London and Paris are two of the busiest capitals in Europe. We asked our data science team to analyse thousands of road journeys in each city to see what we can learn about their drivers’ behaviour. We’re aiming to discover not only who performs better, but also how their performance could be boosted.
Driver behaviour has a huge impact on areas like fleet efficiency and the environment. Our scoring solution breaks performance into three key elements:
- Speeding
- Idling
- Harsh braking and acceleration
In part one we looked at speeding and supposed that rival fleet managers were in control of London and Paris. This time we turn our attention to idling.
Idling: how London and Paris compare
Idling is when a vehicle is stationary for two minutes or more and has the engine on. Some idling vehicles may be working while stationary, but our rich data allows us to differentiate these instances and identify true idling. It’s one of the biggest causes of fuel waste and unnecessary CO2 emissions, so how do our fleets perform? This time, London comes out marginally on top, with an average of 17% of all driving time spent idling. Paris, meanwhile, comes in at 18%. As we found with speeding, the idling rate goes up at the weekend for each city. For both fleet managers, there’s clearly a lot of room for improvement.
How to improve idling behaviour
The Cleaner score in our driver behaviour solution specifically measures idling, both across an entire fleet and by individual driver. The London and Paris fleet managers will be able to see their fleet’s Cleaner score over time, identifying any weekly trends. Plus, if their fleet is part of a larger company, they’ll also be able to see how they rank against the rest of the company and Connect customers as a whole.
A driving behaviour programme is a proven way to improve performance. Benchmarking and trend data from Connect can inform realistic targets that drivers will understand and aim for. Drivers can also use the SmarterDriver app to view their driving behaviour scores and see how they rank within the fleet. This encourages self-improvement through friendly competition – who wouldn’t want to be the cleanest driver in the whole of Paris?
Reporting on idling
As well as rankings, trends and benchmarking, a good fleet manager will also want to see more granular data. Reports in Connect are customisable and can be run on a wide range of events, including idling. Managers can save and subscribe to reports via email so they’ll arrive in their inbox every week – or however often they choose.
The driver behaviour report on Cleaner driving provides a comprehensive overview of key metrics for each driver (or vehicle), such as the percentage of overall driving time idling, the actual amount of idle time, and the amount of CO2 that this wastes. This can be used as a league table of drivers, rewarding those who don’t idle and considering extra attention or training on the worst offenders.
On a large-scale fleet, even small improvements will lead to big efficiency savings in fuel costs and a reduction in carbon footprint. So if the Parisian fleet manager uses this information properly, he’ll give himself a great chance of bettering his London rival.
Our next blog will examine the third behaviour type in our driving behaviour scoring solution: Smoother.
