Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/339482
42 | Overdrive | July 2014 carriers' crystal ball I n its six years of working with FleetRisk Advisors, Averitt Express has made big safety improvements, says David Broyles, operations manager. The Cookeville, Tenn.-based company is using FleetRisk Advisors for the 1,300 to 1,400 trucks in its truckload division and the 700 in its dedicated division. Largely due to the FleetRisk program, the fleet has seen a 41 percent drop in preventable accidents over the last three years in its truckload division, Broyles says. FleetRisk, a unit of Omni- tracs, offers modules for safety, workers comp and retention. Averitt is using only safety, but has found retention to be a "byproduct" of that effort, Broyles says. With the advent of Qualcomm years ago, Aver- itt, like many fleets, "quit using the telephone like we used to," he says. "You lose that relation- ship-building with drivers." Now, when the data identi- fies at-risk drivers in need of remediation, "We're forcing the fleet manager to get back in the business of talking to drivers on the phone." Like many FleetRisk customers, Averitt started with identifying the 10 percent of drivers most likely to be facing an accident in the near future. As the accident rate dropped for that group, managers began addressing the top 30 percent. Annually, Averitt and Fleet- Risk examine the accuracy of factors used for predictions and change them if necessary. Some typical predictors at Averitt have been financial stress, accidents in the past 90 days, and the frequency of working midnight to 5 a.m. in the past two weeks. Broyles says some "curious" predictors also have emerged. For example, even though the company pays for empty miles, drivers with the most empty miles have been the most accident-prone. One big operational change has been to focus more on fatigue. By measuring the frequency of overnight driving, each driver gets an ongoing fatigue rating. "If the fatigue number goes up, we change their dispatch," he says. Another has been the re- sponse to a first accident. Pre- viously, Averitt simply would send a terse Qualcomm mes- sage saying the accident has been reviewed and stating the number of lost points. The driver often would be nervous about the effect on his pay and job stability, and often had higher rates of a repeat accident. Now a manager will phone to discuss the accident, how to get safety points back and how to avoid further problems. "Just by changing our methodology," Broyles says, the risk of a second accident for those drivers is almost as low as the risk for all other drivers. When a fleet's data lists at- risk drivers, managers typically hold a 15- to 20-minute re- mediation talk with each one, says FleetRisk's Jain. "Not to address the issue necessarily, but to assure them the fleet is there to support him through his challenges." It's common to find certain behaviors point to a driver stressed for a personal reason – a pregnant wife, a sick child or a pending divorce. The major tool. So far, its use in human re- sources largely has held to the high road, say Siegel and those involved with it in trucking. "We're not peering into drivers' personal lives," says Vikas Jain, general manager of FleetRisk Advisors, a leading predictive analytics provider. "We're not accessing any data the fleet doesn't already have. We are helping the driver." That process can involve identifying driver stresses un- related to trucking. However, no major complaints related to predictive modeling have come from members of the Owner-Operator Indepen- dent Drivers Association, says spokesman Norita Taylor. Here is a look at three data management systems and three fleets that use them, with varying degrees of predictive analytics, to improve reten- tion, safety or both. Averitt Express uses FleetRisk Advisors, whose clients are mostly 500-plus truck fleets such as Maverick Transportation, Roehl Transport and Covenant Transport. It uses extensive trucking data, such as drivers' starting times or change in empty miles relative to fleet average, to help fleets with safety, retention and workers comp. Averitt Express improves its safety Predictive_Analytics_0714.indd 42 6/26/14 9:50 PM