What this says to me is that the escape routes are closing down. The cost of avoidance will soon be higher than the cost of playing the game by the rules. Soon the complexity of controls will get out of hand and that is before you start with RUCs, braking rules, lighting rules, HPMV permits….. However, whilst the rules are many and complex, you instinctively know what is right. You need to be safe, look after your people as well as other road users – no more crashing – and keep your trucks well maintained.

What this says to me is that the escape routes are closing down. The cost of avoidance will soon be higher than the cost of playing the game by the rules. Soon the complexity of controls will get out of hand and that is before you start with RUCs, braking rules, lighting rules, HPMV permits….. However, whilst the rules are many and complex, you instinctively know what is right. You need to be safe, look after your people as well as other road users – no more crashing – and keep your trucks well maintained.

If the mere thought of considering these things makes you nervous, or when you do think along these lines, you know your fleet could be doing better, now is the time to look for some support to start making changes.

Stick with the idea that you know what is right and wrong and make a list of the key things that affect the professional image of your company perhaps give yourself marks yourself out of 5 for each of the following;

1. What do other road users think when they see your vehicles drive past? Are they driven well, and well presented?
2. What do your staff think of the company – are they proud to work there? What about their families, what do they think of the work stories that make it to the family dinner table?
3. How about your workshop? Do you feel confident when you arrive on the premises that these are the people who are keeping your trucks safe and legal when they roll down the road fully laden?
4. What do the police and ACC think of you? They know of each ticket that has been issued and each claim that has been made. Do you think you are above average in the number of each?
5. Now think of your customers; Are they proud to be associated with you, knowing that you are enhancing their own professional image?

For each question where you have scored less than 3 out of 5, ask yourself “What would it take to improve…” You aren’t alone in tackling this, lean on your drivers to get involved, ask your supervisors, your workshop people. You may be surprised how much easier it becomes when you open up the communication with your people and ask them to help make your company better. All of these people will want to take pride in their job, and you are asking them to make that a reality.

Use your systems to build on your ideas, not the other way round. Your systems will give you a good way of measuring how much difference you are making with the changes you are making on the ground.

This stuff might not be jumping up and down demanding your attention, when there are trucks to be loaded, new RUC rules to research, perhaps a customer complaint to deal with. If you are confident that you are up to scratch you are in a good position. If you know that you aren’t, and you don’t act to bring your operation up to standard now, rest assured that sooner or later one Agency or other will force it upon you.

You could soon be facing all manner of paperwork as the different schemes generate their “feedback” to you on different coloured pieces of paper each with their own consequences. You already know how much paperwork these guys can generate for you when they put their mind to it, and not all of it is easy to follow, especially when it comes from multiple directions at the same time.

It will be so much easier if you get started now making small changes each week until you are happy with your standards. With the publishing of ORS ratings to the public pushed out until next year, you now have enough time to make those changes before there is a public record that you weren’t quite up to scratch.

With the driver shortage well upon us, the same thinking can be translated to Drivers. Now is not the time to be losing drivers, because the effort required to attract a replacement, never mind training, inductions and uniforms is going to be far worse than managing your way through the current issue.

Surveys have shown that the happiest employees have an ongoing sense of:

1.    Control over their own work

As a truck driver this is the main part of your job – so as an employer you already have this covered and you can read on the next one…

2.    Wanting to keep improving at what they do

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s probably easier to tell a truck driver that he is no good in bed than to tell him he isn’t driving his truck properly. If you asked each of your drivers how good they are at driving, most, if not all, will tell you in their own words that they are somewhere between ‘better than average’ and ‘the best.’ But how can all of your drivers be better than average when some are better than others and average is somewhere in the middle of that pack?

Drivers tell you how great they are because they have no way of knowing what is “great” what is “OK” and what is “rubbish” in the driving skills department. Following on from the point above – drivers spend almost all of their time alone so they have nothing to compare themselves to. As a boss it is your job to find a way to show them what you expect from your best drivers, and how each driver compares to that standard. If you set the rules and consistently encourage each driver to work towards achieving the standard, getting a little bit better all of the time, you can tick off this point too.

