Ensign Bus Reduces Near Collisions by 57 Percent with Lytx DriveCam® Video Safety Programme, 54 Percent Reduction in Scored Driving Events

LONDON (17 Oct., 2017) -- The M25 bottleneck east of London is a massive inconvenience to most drivers, but to Ensign Bus Company, it can rapidly become a “complete nightmare.” The M25/A13 junction’s slow-moving traffic and the QE2 bridge frequently push traffic onto local roads that can too often put Ensign’s 120 drivers into conflict with impatient road users, which can quickly lead to risky driving behaviours or, worse still, potential collision events.

But, since adopting the Lytx DriveCam Video Telematics Programme, near collisions have decreased 57 percent for Ensign Bus.

The Lytx DriveCam safety programme is a comprehensive video telematics solution that combines video capture of road incidents such as hard braking or sudden swerving, data analysis of those incidents, and personalised coaching insights to enable fleet managers to improve driving behaviour to help prevent those incidents. The net result is reductions of collision-related costs by up to 80 percent.

Reversing Upward Trends in Insurance Claims

Ensign Bus Company’s Driver Training and Standards Manager Mark Turner-Monk is responsible for developing and driving forward the company’s Lytx programme. Ensign’s directors searched for a solution to improve the already good, safe driving behaviour of their operators. As an award-winning medium-size bus operator in the UK, it was important to Ensign to further reduce the potential risks of operating their growing fleet on some of the most congested roads in the UK.   

“Insurance costs are rising in our industry,” said Turner-Monk. “Insurance claims in general are on the rise with more and more alleged accidents and passenger falls. Our policy premiums were going through the roof and we had to demonstrate to our insurance company that we were doing everything we could to limit our exposure to claims.”

Ensign first installed a telematics solution which produced what Turner-Monk called mountains of useless data. “It would tell us there was a hard brake incident at, say, 9:55 on Tuesday. But, what happened? We hadn’t a clue. How do you take action based on raw data alone?  We needed to know the root cause to attempt to prevent it from happening again. As Driving Standards Manager, I need to know who was driving, where they were, and what had happened inside and outside the bus immediately before and during the incident. The raw telematics data system just didn’t give me the information that I needed to help my drivers understand and improve their driving.”

It wasn’t until they installed the Lytx DriveCam programme that they were able to pinpoint the drivers who represented the most risk, and help them improve their safe driving behaviour. 

“DriveCam is a training tool, not a disciplinary tool,” said Turner-Monk. “We look after our drivers – they’re individuals, not numbers. We want them to arrive home safely and to be able to put food on the table for their families. We’re helping them protect their livelihoods by becoming better drivers.  The Lytx DriveCam video is the first step in our extensive training programme.”

Showing Both What Happened and Why It Happened

The DriveCam video, Turner-Monk said, tells both what happened and more importantly, why it happened. “You can take action on the why – now we don’t have to fight through mountains of irrelevant data to find what happened and the associated risks,” he said. By coaching drivers with specific data-backed insights, Ensign Bus Company reduced its overall coachable driving events by 54 percent. 

It’s also helped them take pre-emptive action with local officials to fix traffic trouble spots. Turner-Monk described one road junction with a dedicated bus lane separate from the adjacent consumer vehicle lane that presented a problem for drivers.  It was by reviewing the DriveCam footage that Ensign had the proof it needed to tackle the problem. 

“The sensors on the light were faulty, clearing the other lane too early, before our bus could make it through the junction,” he said. “Within the first week of having the DriveCam system, we had two incidents at that junction. We were able to take the video to the local authority who could see for themselves that the sensors weren’t working properly. That’s the value of the video! We could see it wasn’t a driver issue at all. It saved us so much hassle from collisions that would have otherwise taken place at that spot.”

Turner-Monk also appreciates the speed with which DriveCam data and video are delivered. Once captured, clips are uploaded and analysed by reviewers, who then deliver the clips along with coaching insights to a web-based workspace. “We know quickly what happened and why. We can identify and address the issue and get on with coaching the driver concerned,” he said, adding that the ability to coach drivers using a tablet further enhances the speed of event resolution. 

Their insurance company also likes the programme, and they’ve seen claims-related events with passengers drop by one-third, he said. “They like what’s happening – we’re moving in the right direction.” The video footage and telematics data is playing an increasing roll in dispute resolution and claim handling by Ensign Bus Company’s underwriters.

An additional benefit to the DriveCam programme, Turner-Monk said, is the ability to identify and recognise good drivers. “We’ve had one driver who’s never triggered a coachable event, despite long shifts, a myriad of different buses and driving ALL our different routes,” he said. “He’s a model to the company.”

About Lytx
At Lytx^® we harness the power of data to change human behaviour and help good companies become even better. Our flagship product, Lytx DriveCam® sets the standard for driver safety in the industries we serve. We protect more than 2,200 commercial and government fleet clients worldwide who drive billions of miles. We enable our clients to realise significant ROI by lowering operating and insurance costs, while achieving greater efficiency and compliance. Most of all, we strive to help save lives – on our roads and in our communities, every day. Lytx has offices in the UK and is privately held and headquartered in San Diego. For more information, visit www.lytx.com, @LytxUK on Twitter, or on our YouTube channel.

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