The Sustainability+ product suite takes elements of driver performance management software and combines them with GPS enabled fleet tracking, bringing the benefits of both services onto a single on-line platform.

A critical component of Sustainability+ is Cybit’s ecoScore. This is configurable to the individual business and measures driving styles, road types, conditions and distances driven by calculating a points-per-mile driven for each driver.

“The market has traditionally been divided in two, between vehicle location based services and independent driver measurement software.” says Steve Towe, Cybit’s European director, “Cybit has the capability and breadth of knowledge to be able to offer the benefits of both. Our objective is to provide customers with progressive layers of business benefits using telematics. Sustainability+ is a bolt-on module to our core tracking application that helps achieves this.”

Sustainability+ provides summary and trend reporting for fleet managers with configurable league tables based on combinations of driving profiles, including; harsh acceleration, breaking, RPM, speeding and engine idling. This information is also available as an individual driver report that allows a month-by-month comparison of performance and trends.

Source Fleet News

It is estimated that one in every three people killed on the roads was driving for work at the time. This puts a huge onus on fleet managers to manage this risk – driving is the most dangerous thing most employees will do while at work.

But new research by the Department for Transport may help after it concluded that educating drivers on the implications of speed is likely to have a positive impact and enable speed limits to be enforced.

It said that using education to reinforce the message that speeding is unacceptable should be seen as prevention tool rather than punishment.

In many areas of the UK, an alternative to penalty points and paying fines comes in the shape of speed awareness courses. The courses are designed to improve drivers’ skills, attitudes and behaviour.

“I’ve seen so many people come out of the courses with a profound difference in opinion,” a spokesman from AA DriveTech explains. “They do not always think about the consequences when speeding. These courses allow drivers to come face to face with the reality of speeding and how it can affect lives.”

But speed-awareness courses do not have to be taken after an offence or as a punishment. Many companies including the AA offer courses to fleet drivers. A study conducted in 2008 by the University of Reading demonstrated that the attitudes among drivers educated after committing a speeding offence shows they have much improved intentions to drive within the limit.

The evaluation was based on measuring the attitudes of drivers attending speed awareness workshops in the Thames Valley region. The report looked at the differences in attitudes between those drivers who attended a speed awareness course and those that received a fixed penalty.

It was found that after the classroom-based training, drivers are nearly five times less likely to think that it is safe to drive at 35 mph in a 30mph limit. In the months that followed the course drivers had a clearer intention not to break the 30mph limit.

Speaking for Thames Valley Police who introduced the scheme, Malcolm Collis said: “We have provided an opportunity to over 100,000 drivers to look at the roads in a different way, helping them to examine the effects that their choice of speed could have if it all goes wrong. The evidence is clear that this approach leaves drivers with a better understanding of why speed matters, more determination to slow down and feeling in far greater control over their choice of speed.”

The most common contributing factors of speeding are shown to be self-efficacy (drivers believing they can control the vehicle) and attitudes towards speeding. Fleet drivers also need to be aware that lower speed limits, such as 20mph zones in built-up areas, are likely to become more common. And demand for lower speed limits is strengthening.

In a recent survey by Brake and Direct Line, 60% of respondents want 20mph to be the limit around homes and built-up areas and 42% would prefer a reduction to 50mph on rural roads. Although people support the need to have safer roads, most admitted speeding themselves, 36% at least once a week.

“Our research suggests that drivers do understand that slowing down saves lives – as they overwhelmingly support lower speed limits on both urban and rural roads. At the same time, the majority of drivers continue to break speed limits, and tell us that enforcement is the main factor that persuades them to slow down,” explained Julie Townsend, Brake’s campaigns director.

Source: Fleet News

Vocal Mobile provide extensive vehicle and fleet tracking solutions to help our clients manage the safety of their workforce and streamline fuel and vehicle costs, for more information contact us.

Simon Chapman, FTA’s chief economist, said; “Diesel is an unavoidable expense and accounts for a third of the costs of running a truck. Successive, above inflation tax hikes since 2009 mean the freight industry is shouldering a disproportionate burden in narrowing the public sector deficit. With another rise due in January and above inflation rises set for the next three years, many businesses hit hard by the recent recession will feel like they are on borrowed time.”

The cost of diesel at the pumps is accelerating away from the rate of inflation and Friday’s diesel duty rise of 1 pence per litre to 58.19ppl, will see this gap widen further.