3.    Understanding how their job supports the company goals

Personally, I quit my job working for a corporate organisation in the UK when I could no longer draw a line between the crazy rules I had to follow and the seemingly inconsequential projects I was asked to do, and the success of the company as a whole. If your drivers believe that it doesn’t matter how they drive their truck so long as they get from A to B eventually, you are already half way to losing them. Of course it matters how they drive their truck – they are mobile advertising for your company, they could be a statistic waiting to happen resulting in the destruction of your customer’s freight, they could be driving up the cost of running their truck at the expense of the only profit you were going to make that day / week / month. The way your drivers drive your trucks affects your profitability and neither you, nor they, should ever forget it.

Like many in this industry, I’m not a natural people manager, and this time last year I put myself through a leadership course. The message from the course was simple;

• Know what you expect from your staff, (and tell them!)
• be seen to monitor their performance against those expectations
• provide feedback, both when things are going well AND when they are not.
• Staff will test us, sometime unintentionally, and our role as managers is to provide clear and consistent guidance.

Now, we are all busy, so the trick for all of us is to manage our time, set priorities and to make the best use of technology to get the job done well, with as little paperwork and clutter as possible.

In the stats published before Christmas, 61% of truck crashes were shown to be caused by speed, failure to give way and inattention. The data you collect from your trucks tells you which of your drivers are in the danger category. You probably already know who those drivers are, but now you can SHOW them how they can improve, rather than telling them you THINK they are an accident waiting to happen.

Our customers’ biggest successes have come from providing consistent feedback to drivers and other managers at regular intervals. Taking about an hour out of the month to make sure the drivers get the right feedback more than covers the inconvenience of finding 60 minutes in each month to make the effort. With this feedback, the driver feels as though he is a part of the company, why his role is important (point 3 above) and how to get better at what he does (point 2 above).

Work with your drivers to meet the three rules of staff happiness listed above to retain your existing drivers. When drivers enjoy working for you, word gets around, and recruitment becomes easier, no -not easy, but easier.

Because your profit matters.

Perhaps of course these days, health and safety is no longer about the avoidance of pain and personal injury, it is about the avoidance of paperwork and additional cost. As time has marched on, technology has arrived to “help” the driver to help himself, but far from dumbing down the role of the driver, now more than ever, we need intelligent people behind the wheel.

Some of that technology;

• ABS to mitigate the effects of braking too hard
• EBS to try to prevent rolling the truck, despite the driver’s best efforts
• G Force alerts, including the telltale red light that tells you Drivecam has started recording. These have been around for a while, but 50 years ago your alert was a hot cup of coffee landing in your lap. (even that has a modern solution in the spill free travel cup….)
• Remote tyre pressure monitoring to warn of poor grip (or poor fuel efficiency)
• Lane departure warning, and auto-correction steering – so far this only tells you when the cab is out of line, but I’m sure trailer swing will soon be captured too
• Speed limiters to save you from your own heavy right foot
• Self check lights systems for when it’s a bit too chilly to do your walk around check in the morning
• Cruise control  to help manage your cruising speed
• In cab navigation, so you no longer need to plan your route in advance or check landmarks to check you are still heading in the right direction

With the relentless pressure to do more with less, trucks are getting bigger and more powerful, but unfortunately despite all of this technology, and more that I haven’t mentioned, it is still possible to crash, and the best way to avoid that is to have a conscientious, responsible, well trained person behind the wheel.

If you are upgrading your fleet from 480hp to 730hp you want to know who can drive the smaller truck without relying on the above list of gadgets. Without a shadow of a doubt, if you have drivers who love their EBS because it means they can get through corners faster (yes we have had a driver confess to that one), they are not the ones to reward with a bigger truck. We are starting to monitor more and more of these sensors remotely for our customers to help them make better decisions in driver training and rewards because 50% more power means your limits could be a blur in the rear view mirror before you realise you’ve gone too far this time.

We need to align this on road awareness with the expectations of today’s industry. We do want the drivers to be courteous, we want them to know what is going on around them, but we also want them to drive safely and steadily, with the confidence to do the right thing at the right speed.
We need to do this in two ways.

