How To Improve Driver Safety With Custom GPS Fleet Integrations

Driver safety is a paramount concern for every fleet operator. Your drivers should be encouraged to build skills in concentration, quick thinking and motivation to help them stay alert on long journeys. Unfortunately, no matter how skilled and experienced your drivers are, they’re likely to encounter unpredictable challenges, especially in remote or rugged locations. But GPS Fleet Integrations can help.  

When your drivers are faced with unstable landscapes, limited access to mobile reception or unforeseen vehicle faults, you need an additional layer of security. Custom GPS fleet integrations allow you to track driver activity and combine this information with other security systems, so you can proactively fix any hazards and respond quickly to incidents. Here are three ways GPS fleet integrations can ensure the safety of your drivers:

Preventative Maintenance

Integrating fault code monitoring with your GPS fleet management system will keep your vehicles on the road and avoid nasty surprises. You can identify issues before they become more serious and costly, instead of relying solely on maintenance schedules. For example, if a vehicle generates a fault code you may want to pick up on this straight away depending on its severity. If the next scheduled maintenance is still months away, there’s potential for the problem to get worse. This puts your drivers at unnecessary risk and will likely cost significantly more to fix. Integrating with telematics also enables you to send real-time alerts to both drivers and fleet managers protecting the asset and organising workshop assistance if necessary either ASAP or at a suitable time if the matter isn’t critical. If there’s an issue with a vehicle that presents while they’re driving, both you and the driver will be aware of it before it becomes a serious issue and causes an incident.

Escalation of Alerts

There’s always a chance that crucial safety alerts will be missed. If a message comes through outside of business hours, or when you’re out of the office, you might not see it for hours or even until the next day. If it’s an alert telling you that a vehicle has rolled or stopped suddenly in a remote location, it’s critical to respond as soon as possible. Integrating telematics with a third-party security monitoring organisation will ensure nothing is overlooked and improve driver safety. Serious incidents can be escalated to an emergency patrol unit, which will get to the location quickly and take action.

Driver Cameras

Integrating GPS tracking with vehicle cameras allows you to monitor driver safety, verify issues and provide proof of what occurred in an incident. The GPS tracking system generates data from the vehicle and the camera system provides evidence of the environment outside the vehicle at the time of the incident. If somebody pulls out suddenly in front of a driver, so they hit the brakes harshly and swerve the vehicle, this will log an incident and the camera will be activated automatically. Unnecessarily harsh braking or accelerating will also be captured. Drivers are encouraged to behave in line with company policies when they’re held accountable for unsafe behaviour. If an incident occurs while they’re on the road, they’ll feel comfortable knowing the situation has been documented so they won’t be blamed unfairly by another party. Cameras can also be used as POD to record a location at the time the vehicle was there. A rubbish truck may use a camera to take stills and log it against the location to prove a bin wasn’t present when the truck went past.

Summary

Ensuring the safety of your drivers can be an unenviable task, especially when you’re managing hundreds of vehicles that are frequently out on long journeys in remote locations. Custom integrations give you peace of mind that any issues can be identified early and fixed before they endanger your drivers. When incidents occur you can respond quickly and record them for future reference. Download our free e-book now to learn more about how GPS fleet integration will help you get ahead.