By Fleet Management Weekly Staff
June 19, 2024
Driver safety is a significant concern for fleets. Risky driving behavior can damage a company’s image, lead to costly vehicle repairs, and even result in severe injury or death to the driver or others. But even though this issue significantly impacts fleets and drivers alike, it’s a stubborn problem. Traditional coaching methods are costly and often too one-size-fits-all to effectively address individual drivers’ behavior.
Telematics has reshaped most parts of the fleet industry, and driver safety is no different. Predictive Coaching uses telematics data to identify the risky driving behaviors unique to each driver and assigns short, interactive training lessons to address the issue quickly and efficiently.
The program looks for risky driving behavior such as speeding, harsh braking, or harsh cornering, then assigns a relevant training lesson on a laptop or mobile device. Once the driver has finished the lesson, they’ll get a certificate showing their completed lesson. Fleet managers are given access to a management portal that provides complete visibility to all driver reports around the clock.
It’s a quick, automated, and cost-effective way to address the problem of risky driver behavior. We interviewed Mauricio Berber, President of Predictive Coach, to learn more about how the program works and what kind of fleets could most benefit from the software.
Tell us about what Predictive Coach does. Why should it be of interest to fleet managers?
Predictive Coach is a pioneering technology that focuses on changing drivers’ behavior. Today, the driver training system is very broken: lengthy, generic, and with lots of manager involvement. Our software eliminates all that and automates the process to create an even more effective program without much manager involvement.
Our system recognizes the behavior and assigns the driver a very short and specific micro course. It helps the driver feel accountable but also makes them feel like they’re being treated equitably because it doesn’t see age, race, gender, or hierarchy. It allows them to talk to each other, and by doing so, we are starting to reduce liability and the number of accidents that happen.
We’re changing that behavior with micro lessons, which can then change the overall culture of a business fleet.
What sorts of fleets does Predictive Coach work with?
Our ideal client is anybody with a fleet of 30 drivers or more. That’s the point at which you begin to lose control of being able to bring drivers in because your current system isn’t scalable, or you have other things pressing revenue and generating tasks.
If you don’t have the means or resources to have a person coach these drivers and act on the data that you’re getting, then you can automate the process and remove all the heavy lifting from the workload.
What was the genesis of Predictive Coach? Why was it created?
We were formerly consultants who provided safety solutions to fleets for about 15 years. We began to realize that what we were providing our customers with was a good tool for managing and tracking their vehicles and assets, but we also uncovered a massive problem: the data was coming in by the truckload, and it couldn’t be addressed.
We noticed that even though the data told our customers that some of their drivers were driving recklessly, and the fleet management wanted to change that behavior, they couldn’t address it. They needed something that could help them take that workload off and automate it because it just wasn’t stable and would only get progressively worse as the data kept piling up.
Understanding that data was now discoverable in court, they felt like they were setting themselves up for a hefty lawsuit if they didn’t take action and change their behavior. People were getting killed. We felt we could develop something to change that and make the environment safer and more effective. That’s what we set out to create.
Can you share any success stories?
We have several case studies that prove it does. We had one study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, a very respected entity. They set out to test this concept of micro training and automation of training. The case study examined 93 out of 450 drivers at a company in Florida.
They found that our process, using micro-training and constant accountability, helped reduce risky behavior by up to 73%. It also reduced speeding by up to 73%, hard braking by over 50%, and hard cornering by over 50%. So, it was a massive eye-opener that this stuff works even though there’s not a lot of manager involvement.
What’s next for Predictive Coach?
That’s the fascinating part. We already know we created something that is effective and will change habits. It will create those little ripples that eventually become total waves that create change across the planet. It’s one of those things where if we can stop people from texting, if we can stop them from speeding and killing innocent people with these massive vehicles, then we’ve accomplished something.
What’s exciting about where we’re headed is the implementation of AI tools and where we will take this later. We will go directly to the source where the bad habits begin, with team drivers. When team drivers begin to drive, they only get a lesson before they get their license. After that, unless they become professional drivers, they can create bad habits leading to fatalities. We must get in front of those young drivers to prevent them from creating bad habits. It’ll create excellent driving behavior and much safer roads.
