Bulk Distributor Nov/Dec 18 | Page 13

November/December 2018 WƌĞǀĞŶƟŶŐ ĚŝƐƚƌĂĐƚĞĚ driving W ith the dangers of distracted driving for both commercial and private vehicles under the spotlight in Europe and the US, commercial fl eet managers in particular need to understand the regulatory and legal implications and implement preventative measures to ensure driver safety and avoid business disruption. In the UK, new rules introduced in 2017 mean truck drivers are now subject to hefty fi nes, penalty points and legal action in cases of distracted driving. For truck drivers, activities such as talking to passengers, using a handheld mobile phone, using a GPS device, completing paperwork, watching videos and even eating and drinking can be highly distracting and dangerous: taking their eyes off or shifting attention away from the road for mere seconds can signifi cantly increase the risk of a crash. Truck drivers spend a lot of time on the road and the work is often repetitive, tiring and time-consuming. With such large, heavy and valuable vehicles often carrying valuable cargoes involved, it is the responsibility of commercial fl eet managers to implement preventative measures to avoid incidents that can cause heavy penalties for distracted driving and in the very worst cases, fatalities that result in legal action and disqualifi cation. Increasingly, combining technology and good communication practices is regarded as the ideal solution for limiting commercial vehicle driver distractions by ensuring a driver’s hands remain on the wheel and their attention fully on the road ahead. Technology group Orbcomm has published a free e-book to help fl eet managers identify all potential driver distractions and work to prevent them using a combination of technology and communication processes. The e-book is free to download from the company’s website (see below). Orbcomm has also released a new cloud-based analytics service that leverages its telematics expertise and portfolio of IoT solutions to provide greater insights into the operations of its customers’ enterprises. With the new analytics offering, the fi rm’s customers can extract valuable, real-time information from their asset-based data to determine patterns and predict future outcomes and trends, signifi cantly improving operational effi ciency and driving better business results. The analytics service is focused on transport & logistics, supply chain and heavy equipment markets, where the company has extensive industry expertise and domain knowledge. While the telematics solutions provide real-time operational and transaction data for customers in these industries as well as a good proxy for their assets’ behaviour, the new analytics cloud service will provide more in-depth descriptive, predictive and prescriptive results to optimise operations. Orbcomm has identifi ed a number of opportunities for its analytics service that provide industry benchmark comparisons and statistical applications applied to machine, logistical and conditional behaviours. Customer use case examples include refrigerated transport operational performance, operational cycle and dwell time management, condition delivery management, fl eet driver performance, predictive machine breakdown and shutdown, preventative maintenance planning, and business optimisation. “By responding to customer demand for more sophisticated business intelligence applications, Orbcomm has launched a comprehensive analytics platform that can transform asset data into usable, ROI-driven information to help customers improve performance and effi ciency and make better business decisions,” CEO Marc Eisenberg. www.orbcomm.com WWW.BLUEPACK.DK Asset Management Combining technology and good communication practices is regarded as the ideal solution for limiting commercial vehicle driver distractions B ULK D ISTRIBUTOR 13