Chapman concluded: “The price of oil is the highest it’s been for three months and is set to rise further as we come into the autumn peak period of oil demand. With economic recovery still so fragile, now is not the time to compound the problem with artificial price hikes.

“With the duty hike affecting petrol too, the Treasury will net an extra £500 million a year in total from all road users. For every £1 of tax raised from road users, just 22 pence is currently spent on the road network. If the Government persists with the strategy of above inflation rises in fuel duty, it should ‘ring fence’ the element that exceeds inflation and invest it in those road and rail networks in most urgent need of improvement.”

Vocal Mobile supplies vehicle tracking solutions that allow companies to streamline their fleets and become more economic on fuel costs. These solutions also allow companies to adhere to strict duty of care legislation and protect their employee’s as well as the general public, ensuring further savings on company insurance premiums.

For more information contact Vocal Mobile.

TMC’s data reveals that, although today’s average new fleet car uses 13% less fuel than its 2004 counterpart, higher pump prices mean that it costs just as much to keep it fuelled.

TMC calculated the cost of fuelling a car over 10,000 miles, based on inflation-adjusted fuel prices and the average CO2 rating of new cars acquired by fleets each year, from 2004 to the present. The 2010 fuel bill is marginally higher, even though the CO2 from new cars (and therefore their fuel consumption) has fallen from 167g/km to around 145g/km.

“The message is clear. Businesses that intend to cut their fleet costs cannot afford to rely solely on more efficient company cars,” said Paul Jackson, managing director of TMC, which helps companies cut the cost of fuel and mileage expense claims.

“While the most fuel-efficient cars – those in the sub-120g/km CO2 bracket – are holding their own in the race against higher fuel prices, the average new car is being left behind,” he said.

Vocal Mobile supplies vehicle tracking solutions that allow companies to streamline their fleets and become more economic on fuel costs. These solutions also allow companies to adhere to strict duty of care legislation and protect their employee’s as well as the general public, ensuring further savings on company insurance premiums.

For more information contact Vocal Mobile.

Source: FleetNews

Organisations including NHS Lothian, NHS Trust Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, NHS Fife Health Board and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are using Cybit’s Fleetstar system to increase visibility of their fleets used for patient collection and transportation of important medical test results.

NHS Lothian, NHS Trust Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, NHS Fife Health Board and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde hope to cut their combined mileage by around 600,000 per year – a 12% reduction.

Detailed reporting allows the organisations to verify and confirm deliveries as well as reduce corporate risk for mobile and lone worker employees. Cybit told Fleet News that a growing number of public sector organisations were implementing telematics to drive efficiency savings in operational spend to meet Government targets.

“Organisations across the public sector are under increasing pressure to reduce costs,” said Steve Towe, director at Cybit. All public sector organisations need 100% visibility of their vehicles, especially in the NHS, where there are so many vehicles on the road.

“Once you know where vehicles are and where they’re going, you can begin to manage travel costs,” said Jim McIlroy, NHS Fife transport manager. Telematics is an investment with a strong return. It really does increase visibility of your vehicles and costs.

“It is a perfect example of spend to save, which is why it should be at the top of public sector agendas.”

Source: FleetNews

Field service engineers working for household appliance manufacturer Indesit, have been tracked in their Ford Transit TDCi 260 vans over three months. All three supply companies believe the information gained from the trial offers valuable lessons for other firms considering telematics systems to help in their fleet operation.

Fifteen vehicles in total were fitted with tracking systems for three months: five in Peterborough used Quartix equipment; five in Northampton used Road Angel systems; five operating from Leicester used Tracker tele-matics kit.

Stephen Doran, managing director of Tracker, said: “The trial with Indesit certainly demonstrates why a company needs to be open-minded about fleet tracking and how it can be instrumental in optimising a fleet utilisation strategy.

“Companies like Indesit may have a perception of how long their engineers are on the road. However, it is through the use of fleet tracking systems and the information it provides which really allows fleet managers to truly understand their fleet activity.”

Initial findings from the first few weeks of data showed that engineers were spending far longer than expected on the road, because routing software the company had used to predict journey times had predicted higher average speeds than were able to be achieved realistically.

The telematics systems gave unequivocal evidence that vehicles were slower and spending up to an extra 45 minutes a day on the road than the time that had been built into the day for travel time. This will be taken into account when a new planning system is put in place across the company in 2011.

The new system will allow a set time per job for engineers and set journey times based on the company’s own experiences.

