City of Raleigh doubles municipal fleet safety score in 3 months with Geotab

When managing a full-service city fleet means responsibility for everything — from street sweepers to fire engines, from turf equipment to rescue vehicles — the City of Raleigh, North Carolina, needed more than a telematics tool. With 4,700 vehicles operating across departments with different needs, different risks, and a shared sustainability mandate, Raleigh turned to Geotab and reseller BlueArrow Telematics to turn that principle into measurable, data-driven reality.

The challenge: safety, sustainability, and maintenance across a complex 4,700-vehicle fleet

Raleigh's Vehicle Fleet Services department faced the challenge common to every municipal fleet: proving that smart investments in safety and sustainability translate into real savings for taxpayers and departments that hold the budget.

With 4,700 vehicles ranging from turf equipment to fire engines, the fleet needed consistent visibility into three areas simultaneously:

• Driver safety: Raleigh needed to monitor harsh braking, heavy acceleration, seat belt use, and speed compliance across a diverse driver population — and actually change behavior, not just measure it.
• Sustainability: Whether evaluating renewable propane, compressed natural gas, fleet electrification, or tire retreading, every operational decision needed a sustainability lens backed by data.
• Maintenance efficiency: With vehicles constantly in service, the team needed to triage vehicle health remotely, reduce tow costs, and service vehicles proactively before breakdowns occurred.

"The city has 4,700 vehicles from turf equipment all the way up to fire engines — a very diverse, complex fleet that supports a full-service city. We do everything from street sweeping to fire safety and rescue." — Rick Longobart, Fleet Operations Manager, City of Raleigh.

The solution: Geotab and BlueArrow Telematics as operational partners

Raleigh adopted Geotab through BlueArrow Telematics — a reseller that became the catalyst behind the city's telematics program. The easy-to-use platform addressed all three challenge areas through connected data, shared across departments, accessible in real time, and simple enough that teams stopped thinking about the technology and started using the results.

Driver Safety Scoring and Behavior Change

Geotab scores driving behavior across four inputs: harsh braking, heavy acceleration, seat belt engagement, and speed control. When Raleigh's fleet team reviewed their baseline, the global driver safety score stood at 40.55. Within three months, it reached 80.5 — effectively doubling.

Part of the gain came from targeted anti-idling campaigns that used Geotab data to debunk driver myths about vehicle warm-up times and equipment power requirements. Data replaced assumption, and behavior followed.

"When we looked at the inputs for driver safety, we realized we had a global score of 40.55. Within three months, we reached 80.5 — we essentially doubled the score in three months." —  Evan Sloan, Enterprise EHS & Workers Compensation Lead, City of Raleigh

Sustainability and Fleet Electrification

Sustainability is not a side initiative at Raleigh — it informs every operational decision. The fleet team uses Geotab to monitor vehicle utilization, identify candidates for electrification, and evaluate whether vehicles in service are actually needed.

"Everything we touch and everything we do is all around sustainability — whether it's looking at renewable propane, compressed natural gas, electrifying our fleet, or retread tires. We use Geotab to determine utilization: are these vehicles being used, and do they need to be in the fleet?" — Rick Longobart, Fleet Operations Manager, City of Raleigh.

Remote diagnostics and maintenance efficiency

When a vehicle triggers a fault, Raleigh's team uses Geotab's remote diagnostics to assess the situation without pulling a truck off its route — determining remotely whether a vehicle needs towing or is safe to continue operating. The team also uses Geotab's built-in electronic pre-trip inspection solution, eliminating a separate system and streamlining the driver workflow.

"We use remote diagnostics to triage remotely — if we need to have the vehicle towed in or if it's safe to operate, we can do that without pulling a truck off the route and save money on those tows." — Bradley Norton, Fleet Maintenance Superintendant, City of Raleigh.

Data-driven budget Justification

When Raleigh's fleet team requests funding from department heads or city council, Geotab data backs every request — showing cost savings already achieved, projected emissions reductions, and the long-term ROI behind investments that might appear expensive upfront.

"When we request funds from department heads or city council, we want to approach them with information to back up our request. This information we can derive directly from Geotab — showing that even if something seems more expensive upfront, down the road it could save us a certain amount or reduce emissions by a measurable figure." — Hydeiah Brown, Fiscal Analyst, City of Raleigh.

The results: safety score doubled, costs reduced, fleet recognized nationally

• Driver safety score doubled: from 40.55 to 80.5 in three months, across harsh braking, acceleration, seat belt use, and speed compliance.
• Vehicle repair costs reduced: driven by safer driving behavior and proactive maintenance monitoring.
• Vehicle accidents reduced: across all departments, fleet-wide.
• Workers' compensation costs reduced: a direct result of improved driver safety scores.
• Electrification opportunities identified: using vehicle utilization data to pinpoint EV transition candidates.
• Tow costs reduced: through remote diagnostics that assess vehicle safety without removing it from service.

"Geotab is simple, its plug-in, it allows us to have in-depth reports and real data for driver decision" Vic Avila, Assistant Fleet Manager, City of Raleigh.

2023 GFX Fleet of the Year — a City recognized nationally for fleet excellence

BlueArrow Telematics and Geotab solutions were central to delivering those results. Other cities now benchmark against Raleigh's operations — and when they ask how the fleet retrieves data and what resources they use, the answer is consistent: Geotab and BlueArrow.

"All the technology in the world doesn't do us any good unless we have a partner that can help us understand how we can be a better operation. BlueArrow brings that to us." —Rick Longobart, Fleet Operations Manager, City of Raleigh.

 

"If you're looking to answer questions about your fleet, there's not a better way. You have live, real-time data about your drivers, the vehicles, the costs — and it really helps you leverage data in a meaningful way." — Austin Lundy, Technology Specialist Senior, City of Raleigh.

Results at a glance:

Want to go further?

Raleigh’s commitment to electrification and alternative fuels reflects a broader shift happening across government fleets. Geotab pioneered the Electric Vehicle Suitability Assessment (EVSA) — a data-driven methodology that analyzes real telematics data to identify which vehicles in a fleet are ready for EV transition, and what the financial and emissions impact would be before any purchase decision is made. 

Learn how Geotab EVSA worksand see how Enterprise Fleet Management used EVSA to identify 13% savings costs.