With an extensive background in the management of operational customer facing support teams in the transport sector, Glyn’s experience will better position Airmax for handling the ongoing increase in its SME fleet business.

Glyn attributes his past success in the challenging operations arena to effective staff motivation, engagement and leadership at all levels while ensuring that his primary remit of driving operational improvement and maintaining tight operational costs are met.

With an MBA from Coventry University, Glyn possesses the optimum blend of management skills, strategic analysis and vision to ensure noticeable improvements for Airmax’s customers in the coming weeks and months.

The release of total UK road speed data coverage by fleet management and telematics company, Airmax, is the latest element in its fleet management Duty of Care programme.

Developed over the last year in response to an increasingly stringent requirement to know if vehicles are exceeding the speed limit on specific stretches of road, this release is seen by the vehicle fleet sector as providing the crucial data which allows fleet managers to view driver behaviour against road speed limits in the context of the increasingly wide ranging and often confusing speed limits imposed by bodies as diverse as the Highways Agency through to local councils.

The value of this latest Duty of Care offering was summed up by Airmax General Manager Richard Perham who stated – ‘There is little point in a fleet manager assuming that as a driver is travelling at 30 mph, they are legally compliant within an urban speed limit when in actual fact that specific stretch of road has a 20 mph limit as passes a school and a number of public offices. The situation within the UK is increasingly confused as local authorities reduce speed limits below what used to be accepted as the lowest legal limit of 30 mph’.

Integrated road speed data matches GPS based vehicle speed in real time against an up to date total UK road network speed limit database and will ‘flag up’ immediately an infringement occurs, allowing those with an obligation under Duty of Care legislation to take appropriate action.

Significant amongst the vehicle fleets now using this latest extension to Airmax’s Duty of Care is the Royal British Legion’s ‘Poppy Calls’ fleet. The Poppy Calls home maintenance fleet enables those who, for a number of reasons, are eligible to remain safely in their own homes and to improve their quality of life by undertaking small repair and maintenance jobs around the house.

Within this latest release by Airmax is also a completely new ‘Geozone’ facility which enables a wide range of fleet management options. These are as diverse as the ability to closely monitor vehicle/ driver arrival and departure at customer sites for operational and customer contractual commitment, through to monitoring employee departure and arrival from and to their home address for working hours adherence. This facility is now operational with a number of vehicle fleets including 2012 M&S Supplier of the Year, environmental services company, Helistrat.

More widely recognised previously as a major ‘white label’ supplier to blue chip banking, leasing and Europe wide asset management the company has built up a reputation for supplying bespoke, real time Fleet Management applications based on the non invasive use of an innovative combination of GPS, GPRS and vehicle CAN / ECU data within the Car, LCV and, increasingly, HGV sectors.

The new site offers both existing customers and ‘visitors’ more intuitive navigation and information routes to finding the exact information they need in ‘three clicks’ or less – deemed to be an essential feature that emerged during the initial design consultation phase.

In terms of new functionality the site will provide the first level of support for customers on both technical and management levels and, crucially for the first time, a secure online sales ordering process which will enable existing and new customers to either directly place orders or obtain pricing for potential vehicle installations. Additionally the new site recognises the increasing importance of social media within companies and has implemented links to twitter and facebook as well as expanding and rationalising our ‘blog page’.

Airmax is offering a new level of product and service innovation that is taking risk management to a new level for the insurance and claims industry. Auto insurance products that leverage telematics devices can result in better risk assessment, underwriting, driver behaviour, customer retention, service, lower claims ratio, while also providing stronger marketing and brand proposition.

Risk management and fleet safety

Effective risk management not only protects your company from expense incurred through physical damage to your assets. It also mitigates against civil litigation and criminal charges should anything still go wrong.Airmax assists fleet operators to ensure legal compliance and manage a reduction in their corporate liability. A range of techniques are led by sound, research-based knowledge of wider issues, as well as practical experience of implementing solutions. We help determine the most appropriate fleet profile for individual businesses, advise on procurement options and maintenance arrangements, and help monitor efficiency levels by advising on data management and by providing analyses.Business continuity and Corporate Social Responsibility are growing issues. Indeed, the ability to operate under any circumstances can be essential to company survival. Airmax and it partners understands the importance of these issues and advises on effective, viable business continuity plans, including business impact analysis, crisis management and compliance.

 CANbus data + GPS + 3 axis accelerometer + gyro

The data from telematics can be used to provide new levels of customer value and service. For claims, telematics can create new service levels while managing the time and cost of claims. For most in the auto industry telematics data is primarily associated with security, logistics, fleet management and latterly ‘Pay as you Drive’ (PAYD) and PHYD insurance, but for those who are innovating they are using this data beyond this area to redefine risk management within their organisations.

Using telematics crash data can provide an early determination of liability, enable risk mitigation, and reduce the cost of claims, while providing drivers a new level of service and care. This new level of service provides transparent information to drivers that can enlighten them on their driving style, motivating them to drive better, avert risk, and encourage environmentally supportive behaviour. All together, risk mitigation, claims cost reduction, enhanced customer value and forensics are redefined using telematics, resulting in innovation of risk management.

For claims adjusters, crash data can identify bodily injury and physical damage fraud, negligence, and speed up the adjusting process.

