Using onboard cameras to improve operational efficiency
Road transport technology is ever evolving, and the industry is constantly developing new and innovative solutions to the problems faced by operators. Yet, despite new trends and advancements, camera and video technology continue to dominate business’ safety and security budgets. Yes, there is a huge variety of types and uses of onboard cameras, but with fleet logistics and operations facing more challenges than ever before, cameras can play a huge part in fleet management.
Here are just some of the ways that onboard cameras can help improve your operational efficiency:
Claim Investigations
Accidents happen, and they are an inevitable part of fleet operations. However, it’s how they’re managed that matters. They can be costly, time consuming and damaging to the business, especially if you have no evidence of what happened. Having a vehicle fitted with on board cameras can make a huge difference to the process of reporting and managing incident claims. Without evidential footage, reports from the public about damage caused or poor behaviour would have been investigated on the merits of the drivers’ account and that of the report made. Liability could be impossible to disprove, and many businesses have settled claims for incidents that they were not responsible for. Camera footage can be used to quickly and accurately establish the facts of the incident and prove of disprove liability.
Monitoring Driver Behaviour
On board cameras can give you a true picture of how your driver is behaving behind the wheel. Both in-cab and external cameras can provide a feed of the what’s really happening – the speed your vehicle is travelling at, how your driver responds to incidents, how they are breaking, accelerating, cornering and if they take any abnormal routes. You can also use camera technology to monitor in-cab behaviour and distractions such as mobile phone use, which with new legislation in place to further limit phone use, is more important than ever.
Improving Driver Coaching
Using real footage of situations and incidents that have occurred and been recorded by your onboard cameras in your driver training sessions could help prevent the issues occurring again. A fleet manager’s ability to collect this footage from the vehicles and present real-life examples can improve the effectiveness of training. Using your own footage makes the situations presented more relatable and authentic, which may increase the engagement of the drivers. This all helps to develop better behaviours and practices by the drivers and helps to prevent future incidents.
Identifying Trends
Camera footage can be a great tool to help a business understand more about the true activity that occurs throughout the day. The routes a driver takes, the way in which an operative lifts a bin or the time a delivery team take to service a job can all differ in reality to what has been planned for. Using the captured footage, businesses can better understand the real-world environment that their field team experience and they can identify where things can be done better, safer or more efficiently in the future.
To see our range of camera solutions which could help you maximise your efficiency, visit our products page or contact us.
