Famed for its beautiful landscapes, climate and beaches, Ibiza has become a popular tourist attraction. The island's natural beauty and environment deserve to be protected, and the transport sector has a key role to play in this. So does Dipesa Group, a leading private transport company on the island of Ibiza, where it has provided services for more than 30 years.

Dipesa Group manages a fleet of 88 vehicles on Ibiza to transport visitors to all four corners of the island. While some customers opt for their popular, budget-friendly shared transfer service, others prefer a personalised travel experience in a chauffeured high-end vehicle, such as the two-tone Mercedes Maybach S 680 recently acquired by the Group. Airport transfers are the most popular service they offer, but Dipesa Group also handles the logistics for larger events and other activities like guided tours, island excursions, weddings, business trips and more.

But regardless of trip type, Dipesa Group is always committed to protecting the environment, and is the only occasional transport company on the island to use electric vehicles. They were pioneers in Spain when they introduced the first Tesla Model S, and they later added a Tesla Model X to their fleet of chauffeured rental vehicles. In 2023, they added other electric vehicles, including four Mercedes Benz EQV and one Mercedes Benz EQS.

In addition, almost all of their passenger cars are replaced every two years, which helps to reduce carbon emissions and keep the company's carbon footprint to a minimum. At the same time, Dipesa Group encourages its drivers to be as efficient as possible and invests in the latest technology in order to reduce its carbon footprint. In this vein, the company constantly monitors its fuel consumption to assess driving patterns and has implemented an incentive scheme to reward the best-achieving drivers each month.

In this ever-changing world, all industries have had to adjust how they do things, and the private transport sector is no exception. Yesterday's challenges of ensuring safety, privacy and efficiency have not gone away, but we now need to address them faster than ever before and make strategic decisions based on real data.

Challenges

Eco-driving

The main challenge for Dipesa lies in continuing to expand its fleet to ensure business success, while making sure it complies with its environmental policy during this period of growth. However, these two objectives do not necessarily go hand in hand. What Dipesa Group needed was a way to measure its environmental impact, how its drivers were operating and how much it could save were they to drive more efficiently. It became essential to set up a telematics system that could quantify and assess all these factors.

Confidence in drivers

Dipesa Group has great confidence in its drivers — it has a rigorous training programme aimed at making them the heart and soul of the company. In this respect, Dipesa Group, which has grown its workforce by recruiting more than 35 new employees in 2023, has adopted a new cross-cutting training and mentoring strategy: "We realised that senior workers, on top of all the time they've spent at the company and expertise they've acquired here, are part of our identity and key figures when it comes to motivating and training our junior workers", says Josep Costa, head of HR. So we've managed to create a "two-way" system that aims to "promote commitment among staff and continuous improvement as a collective objective".

A few years ago, it was difficult to track incidents on the road, review each employee's good driving practices, or simply provide drivers with additional safety and protection. The company was operating at a high cost, on both a financial and human level, since it was relying entirely on the confidence it had in and the responsibility it placed on each driver. On many occasions, this left the company in a vulnerable position.

Calculating fuel consumption

For all the reasons mentioned above, calculating fuel costs represented a challenge for the company. It was a laborious process that required a lot of administrative work to obtain an accurate estimate of the actual budget, given that the company was exposed to unforeseen events or last-minute transport requests. Producing accurate fuel consumption reports used to be a real burden, but it was also essential, particularly in the face of a sharp increase in fuel prices over the last few years.

Video evidence

Without a video camera on the dashboard, Dipesa Group struggled to collect the information needed to solve operational problems or handle insurance claims in the event of accidents. Everything had to be transcribed and recorded manually, with no irrefutable proof of what happened.

Solution: Geotab telematics and Surfsight™ AI-12 dashboard cameras

In May 2023, as part of Dipesa Group's commitment to innovation, the company integrated telematics technology in its fleet of vehicles with more than nine seats, using Surfsight™ AI-12 cameras. These cameras offer a video-telematic and integrated solution that helps Dipesa proactively manage its fleet using real-time data and images*. With the help of both internal and external images and alerts, Dipesa Group has successfully improved driver safety, enabling them to have full confidence in their work.

Surfsight™ AI-12 camera features:

Configurable: Camera settings, including camera sensitivity, real-time video quality and bulk data import management, can be adjusted on the MyGeotab platform.
Scalable: The solution can be expanded gradually, allowing it to be tailored to the fleet.
Regulatory compliance: Personalised rules in line with company policies. This ranges from monitoring behaviours such as speeding, slowing down, idling, sharp turns, seatbelt use to activities such as eating, drinking or smoking.
Safety improvement: Access to real-time videos of any part of the journey through MyGeotab, with images of the entire fleet in order to improve road safety.

Results

Greater safety and monitoring

Thanks to Geotab's telematics system and Surfsight AI-12 dashboard cameras, Dipesa Group now has a near-real-time log of drivers and their performance behind the wheel. Reports include incidents such as sudden braking and accelerations, signs of bad driving habits and notifications about route changes. At the same time, the company has seen a 10% decrease in traffic accidents.

As a result, drivers feel more confident using telematic data, and have responded positively to it as they feel safer and more supported by the company.

A committed team of drivers

Dipesa Group's main objective is to continue to measure and assess the fuel consumption of its drivers compared to the company's average consumption, and reward drivers for efficient and safe driving. In fact, following the installation of Geotab's telematics technology, Dipesa Group's team of drivers showed greater commitment to doing their job efficiently as they felt supported by the company.

Cost and carbon footprint reduction

Using Geotab telematics technology has produced tangible results for Dipesa Group. One of the most remarkable results seen was an immediate 20% decrease in fuel consumption, equivalent to an annual decrease of 50,000 litres per year. Such an improvement had a positive impact on both the company's finances and its carbon footprint. By reducing fuel consumption, Dipesa Group is helping to protect the environment by reducing harmful carbon emissions by up to 132 tonnes annually. This achievement also opens up new avenues for potential additional savings, which can be channelled to other areas of investment and development in the company.

Better and faster problem-solving

Thanks to AI, the video cameras installed on the dashboard have also made it possible for Dipesa Group to resolve insurance issues and service claims quickly and effectively.

The geolocation feature also allows the company to track all vehicles in near real-time and prevent accidents. In the event of an accident, the video recording feature allows Dipesa to have a greater oversight of what happened both inside and outside the vehicle. Therefore, this feature is useful for resolving customer complaints and to get a clearer and more accurate picture of incidents.

A competitive advantage for tour operators and group sales

Telematics also offers added value for tour operator group sales. Today, telematic data give Dipesa Group an advantage over its competitors as it has safety and protection measures in place.

In the short term, Dipesa Group is now looking to track the number of passengers on each tour operator service in real-time, to help with management and calculate fleet efficiency for every journey. This feature would lead tour operators to see added value in Dipesa Group's services while contributing to the safety of all passengers on every trip.

Fleet manager:

"If we want to provide a better service, we must invest in research processes and actions that enhance the well-being of our employees. Together, Geotab telematics and Surfsight™ AI-12 dashboard cameras, offer added value that supports the good work of all our staff driving passenger cars, minibuses and coaches", explains Emilio Diaz, Dipesa Group manager.

*Depending on network coverage.