Veolia Transportation

Veolia Transportation, a global transportation company, experienced a 38 percent reduction in collisions within a one-year period, while lowering costs associated with risky driving.

Situation

In the business of transporting passengers, Veolia Transportation helps public authorities and private contractors create unique transportation solutions. With an annual revenue approaching $1 billion in 2006, and more than 14,000 U.S. employees, Veolia Transportation is the largest non-governmental transit provider in the country.

The result of a merger involving Connex North America, a subsidiary of Paris-based Veolia Environment, and public transportation services provider ATC, Veolia Transportation has rail, fixed route, paratransit and bus-rapid-transit system contracts in major metropolitan centers throughout the United States and Canada, including Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Ontario, and also runs other lines of people-moving businesses. The organization fosters a safety culture, and supports operators with ongoing driver coaching. Recognizing that driving incidents can and do occur, the company set out to reduce insurance expenses associated with risky driving by changing the behavior of its operators.

Solution

Prior to acquisition by Connex North America, ATC deployed DriveCam's behavior-based risk mitigation solution across its fleet of 1,400 vehicles. The company experienced tremendous success in reducing the frequency and severity of incidents related to risky driving behavior, and elected to deploy the DriveCam solution in as many vehicles as possible throughout North America.

"Safety is a cornerstone of our organization," said Drew Jones, vice president of safety and security, Veolia Transportation. "The DriveCam solution complements our internal safety programs and takes them to the next level. With DriveCam, we can review near-misses and provide coaching and customized training prior to an incident occurring. We're also able to identify trends such as repeated hard braking and modify behavior accordingly."

DriveCam's solution allows for saved events to be downloaded wirelessly and automatically with no inconvenience to operators. Because evaluation and analysis can be time-consuming and is not a core competency of Veolia Transportation, the company is choosing to take advantage of DriveCam's fully outsourced behavior-based risk mitigation solution offering in select locations throughout the United Sates. Using this approach, events from across Veolia's sites in North America will be reviewed at a central location and DriveCam's Driving Risk Analysts skilled in identifying the root cause of risky driving behaviors will deliver timely feedback to fleet managers about their drivers. This approach takes the burden of analyzing events off of Veolia Transportation and ensures consistent, objective analysis and coaching methodology is applied across the organization.

Impact

Reaction to the DriveCam solution among operators at Veolia Transportation has been positive. In addition:

• The DriveCam solution has helped Veolia exonerate its operators in instances when they were not at fault – the company has a 4:1 ratio of successfully demonstrating innocence in minor collisions.
• Veolia Transportation has experienced a 38 percent reduction in the total number of collisions from the first quarter 2005 to first quarter 2006.
• The organization has reduced costs associated with risky driving behavior, including vehicle damages, personal injury and workers' compensation by 25 percent to date.

As an advocate for safety within Veolia Transportation, Jones believes the DriveCam solution enhances Veolia Transportation's safety program. Said Jones, "I have been in the transportation safety business for a long time and the DriveCam solution, when managed correctly, is one of the best safety solutions to have been developed in a decade."