Kroger Cuts Collision Rate in Half with Video Telematics

[kscarbel2]

Heavy Duty Trucking  /  June 16, 2017

The Kroger Co.* has begun rolling out video telematics to its fleet of more than 1,200 tractor-trailers, and has already seen a significant reduction in collisions, handheld phone use, and unbelted drivers.

John Lobenberg, Kroger's safety manager, began adding the Lytx DriveCam system to its fleet in 2016. So far, he has equipped 316 trucks with the event recorders.

Kroger Logistics prioritized cities with the largest collision-related spend for the initial deployment, which would deliver a 3:1 return on investment, according to Lytx. Two cities were selected.

"Liablity spending was increasing year over year, and we’d just suffered three major driving incidents," said Lobenberg. "Changing that trend was all about proactively managing driver behavior."

It only took about a week for drivers to forget that the event camera was there.

Within four months of adding the system, Lobenberg saw a 50% reduction in collisions, a 71% reduction in handheld cell phone use, and an 82% reduction in unbelted driver incidents.

Lobenberg gained other insights, such as that about 15% of the drivers represented 80% of the risk. Maintenance costs fell, especially with tires, because driver were no longer "bouncing off curbs," he said.

The DriveCam system combined video captuire of road incidents such as hard braking or sudden swerving with data analysis of those incidents and personalized coaching to improve driver behavior. The system is being used by 650,000 commercial and government fleet drivers.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kroger

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[BillyT]

Grocery fleets tend to be among the best compensated local drivers both union and non union,it's a sad commentary when these people can't be trusted to not "bounce off curbs" without putting a camera in their truck! While there are a relative handful of mostly older stores where you are forced to jump a curb to hit the dock most modern docks provide plenty of room to avoid tire damage! In the late eighties a Giant Eagle store in a Pittsburgh suburb was so tight you were issued a Cabover astro and a 40 ft trailer instead of the usual R or U model tractor with a 45 ft trailer! When you got to the store you had to go in the adjacent barroom and have the patrons move their parked cars so you could go the wrong way down a one way street to access the uphill dock! The company expected you to rub the telephone pole next to the dock to hit the dock and you had to accelerate because the dock was uphill! They had to periodically replace the pole! This should be the final exam for the "Truckmasters" four week cdl course! LOL!  Most grocery fleets have resisted the temptation to lower their costs by "farming out their deliveries" because they lose control of the operation! Schneider,JB, Swift, and every other truckload carrier have been begging Wal Mart for their transportation contract for years! The best they can expect is their "overage"! Sears and K Mart both use outside carriers and are hovering on bankruptcy! Admittedly they have a plethora of other management problems, but being out of stock on a sale item due to a transportation issue can be a major problem! 

 

[HeavyGunner]

The opposite side of that coin is we got cameras about six months ago. We have had zero accidents, now the 9 years I've been here as still have had zero. Nobody in our group (about 20 drivers at our terminal) has been caught on a phone or without seat belts so why invade our privacy? If I was an O/O camera wouldn't bug me at all because I know the footage would not go anywhere. At our safety meetings the show recorded incidents (our fault or not)to the whole company. I for one think that's BS. I didn't sign up to be humiliated in front of my coworkers like others have. Car pulls out in front of you, you brake hard, camera goes back 8 seconds and continues recording for 4 seconds. So if you were picking your nose, singing to the radio 8 seconds prior to the recorded event, surprise you're picking your nose, singing etc in front of your coworkers. 

Edited June 21, 2017 by HeavyGunner
Damn autocorrect