1. Tell the drivers what is expected of them. We don’t expect you to speed to get your job done. If you are late and you feel the need to speed, it’s probably us that haven’t done our jobs right as we have delayed your leaving the depot on time. You won’t make up enough time to make a difference by driving faster. It doesn’t look good, it risks our truck, our customer’s products, your licence and our fuel bill starts climbing.
2. Educate the public so that they have a better understanding of how a truck functions on the road. This is still a big issue. Loading the motorbikes onto the interislander ferry this morning, the loader waved us forward to start tying the bikes down, despite the fact that a semi trailer was trying to use the same space to turn into. This is a loader. A man that brings vehicles onto a ferry every day and he couldn’t see the conflict between a large truck revving behind him and a few small bikes. No wonder the average granny in a Toyota doesn’t understand the driving requirements of a truck, never mind the importance of the cargo that it is carrying.

Yes, the ORS is coming and whilst that it is a carrot (or a stick depending on how much you care about it) let’s not forget the reason it has been put together. We want to run an industry that is safe and professional. Drivers need to be seen as more than “the squishy bit between the freight and the steering wheel.” They need to be respected, supported and trained.

At CCS Logistics, we are now providing reporting direct to drivers, pulling together all of the GPS data and mixing it up with some coaching notes and presenting individual feedback on how each driver is performing against operational and legal requirements. The drivers at our customers are soaking it up. The shoulders are squaring, the chests are puffing out; these guys are really proud of the job they do and are loving being told what they are doing well, and being told where they could get better.

Take heart from this, speak to your drivers, respect what they do and make them respect what you do.

Really it’s the people that make the difference and the people that have the most effect on the size of your fuel bill is the people you see least frequently; your drivers. The RTF Grant Thornton index shows that fuel represents 16% of the average transport company’s costs. Are you beating the average?

Enough companies have proven that driver training alone is not enough to secure long term improvements in fuel efficiency. Here at CCS Logistics we may not be the world’s best truck drivers, but we know a thing or two about using your GPS data to tell you which of your drivers is helping to bring down your fuel bill… and who isn’t. We want to help you to get the right feedback to the right drivers to encourage each of them to want to become safer, more professional… and more fuel efficient. Those smoko room bragging sessions take on a whole new meaning when there are hard facts at hand to decide the best of the best. Go to the EECA website to find out more about their Energising Business programme, or call us and we’ll give you the plain English version.

Now whilst I am talking about making numbers easy to read. I have seen the annual truck crash statistics being circulated for all truck crashes to June 2011. What a dull bunch of numbers we’re given to play with. So as ever, my creative side has kicked in to give you a taste of what we do to boring tables of data round here:

Here is a summary of the reasons why the truck crashed, and how the driver or truck contributed:

The second ratings are being processed at the moment and the word is that that number is starting to slide. The reason is not that you have let standards slip, more that your trucks have been on the road for longer and therefore had more chance to accumulate an “event” that will affect your ORS. The last rating was based on 6 months’ worth of exposure; each truck may have only had one CoF and may have slipped under the radar having no roadside inspections and no driving offences.

With the second rating two things have happened;

1. you’ve now had 12 months’ worth of exposure for each truck – so at least 2 CoF’s each and twice as much time (12 months not 6) to be stopped at the side of the road, or for a driver to have crept over 95km/h or mixed up his log book.

2. The CVIU have refocused and are now trying to ensure that every operator gets a roadside inspection

So not only have you had time to interact with the transport agencies more, they are out there looking for you; “sharing the love” as it was so eloquently put at the RTA seminar in Twizel last weekend. Be prepared – this rating might have slipped a bit from the last one. You might still be a 5 star operator, but you might be a step or two closer to being a 4 star operator.

12 months down, 12 to go….

So here you are 12 months into the 2 year qualifying period for the first ORS public ratings and your stats are starting to slide. If you act now, you could reverse that trend, before the public ratings go live.

Where to start?

Start with the big numbers. Up to 63% of your rating is affected by driving offences – things your driver does whilst on the road. According to the NZTA, the most frequent ORS related driving offence is speeding. Yes really; your driver’s speeding tickets are your problem now. The limit is 90km/h. On a good day, the tolerance is 95 km/h. That’s to allow for a bit of oversight. It doesn’t mean the drivers should be driving at 95km/h and getting up to 110km/h to get past that Granny in the Corolla.

The next most frequent offence is log book related. Don’t schedule your drivers to work for too long, and encourage them to take their breaks. Train them so they know what the rules are.

