Quartix: the benefits of benchmarking driver performance
Vehicle tracking specialist Quartix has offered its take on the potential advantages for fleets of benchmarking driver performance, including preserving vehicle health, reducing fuel costs and managing risk.
Quartix was granted a Queens Award in 2018 for its SafeSpeed Database and relative speed scoring feature. Telematics systems often report on driver behaviour, highlighting actions such as exceeding the posted speed limit or changing speeds too quickly, to allow safer, more fuel-efficient driving habits to be learned and operational costs to be driven down. But Quartix poses a fundamental question: What defines a safe speed?
“A high rate of fatal accidents take place on rural roads, despite drivers rarely exceeding these roads’ legal speed limit,” said Quartix.
“While important to enforce, a smooth-driving, no-speeding policy alone isn’t always enough to ensure safe driving. Tight bends on 60mph roads should safely be taken at sub-30mph speeds, highlighting a crucial aspect of defining safe speeds – context. Identifying this need, Quartix developed a better measurement of safety that gives a clearer picture of driving performance.
“In addition to a ‘Driver Score’ that indicates a driver’s level of harsh acceleration and braking, the Quartix system provides a ‘Relative Speed Score’. It does this by capturing the speed of thousands of vehicles every day across the country and intelligently comparing a driver’s speed at any location to the average speed of other vehicles that have travelled that same section of road.
“The Relative Speed Score measures how much that driver deviates from normal speeds and signals the level of risk that they take. Using these two scores, drivers can be coached more effectively and accidents can be prevented.”
The company explained how national road markings business, WJ, demonstrated success using the Quartix driver behaviour analysis reports in its recent initiative to reduce carbon emissions and drive down fleet operational costs. With 25 offices, eight depots and approximately 420 vehicles working throughout the night, WJ uses the Quartix system to measure driver performance, MPG and carbon emissions alongside accident statistics, maintenance costs and insurance claims.
Transport manager Scott Logan said: “Quartix driver behaviour reports have saved us £160,000. A 12 per cent improvement in MPG and reduced CO2 emissions, plus fewer vehicle breakdowns and far less workshop hours… Results like these are precisely why we use telematics.”
St Austell Brewery has around 70 vehicles installed with Quartix vehicle tracking, including articulated lorries, vans and 7.5-tonne HGVs.
Depot manager Karl Davidson (pictured, right) said: “Our drivers have faith in the Quartix tracking system. The driving style performance data makes sense to them and we’ve seen dramatic improvements in their scores as a result. Quartix enables us to reduce accident costs, maintenance costs and see a better fuel economy.”
