Video Telematics for Trucking

Can something as simple as a video feed change truck driver safety? According to video telematics, an emerging technology used to record and analyze truck and driver behavior, the answer is yes. Collecting the right data about drivers as they operate trucks gives managers and coaches the chance to address problematic behavior and teach drivers best practices, leading to safer roads.

Telematics Tracks Vehicles and Drivers

Video telematics uses a combination of telecommunications and informatics to gather data about trucks. Telematics uses GPS or video to gather this truck movement data, by tracking each truck belonging to a company's fleet. The data from each truck gets sent to the company, which can then track how the vehicle moves, how long it's idle, and any other information about the vehicle and, by extension, the driver.

Telematics also lets the company know the status of all the fleet's vehicles. When a vehicle isn't running, where each vehicle is positioned in the country, and how fast a vehicle is going as it travels down the highway.

Kroger Has Seen Improvements With a Camera

Health monitors are just one way to keep track of drivers. Grocery giant Kroger, in an effort to reduce liability spending, equipped some of their trucks with Lytx cameras to keep track of drivers. The aim was to cut behaviors that caused safety risks and collisions, like texting and driving.

After four months, collisions went down by 50 percent, and smartphone while driving usage went down by 71 percent. Further, Kroger was able to pinpoint exactly who was causing the accidents. It turned out that only a small portion of drivers was causing the biggest problems. Telematics became a way to assess employee performance and safety behaviors. Lytx CEO, Brandon Nixon, says of the cameras, "Video telematics pivoted from being a nice-to-have to a must-have among commercial and public sector fleets."

Productivity Will Increase

Once trucking companies isolate behaviors that are causing collision problems, other benefits abound. Training for driving mistakes will create more adept and productive drivers. The videos show driving behaviors that cause too much wear on trucks, like hitting curbs. So the driver training that will create more productive driving behaviors will also reduce the strain the trucks take when the driver is mishandling them.

Driver Safety Means Truck Safety

One place video telematics falls short is with driver health. A video, like the one the Kroger fleet uses, can see if someone is falling asleep at the wheel. What it can't do is monitor other health markers that might indicate fatigue.

Fatigue is a major cause of automobile collisions, but because monitoring how tired someone feels is nearly impossible, statistics on how sleepy a driver is feeling are hard to come by. A study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that about 328,000 crashes per year may result from drowsy driving. Health data for specific drivers could mean the difference between someone staying off the road or someone getting into a truck crash.

Possible Roadblocks

Getting driver health data sounds like a way to make roads safer, but with a possible privacy cost that may run into legal issues. Is tracking someone's body as part of their job performance a breach of privacy? Utilizing a dash cam and sending drivers to additional training to correct driving issues is one matter, but closely monitoring an individual's health may be one step too far. When paired with the possibility of hacking the telematics system, the concept becomes slightly chilling.

Kroger is just one company using video telematics to improve truck safety. As telematics technology emerges, strategies for monitoring drivers will change. Some telematics relates well to the possible future of autonomous trucks, while other standards promise even better information about human drivers and existing truck fleets, in an effort to improve roadway safety for all parties.

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Authored By:

Kate Williams

CDLjobs.com has been a leader in the trucking industry since 1999, connecting truck drivers with companies hiring drivers. Kate Williams is the company EVP and CFO with over 30 years experience in finance.