FleetManagementWeekly AmeriFleet
July 21, 2015

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


We’ve Got Power!

We’re lucky in the fleet business for many reasons, and one of them is the quality of our industry’s leaders. Proving that are video clips featuring three of those fine people: Tom Callahan, CEO at Donlen, talks about technology in this video clip — be sure and listen until the very end. NAFA past-president, the newly-retired Claude Masters, CAFM, talks sustainability; and SambaSafety CEO Rich Crawford gives us some tips on monitoring driver performance. And in his monthly column, CX guru Jeof Bean tells us why we need to define our business.

AFLA’s 2015 Conference: ‘The Future is Now: Transformational Ideas Shaping our Industry’ is coming up in September. You just cannot miss this conference – impressive sessions and speakers and networking nirvana! Register today.

Janice Sutton
Executive Editor


INDEX: Find All of the Fleet News and Information You Need on Newly Redesigned FleetManagementWeekly.com

All posts from the newsletter can be found on our newly redesigned web site, FleetManagementWeekly.com,

Browse these categories:

Association News — Find out what’s going on at associations of importance to the fleet community.
Fleet Trends & Issues — Check out articles about current fleet issues and trends
Fleet Safety — Read news about various aspects of fleet safety, including interviews of fleet safety leaders
Fleet Videos — Watch video clips of fleet newsmakers
Interviews — Read Fleet Management Weekly’s interviews with industry leaders.
Telematics — Learn about the latest in fleet telematics news

Read monthly columns: Fleet Marketing, Fleet Asset Management, The Mobile Employee, On Accident Management, The Fleet Customer Experience, Think Global Plan Local, The Fleet CX Toolbox, and Fleet Safety.


callahan-tom

VIDEO: Fleet is a Fantastic Testing Ground

When it comes to empowering drivers via mobile technology, Donlen is at the forefront of this fantastic testing ground that we call the fleet industry.



VIDEO: Metrics and Sustainability
masters-claude
  Key Metrics for NAFA’s Sustainable Fleet Accreditation Program
 

NAFA’s Sustainable Fleet Accreditation Program uses various key metrics to help evaluate your fleet’s performance — especially metrics that measure fuel burn and emissions.


VIDEO: Baselines as a Starting Point
crawford-rich
  Establishing Baselines When Monitoring Drivers
 

In order to appropriately monitor your drivers, it’s important to establish a baseline, so that you’re able to get the information you need.





The Fleet Spot


CEI on accident management CEI Promotes Tech Team Trio to Support IT Functionality for Fleet Accident, Safety and Risk Management

The CEI Group, Inc. (CEI), a fleet driver management company, announced today the promotion of three veteran information technology team members — James Pritz, Steve Colonnello and Bob Marriott — to director.

“Each of these three gentlemen has demonstrated leadership over the years in supporting CEI’s technology prowess,” said Wayne Smolda, CEI’s president and chief executive officer. “Collectively, their new roles will be to ensure that our information infrastructure and applications continue to keep CEI fleet customers at the leading edge of safety and accident management efficiency and savings.”

READ MORE

John Wall Element Fleet Management Names John Wall SVP & CTO

Element Fleet Management announced the appointment of John Wall to senior vice president and chief technology officer. In this role, Wall is responsible for the vision and strategy behind Element’s technology direction and innovation.

“This is an incredible time for technology in the fleet space and I’m thrilled to be joining the Element team,” said Wall. “We will focus on addressing our clients’ evolving needs and empowering them to utilize solutions that will improve their business.”

READ MORE

chris lyon Chris Lyon, CAFM, Named Director of Fleet Relations at NTEA

NTEA – The Association for the Work Truck Industry recently appointed Christopher Lyon, CAFM as director of fleet relations. He will replace Bob Johnson, who officially retires Oct. 9, 2015 after more than 11 years of service to the Association.

READ MORE

telematics Aaron’s Partners with Azuga to Deliver Next-Generation GPS and Driver Behavior Solutions to its Fleet

With over 7,000 fleet drivers, Aaron’s now receives comprehensive coverage of next-generation GPS functionality, which combines GPS with driver rewards, vehicle health and plug-and-play installation. In only 6 months, Aaron’s has been able to generate a powerful ROI across different areas: reduction in idling, increased safety and longer truck life.

“We selected Azuga for its comprehensive functionality spanning GPS tracking, rewards-driven driver behavior solutions and engine diagnostics,” said Lewis Allen, senior manager fleet operations at Aaron’s. “We were able to improve many aspects of our fleet operations within the first three months of deploying Azuga. Its reliability, accuracy and value are unlike traditional hard-installed GPS systems. In addition, their social telematics feature allows us to further motivate and incentivize employees as well as to continue find new sources of ROI.”

READ MORE

The Fleet Customer Experience

Define your business not by its product, processes, or services, but by what it does for people that they value. It is part of being a customer experience leader.

By Jeofrey Bean

The impact of being clear about what you do for your customers can not be underestimated. From service and message development to what the customer actually experiences in service and support.

READ MORE

 
Harnessing Millennial Skill Sets

Fortune

Armed with a new set of perspectives, skills and motivations, the millennial generation is gearing up to take the modern business world by storm. In fact, people between the ages of 18 and 31 this year have recently surpassed Gen X to comprise the largest share of the U.S. workforce.

Contrary to popular belief, Gen Yers are some of the most productive people around, priding themselves on working smarter, not harder—far from the lazy, self-absorbed bunch older generations often peg them as.