But Indesit’s planning manager, Dave Evison said without the telematics systems the company would have been forced to use guesswork when planning the new call handling system.

Graham Mackie, managing director of Road Angel, said changes in behaviour or problems being highlighted at an early stage are unsurprising. “It’s good to see that Indesit has already started to see some benefits from the deployment of telematics within its van fleet.

“In other customers of similar size and in similar, service-based industries, we tend to see a mixture of short- term and medium-term benefits as a result of deploying the Road Angel Fleet solution. The short-term benefits often come as a result of immediate behavioural changes from drivers that are aware they are being monitored more closely.”

This may include improved product-ivity during work hours, fuel savings through less idling time, a reduction in speeding offences and a drop off in unauthorised vehicle usage ‘out of hours’.

Source: FleetNews

Knowing where your people are, knowing that they’re safe, en route to disaster recovery sites or alternate locations or in need of assistance is a prime requirement for a business response to an incident. To allow business continuity and incident management plans to encompass this need, iModus has evolved to allow its users to locate their staff, stakeholders and key decision makers in the event of a critical incident.

iModus Locate is the latest business continuity enhancement to help businesses plan, manage and respond. This new module enables organisations to:

•  identify the location of key members of staff
•  automatically be alerted to staff arriving at recovery sites or other locations
•  track the geographic progress of employees sent to deal with business continuity crises
•  check on the proximity of staff to an incident and create ‘geo-zones’ that will alert line managers or key decision makers of your choice when staff cross these potentially dangerous boundaries
•  implement ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ alert systems, providing lone worker and vulnerable person support through a 24 hour approved alarm receiving centre
•  locate and be alerted to staff that are in danger

Indian authorities, who met with RIM officials on Friday, also pledged to go after other companies — including Google and Skype — to protect the country from cyber-spying and attacks planned over the Internet.

RIM faces an August 31 deadline to give authorities the means to read email and instant messages sent over the BlackBerry. New Delhi says it will pull the plug if RIM won’t comply, threatening its future in the world’s fastest-growing telecoms market.

India is the latest country to step up pressure on RIM, which has built the BlackBerry’s reputation around confidentiality. Business professionals and politicians prefer the device. Governments, including Saudi Arabia, fear it could become a tool for terrorists or those breaking Islamic laws.

India’s demands follow a deal with Saudi Arabia, where a source said RIM agreed to give authorities codes for BlackBerry Messenger users. The United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Algeria also seek access.

RIM also has a lot to lose. Competitors have eaten into its once-dominant share of the North American smartphone market, pushing the company to look to places like India and Saudi Arabia for growth.

Vocal’s award winning iModus system is used widely across corporate BlackBerry’s for crisis notification and information management. Among the Vocal suite of BlackBerry products are resilient and secure BlackBerry PIN to PIN messaging through iModus and the upcoming launch of the iModus App for Smartphones.

For more information contact the Vocal sales team on 0800 0350081 or sales@vocal.co.uk

Source – Reuters

For more information on how Cybit, or any other Vocal Mobile products can help with you tracking and communications needs, visit the rest of the site.

The use of Blackberry messenger has been restricted as countries are unable to monitor this via the handset. Blackberry handsets automatically send out encrypted data to services that are located offshore, which cannot be monitored or tracked locally. The data goes beyond the control of national legislation. This has initiated security concerns from both countries, which echo concerns voiced in the past from other countries.

Security issues have been plaguing Blackberry and their service provided Research in Motion (RIM) from as far back as 2007. Countries believe that the content of messages may be morally objective or politically undesirable leaving them exposed to potential terrorism and security threats. According to the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority, UAE, “Certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns,”

RIM Chief Technology Officer David Yach declined to comment on discussions with specific governments.”I believe they’ll have trouble pulling the trigger to shut down BlackBerry,” Yach said. “Most governments in the world rely on BlackBerry.”

There are almost 700,000 blackberry users in Saudi Arabia and 500,000 in the UAE which by restricting their use may jeopardise business in both countries. Many foreign professionals rely on Blackberry’s as a primary source of communication and constraints will therefore hinder the general course of business. It will also impact foreign visitors using roaming services.

Vocal are a market leading provider of mission critical business communication solutions to over 1800 businesses worldwide, from business continuity and emergency planning applications through to corporate communication systems.

For more information contact our Accounts Team on 0800 0350081 or sales@vocal.co.uk