Inspect what you expect

If you tell your drivers what you expect from them, check up to see if that is what is happening. If not why not? Use your GPS for this bit. Almost all of the GPS systems will give you a speeding report in some form, and a summary of their driving hours. Some are easier than others to read, but the information is there. If you are not sure how to find it, ring you GPS supplier, or ring us here at CCS Logistics, we work with all of the major GPS suppliers (and some of the minor ones too) and we will help you to find where to look. We still offer a free 15 minutes support for ad hoc queries – just pick up the phone.

Because even if your customers aren’t too worried about your ORS rating, the flip side to the CVIU focus is that they know your rating. If two trucks pass a check point and one is a 5 star, the other is a 2 star, the 2 star truck will get pulled every time. Even if they don’t find any faults, it is time out of your schedule which you could do without.

Of course NZTA have the data too, and if they find themselves with time on their hands to do a random operator audit, guess which fleet they will select first?

If you don’t know how to read your GPS reports, of you really don’t have the time, we can now offer up to a 33% reduction in our rates to create a one – off summary of your current performance from your GPS data. The report is easy to read and tells you in words and pictures where you stand. It is completely confidential to you and it could protect you, your drivers and your ORS rating before it is too late.

You can contact CCS Logistics on 03 348 2048 or info@ccslogistics.co.nz we work nationwide.

I went back to my roots this month and spent 22 hours in a truck – non stop, except for the obligatory pie (sorry log book) stops. Thanks to the Chilean ash cloud I was stranded in Auckland and, wanting to get home sooner rather than later, I called a customer and begged a ride home on an interisland truck. I’ve always found the difference between a transport manager’s outlook and that of his drivers, fascinating. During this trip I got a top up of the driver’s views.

The first, was talking to a passing truck driver as I waited at the truck wash next to Auckland airport for my lift to the depot. We got to talking about the GPS in his vehicle and he proudly told me that he could drive a truck and trailer or a semi trailer all the way around the Coromandel without setting off any accelerometer alerts associated with the GPS system. He realised long ago (and he had several years experience by the look of his rapidly whitening hair) that he could save far more time by spending a couple of extra minutes  being courteous and helpful with the staff at each of his deliveries, than he ever could on the road. He can now arrive to make his deliveries, the staff are ready, the store is organised and the delivery happens smoothly and straight away. A saving of 10 – 30 mins like this is almost impossible to make up on the road – especially on the Coromandel.

A cash saving

You may have been following the global push to improve the fuel efficiency of new trucks. Scania have just completed a fuel duel in Australia. Matching two “identical’ vehicles loaded to 59 tonnes and driving them from Sydney to Melbourne and back. On the outbound leg one truck was speed limited to 90km/h, the other to 100km/h. On the return leg, the speed limiters were reversed. There are a few stats to support their conclusion that if a truck was running this trip 5 times per week, by reducing the max speed to 90km/h (from 100km/h) a saving of $10,000 in fuel was possible over a year.

I have to say after my experiences in a truck last week, I have discovered that a speed limiter means nothing if a driver knows how to get around it, so the message still stands; all improvements start with your drivers. Help them to understand the lesson at the top of this article – steady on the road, efficient in the stops: your costs will fall and your customer service will improve.

A threat

The NZ Herald this morning carries an interesting story. A young man had his car stolen. He was a student of computing systems. He had built his own GPS system and installed it in his car. He called the police and was able to give them a running commentary on the location of his car as his system updated every 40 seconds. I’ve heard similar stories before. What is interesting is that the police feedback is that similar cases involving commercial vehicles have not been successful, despite having GPS tracking, as the delay of up to 5 minutes between GPS updates was not good enough to get to the truck whilst it was on the move.

There are a number of factors to consider between a one off student invention and a commercial system, but as ever, the new comers will always challenge the status quo and those slow to respond will fall victim to the old duelling truism: there’s the quick and the dead.

And finally…

A big thank you to all who helped to get me home last week – it really was much appreciated. A friendly reminder to the GPS company whose system was in the truck; we are still waiting for the login to get access to the data so I can provide some feedback to the fleet owner about his trucks. He will get an even better service than ever as not only will I have the data but I was also sitting in the truck at the time. He can then get even more value from your system by understanding how it can be used to get the fuel savings talked about above. A signed authorisation from the truck owner is sitting on your desk as usual… how hard can it be to help out your customers?

