Boys and Girls Club of America: Tracking and improving safety

The challenge: Monitoring and continuously improving safe driving

When your fleet is responsible for transporting kids to and from places, driver safety and on-road behavior will be at the forefront of your priorities.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada was unaware of the benefits that telematics systems could provide and started using Geotab simply out of curiosity. “The idea to use telematics was proposed to us, and we figured it might be useful to see what our 22 vehicles are actually doing out there,” Jacoby said.

The solution

The system has positively affected driver behavior, fuel economy, and has had an overall impact in understanding what the agency's vehicle use looks like.

Unlike many fleets that have to filter through a few systems before they find one which meets their needs, Jacoby found Geotab right off the bat.

All 22 vehicles in the fleet are equipped with a GPS system. The fleet is comprised mostly of 15- and 20-passenger vehicles, but the agency also owns a few pickup trucks and trailers.

Vehicle tracking

Whether it’s field trips to sporting events, amusement parks or even volunteer projects, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada spends 40 percent of its time doing activities outside their clubhouses. Because many of these activities take place on the weekends when the office is closed, Jacoby can monitor the vehicles to see how much mileage was put on.

The results

Uncovering driver behavior

Jacoby said that the system is also a good way to get staff to understand the responsibilities they have to be good and attentive drivers. Once he informed the 150-person staff of the new tracking system, management immediately saw improvements in idling times and speeding.

“I think people tend to drive as they would with their own cars, but with the system in place it helps them realize that these are work vehicles,” — Mark Jacoby, Area Director

The agency has not been involved in any accidents or traffic violations since the implementations of telematics.

In some cases driver reports provide a way to defend drivers from complaints. For example, Jacoby received a call about an alleged accident involving one of his drivers. The driver insisted he wasn’t in an accident, and there had been no damage on the vehicle.

Digging a little deeper, Jacoby pulled up the report from that specific day and found that there was no accelerated speeding or braking. The proof from the report left the angry motorist to drop the complaint. “We were able to point to the entire trip and realized that it wasn’t an issue,” Jacoby said.

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From the fleet manager

“It’s a sophisticated system, I would recommend it to anyone.” 

— Mark Jacoby, Area Director