Introduction: Scholar Transport Safety
The South African Medical Journal has revealed some rather “inspirational” data in their March Issue with regards to the improvement in driving among minibus drivers actively involved in the transport of scholars in the Western Cape.
The Arrive Alive website has been a strong supporter of the use of vehicle telematics to improve driver behaviour as well as self -regulation as an important tool to make roads safer. The article in the South African Medical Journal has paved the way for increased safety in scholar transport using modern vehicle tracking technology!
The article titled “Schoolbus driver performance can be improved with driver training, safety incentivisation, and vehicle roadworthy modifications” reveals and discusses findings of a project to monitor school transport drivers in the Western Cape.
The Safe Travel to School Programme has been developed by Childsafe is a collaboration with Discovery Insure. In this programme, a DQ Tracking device, like the one used by Discovery Insure clients, is installed in the minibuses of scholar transport drivers. The Drivers were incentivised to drive safely and monitored with the newest telematics technology on aspects such as speeding, braking, cornering, acceleration etc.
Report Summary:
In South Africa (SA), the school transport industry provides millions of children with a means of travelling to and from school. The industry has, however, been reported to be plagued by widespread safety concerns. The consequent road traffic incidents have often been attributed to driver factors, including driving in excess of legal speeds or at inappropriate speeds; driving while under the influence of alcohol, while sleepy or fatigued; or driving without using protective equipment for vehicle occupants. There are currently very few SA interventions that specifically target this important industry role-player. The Safe Travel to School Programme was recently implemented by a national child safety agency, with a focus on driver road safety awareness, defensive driver training, eye-testing, vehicle roadworthy inspections with selected upgrades, incentives for safe performance, and implementation of a vehicle telematics tracking system with regular, individual driving behaviour information updates. This quasi-experimental study offers an evaluation of the initial impact on the safety performance of this telematics-based driver and vehicle safety intervention in terms of speeding, acceleration, braking, cornering, and time-of-day driving, and compares the school transport driver performance with that of general motorists. Despite concerns that some school transport vehicles are used for multiple purposes outside of school transport duties, at night, and for longer distances, overall these vehicles recorded lower percentages of speeding, lower harsh braking, and lower average harsh cornering and acceleration than general drivers.
The results were rather astounding!
Fig. 2. Percentage of time that speed exceeded 10% of the limit (n=102)
Fig. 3. Average monthly accelerations above g-force threshold (n=102)
Fig. 4. Average monthly braking above g-force threshold (n=102)
Fig. 5. Average monthly cornering above g-force threshold (n=102)
Results
School transport driver safety performance: January 2014 – January 2015
The analysis of speeding, acceleration, braking, cornering and night driving performance suggests that the majority of Safe Travel to School Programme drivers were performing in an appropriate, safe manner, i.e. below the designated threshold for each metric. There were some exceptions observed, which may reflect: (i) habitual serial offenders for the review period; or alternatively (ii) use of the vehicle by more than one driver, therefore accounting for different driving conditions and multiple driver performance styles.
Habitual offending among the drivers was not limited to speeding and was also observed for accelerations, braking and cornering. However, observed trends in individual performance were confounded in some instances by excessive night-time use of vehicles, as it is difficult – if not impossible – to differentiate driving performance of school transport drivers during school runs from other forms of driving utilising the same vehicle outside the school transport hours and with different passengers. This confound is a consequence of the telematics device recording driving behaviour of a specific vehicle rather than that of a specific driver.
Read more at http://www.arrivealive.co.za/Study-on-Schoolbus-Drivers-and-Benefits-of-Safety-Incentivisation