As an employer, you need to harness the unique millennial skill set to survive and flourish in today’s business landscape.

READ MORE

 
Roadblocks to Criminal Penalties

The New York Times

The push to impose criminal penalties on auto executives who fail to disclose deadly automobile defects hit another roadblock last week when a Senate committee voted down such a proposal.

Lawmakers and safety advocates who were pushing to institute criminal penalties for such behavior expressed dismay as that and a series of other auto safety reforms — including barring used-car dealers from selling vehicles with unrepaired recalls — also failed to proceed.

“Hiding these deadly defects with near impunity is what the industry has succeeded in doing,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who introduced several provisions that were voted down.

READ MORE







Fleet Trends & Issues


Center for Automated Road Transportation Safety Launched

The achievement of the Center’s mission will be through the use of automated collision avoidance technologies that fundamentally go beyond crash mitigation, the principal conventional focus of highway safety, to crash avoidance.

By Dr. Alain L. Kornhauser

After more than three years of planning and several major meetings, the substantive launch of the Center for Automated Road Transportation Safety @ Fort Monmouth (CARTS@FM) occurred this week with the creation of the governing non-profit (501(c) (6)) New Jersey Corporation.

The mission of this Center is to substantially improve safety on our existing conventional roadway infrastructure through the use of inexpensive automated collision avoidance systems installed on individual vehicles operating harmoniously with conventional vehicles throughout most, if not all, existing roadways. The scope of CARTS’s mission is across all modes that utilize the nation’s conventional road system: trucks, buses and cars.

READ MORE

Google Autonomous Vehicle Suffers 1st Injury Accident

Sometimes, it seems, there’s nothing that even the smartest cars can do. Yet again, a Google autonomous vehicle was rear-ended, apparently due to a distracted driver. The 14th accident involving one of the self-driving vehicles, it also marked the first involving injuries.

The July 1 crash occurred near the tech giant’s home of Mountain View, California, and saw three employees in the autonomous vehicle go to the hospital due to what’s been described as “minor” whiplash. The driver of the other vehicle also suffered some minor injuries.

“The clear theme is human error and inattention,” Chris Urmson, head of the Google autonomous vehicle program, wrote on his blog. “We’ll take all this as a signal that we’re starting to compare favorably with human drivers.”

READ MORE

Smart Steering Wheel Detects Driver Drowsiness

We’ve already seen systems that detect driver fatigue via steering wheel movements or by analyzing drivers’ faces. German engineering firm Hoffman and Krippner, in cooperation with Guttersberg Consulting, has now developed what its designers believe is a better alternative – a fatigue-sensing steering wheel add-on that tracks the driver’s grip.

The technology is based on the fact that when people drive and are reasonably alert, they’re constantly applying pressure to the wheel and/or moving their hands along it. If someone should fall asleep, have a heart attack or otherwise lose consciousness, that pressure will lessen and their hands will move less.

The actual device consists of a thin strip of sensors developed by Guttersberg Consulting that is applied to the inside rim of a manufacturer’s existing steering wheel, beneath the leather (or other) covering. That “Sensofoil” strip is made up of thin layers of foil, that have a weak electrical current running through them.

READ MORE

Why Self-Driving Cars Will Raise Your Taxes

Once autonomous driving cars become prevalent in the not-too-distant future, we’ll all be able to read, watch videos and text message to our hearts’ content – safely, that is – while en route to a given destination, and probably enjoy lower insurance rates due to the resulting drop in accidents caused by human error.

Though the numbers couldn’t be verified elsewhere, according to the venerable Statistic Brain Research Institute, American drivers pay over $6 billion a year in speeding tickets alone.

READ MORE

Sustainable Fleets

Development Committee to lead NAFA and its members with execution of Sustainable Program

NAFA Fleet Management Association announces the formation of an Accreditation Development Committee to oversee NAFA’s Sustainable Fleet Accreditation Program. The Association, in collaboration with CALSTART, launched its Sustainable Fleet Accreditation Program in April at its Institute & Expo conference in Orlando, Florida.

“We are excited to have these invaluable members take the lead in overseeing our Sustainable Program,” said NAFA Chief Executive Officer Phillip E. Russo, CAE. “NAFA’s Board of Directors and I are certain that they will ensure the program’s success.”

READ MORE

 
A Better Bottom Line

By Mike Sheldrick

At the recent NAFA I&E in Orlando, we got a chance to sit down with CALSTART senior vice president Bill Van Amburg to learn about the NAFA Sustainable Fleet Accreditation Program, developed in collaboration with CALSTART.

Van Amburg says, “It will really give fleets the tools, the recognition and the way to measure their progress. This is what will help drive continuous improvement in the fleet world both for being more efficient and in having a smaller environmental footprint. This program gets you in at the ground floor if you are just starting out, shows you where you are and then equips you to make some smart choices to start improving both your bottom line and your environmental footprint.”

READ MORE

 
Easing Traffic Congestion

The Detroit Bureau

Traffic and parking have become troublesome issues for motorists in many cities and the impact of these growing problems on buyers, particularly younger ones, is a rising concern for carmakers. The issues are also attracting the attention of technology companies.

The city of Boston, in an effort to curb the problems created by double parking on the city’s narrow streets, has teamed up with Waze, an app-based GPS system that provides real-time traffic updates from users.

Besides helping commuters navigate city traffic, Waze data is now helping Boston target that most annoying source of slowdowns – the double-parked car.

Read more of the original article in The Detroit Bureau.








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