who has championed and implemented the comprehensive safety and environment focus, said: “The programme has made a significant difference to safety, performance and cost. Through the various initiatives - and particularly the KISS programme - we are influencing people’s behaviour and outlook both at home and work.”

A recent study by Napier University has validated the ability of Interactive Driving Systems® Virtual Risk Manager 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 Virtual Risk Manager, 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 accident rates. The study was able to demonstrate a clear link between high risk drivers and accident involvement.

Since the study, BT has put a further 32,000 of its 90,000+ driving staff through the Virtual Risk Manager 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' said David Wallington, BT's Group Safety Advisor. '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'.

Wallington said BT's accident 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 accident rates, so we're correct in using Virtual Risk Manager as a tool in accident reduction'.

Andy Cuerden Managing Director of Interactive Driving Systems® (UK), developers of Virtual Risk Manager and sponsors of the research commented: '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. Virtual Risk Manager is also very helpful for establishing the training needs of new recruits and will help organisations fulfil their health and safety obligations'.