What’s all the fuss about data in commercial trucking these days? To help unpack this question, our team is offering a unique perspective on fleet data and developed a playbook series to help fleets understand the importance of building their data from year one to three. Insurers covering fleets will also gain a better understanding of the tools available for their clients to track smarter and operate with less risk.
We’ll answer some of the most common questions we hear from fleet operators like: why do I need data about my fleet, what’s the data tell me, how is the data used, who needs to see the data, and will I get a return on my investment?
It’s game time, and we’ve got the perfect fleet data playbook for you.
YEAR 1: Make vendor partnerships and ingest fleet data
For motor carriers, year one of operating involves a long list of requirements to check off from hiring criteria, compliance, screenings and background checks to getting your vehicles and drivers insured.
- Compliance
- Background check
- Screenings
- Insurance
We recommend fleets focus on two key areas of building data in the first year of operations – motor vehicle records (MVR data from USDOT / FMCSA) and telematics data. Next, find reliable vendors who offer quality data ingestion and analysis, and provide monthly or annual reporting.
This is the first step to building fleet data that will inform year two and future operational decisions, and impact your ROI and safety.
Scott Grandys of ClearConnect Solutions shares his perspective on choosing the right risk management vendors: “If you hit a bump in the road, if you have the right vendors, you’re already going to know what that bump was because the data is going to tell you.”
YEAR 2: Identify risk trends and make some decisions
It’s time to assess the data you’ve gathered from year one and identify what changes fleets can make based on the data insights.
Are there any red flags in your driver or vehicle data after a year, such as expired licenses or multiple speeding violations, accidents or failed vehicle inspections?
On a recent episode from the Risky Business podcast, Scott Grandys and Zoey Medrano break down a common carrier experience when using data from a telematics service:
“In regard to bumps in the road that a carrier might experience in year one or two, we’ll use telematics as an example, drivers will disconnect the units, units will go offline, or sometimes get spotty service. How those units recover when they’re offline and they get back on [and] the data is flowing back, there’s a lot of false positives. So if you have crash reporting, it may look like a crash but it’s not a crash. So now that you have all the data, keep your eyes open for spotty data and things that don’t make sense.”
Furthermore, given the number of recent 2024 FMCSA regulation updates for telematics devices, drug and alcohol convictions and crash preventability programs, it’s critical for motor carriers to keep up with industry safety prevention.
Begin to link data trends with risk and violations
A data analytics vendor will offer services that help you access, analyze, and answer these essential questions for year 2:
- What risk patterns are you seeing in your drivers’ records?
- What violations are most common?
- Are drivers with more speeding tickets linked to more accidents?
- Are drivers with an expired license connected to other risky behavior?
What decisions should a carrier make based on data insights?
Finally, you’re able to use those great insights to make strategic decisions at the driver and fleet level. Here are some common actions you may take to mitigate risk:
- Temporarily suspend a driver or if needed, terminate
- Require more driver safety training and remedial courses to correct poor behavior
- Add more risk mitigation tactics – ex. dash cams, risk monitoring, change vendors
YEAR 3: Share your fleet’s data story
With 2+ years of data collection, you can really start to see the bigger picture of what’s happening in regard to driver and vehicle behavior, and how it connects directly to risk management.
Now it’s the fun part – game time.
In year 3, you’ll begin to share all the critical data you’ve been capturing and tell your data story.
Leverage the data for better insurance rates and long-term ROI
Insurers LOVE to see fleets doing the right things to mitigate risk and improve safety. Request a meeting with your insurance agent 60 days before renewal time. The insights from your data, like adding required safety courses, enlisting risky drivers in remedial courses, suspending drivers until they’re in “good” status again, adding safety and monitoring features to your vehicles like dash cams and ELDs – these factors all add up to an improved insurance rating and give fleets a return on investment over time.
“You should be able to negotiate with the insurance companies and say, ‘Let me show you what I’ve done, let me show you the data I’ve captured and the improvements I’ve made [within my fleet] in the last two and half years.’”
Remember, we’re in it for the long game. Implementing safety and risk mitigation tactics with data-driven insights in the first three years will pay off with: less claims, accidents, litigation and vehicle costs in the long run.
Carriers win, insurers win.
We hope you’ve learned something new from this series, and if you’d like to know more about how to start building your fleet’s data story for a profitable and safer future, let’s connect.
Listen to the episodes on “Drive Your Data for Growth: YEAR 1-3” on our podcast for more perspective directly from Scott Grandys and Zoey Medrano.