She is intending to use data to plan where and when to deploy the energy and resources of CVIU; the biggest risks will attract the most resources in terms of time and / or manpower. The source of that data? Amongst others, crash statistics and the low achievers in the ORS ratings, when the public versions are published.

In addition to that, there is an assumption that the observation of one unsafe act may be a symptom of a low attitude towards safety. This may be a simple act such as failing to stop at a stop sign, but is that same driver distracted by talking on a cell phone, is he wearing a seatbelt? If a truck crashes on the Kaikoura coast, is this a one off incident, or the symptom of an issue with either that driver, or that company?

An Attitude of Safety

The concept of an attitude of safety is not new. Pre-employment ARM (Accident Risk Management) profiling aims to flush out those whose safety attitudes may not be a cost effective addition to your fleet.

The Operator Rating System (or Operator Safety Rating) similarly has its make up biased towards infringements and exceptions – those behaviours that will focus the attention of a patrolling officer. Your problem is now that with the advent of ORS, a quick driver is not just risking his own license (and your freight and reputation), he is also earning you a black mark against your TSL for your next ORS rating.

Now more than ever is the time to address those lingering concerns you have that your fleet could be performing a little better; a little safer and more professionally.

The peak for truck crashes is Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes. If the CVIU do indeed get their requested access to highway patrol cars, this would be the time to expect to see them flagging down your drivers before they overcook the next corner.

What would be your priority, if your GPS data was translated into an easy to read picture of your travelling risks? Consider following the example of the CVIU; they have data at their disposal which is allowing them to make decisions about their priorities. So do you.

The RUC bill is out and many have a view on that, but it is also the e-RUC component of that which is attracting a lot of attention. Note that we are still talking about the draft legislation and that this hasn’t been passed yet. There is a clause which allows the RUC collector to request from the eRUC supplier “any specified traffic or transport information” and that information should “be supplied only in aggregate form and in a way that will not identify any specific transport operator or electronic system provider.”

To my mind, this does not leave the way open for the relevant authorities to go to your e-RUC provider and ask for data relating to a specific transport company including data that will show your levels of compliance with the various legal requirements such as RUC, driving hours or speeding. I will, however, leave it to those or are more inclined to wordsmithing to ensure that that is indeed the case.

A few weeks ago I participated in a session in Wellington which fell somewhere between a workshop and a seminar hosted by the NZTA and the CVIU. The subject of that meeting was electronic logbooks. The tone of the meeting was very much about following the wider trend to reduce time and space consuming paperwork, but most operators I have spoken to since are sceptical and are looking for the “real” reason – believing it is another way to make it easier for an operator to be “caught out.”

The truth about e-stuff

The truth is this; technology is constantly evolving and becoming more and more user friendly. It is the way business is now conducted and will permeate increasing parts of the way we work and live in the future. The challenge is not to stop it happening, but to ensure that it is used appropriately.

Are your drivers, vehicles and reputation worth less than your fear of The System?

The next truth is this; fatigue and speed are killers – both separately and in combination. Is your energy not better spent reducing the operational risks within your own business, rather than chasing an administrative risk?

By managing internal risks, you are investing in your own profitability, business longevity and reputation. If you look at the data from your systems in the same way that some are worried that the Authorities may look at it, you can increase your profitability and your ORS rating in one fell swoop. Didn’t you install your GPS system in the first place because you wanted to know what was going on in the fleet all day?

Your drivers want to get home safely at the end of their shift. By taking your responsibility in this regard seriously, you empower your drivers to look after themselves. If you would rather think about the financial benefit of this, try this list;

1. Reduced fuel bill
2. Reduced damage repairs
3. Reduced management time spent redirecting speed fine notices to the appropriate driver
4. Reduced driver Lost time injuries
5. Reduced spend with relief driving agency, and the additional R&M that can mean
6. Reduced vehicle hire time to replace a vehicle off the road for repairs
7. Reduced tyre wear
8. Reduced insurance premiums

You can also sleep easy at night because you know you are safe and efficient. Happily, you are also compliant and less attractive to those who seek to audit your operation.