Crash alert and First Notification of Loss (FNOL)

If your vehicle is involved in an incident, whether minor or serious, an alert from a vehicle telematics unit is sent via GSM using GPRS. This can be sent to the fleet manager or to a prearranged 24/7 control room informing them of your location. Should you be involved in a serious accident, sensors from the in-vehicle unit will detect the impact and send an event alert with the exact position of your vehicle. From there, action will be taken by the response team.  Your medical details, as provided by you, will assist the response teams in being able to give the best medical assistance.

The data will include the:

Incident Specific Details

• Date, time and location of the accident
• Force of impact on the vehicle; analysis of lateral, longitudinal accelerations and yaw to describe collision motion and hence provide an indication of the relative motion of the other vehicle
• Direction of travel at the time of impact
• Speed of the vehicle within 1 minute of an incident occurring.
• Graphic imagery of vehicle indicating where impact has occurred

• If the vehicle struck or was struck by another object
• Force of Impact (shown in G’s)
• Airbags deployed y/n
• Map of the area where the incident occurred including an x marking the actual location of the incident.

 Generic Information

• Contact details:
• Customer name / name of fleet / name of driver
• Registered user of vehicle, VIN, keeper
• Registered user’s contact telephone number (mobile)
• Vehicle fleet manager name
• Vehicle fleet manager contact telephone number
• Vehicle details:
• Vehicle classification (car, van, HGV etc.)
• Vehicle registration number
• Vehicle make and model
• Vehicle colour
• Insurance details
• Name of Insurer, policy type, policy number

 The handler can detail:

• If contact has been made with the driver and the outcome of the contact
• If emergency services are required and if they have been deployed
• If the vehicle is driveable or if it needs to be recovered
• If a courtesy vehicle is needed

 The introduction of EDRs

Some new vehicles are fitted with an event data recorder or EDR. In modern diesel trucks, EDRs are triggered by electronically sensed problems in the engine (often called faults), or a sudden change in wheel speed. One or more of these conditions may occur because of an accident. Information from these devices can be collected after a crash and analysed to help determine what the vehicles were doing before, during and after the crash or event.

Some EDRs continuously record data, overwriting the previous few minutes until a crash stops them, and others are activated by crash-like events (such as sudden changes in velocity) and may continue to record until the accident is over, or until the recording time is expired. EDRs may record a wide range of data elements, potentially including whether the brakes were applied, the speed at the time of impact, the steering angle, and whether seat belt circuits were shown as “Buckled” or “Unbuckled” at the time of the crash. Current EDRs store the information internally on an EEPROM until recovered from the module. Some vehicles have communications systems (such as the Airmax system) that may transmit some data, such as an alert that the airbags have been deployed, to a managed service centre.

Airmax operates generally within theUKandIrelandand has limited direct experience of works councils other than supporting its partners in mainlandEuropeon formal bid and rollout processes. HoweverUKtrade unions often become keenly interested in matters that might affect their members and on several occasions we have had to be involved in the politics of the telematics bid and so we have local experiences of this.

 Definition and basic systems

There seems to be a widespread view that the existence of statutory works councils or similar workplace employee representative and participative structures, is a distinctive, important and perhaps even defining feature of industrial relations in the EU15. As with most generalisations in the field of comparative industrial relations, this perception, while containing a considerable element of truth, covers a wide range of situations and does not apply in all cases. So Airmax is aware that dealing with a Pan European Company will need different procedures as local issues prevail.

 The national discipline on employee information and consultation systems shows a heterogeneous scenario. The definition of the works council itself differs significantly from country to country in terms of composition, decision-making, election procedures, thresholds, roles and power of the employee representative bodies.

 While in continental Europe works councils represent a traditional and fundamental institution of employee cooperation, in countries suchIreland,U.K.,SwedenandFinland, such bodies are not established by labour law or collective agreements.

 The directive 2002/14/EC, Art. 2(f) defines information as the ‘transmission by the employer to the employees’ representatives of data to enable them to acquaint themselves with the subject matter and to examine it’.

The key subject areas where works councils and employee representatives have information rights are the following: 

• Financial and business matters (i.e. yearly balance sheet, mergers, takeovers);
• Regular information sessions on the progress of the company, including employment issues and developments within the sector;
• Employment levels and conditions;
• Information about disciplinary measures, absence from work, health and safety and workplace environmental studies;
• Structural change that may be of material significance for the working environment (such as rationalisation schemes, work processes and work-time arrangements);
• The latest regulations also refer to privacy rights, such as computerised collection and processing of personal data on employees (Austria).

 In almost all cases listed above, works councils and other representatives are entitled to receive regular information from management – the intervals vary between countries – as well as information on important matters arising in some cases.

 Similarly, regular information on the situation and structure of employment in the company is also a virtually universal right in countries with statutory or centrally agreed employee involvement systems. In terms of employment conditions, specific rights to information are often provided on matters such as recruitment, promotion, pay policy, health and safety, working time, equality, training and financial participation.

 Some countries use a catch-all requirement to inform on all matters likely to seriously affect employees’ interests.

 By its nature, information on structural change in the business is less likely to be provided on a regular basis, being more dependent on events. In almost all cases, information is required on matters such as closures, transfer of production, relocation, mergers, takeovers and the introduction of new technologies – especially where these are likely to lead to collective redundancies. Telematics by its name often initiates a new way of working and reporting and it can be disconcerting. Change is frightening. Open reporting, transparency and agreed supervisory control assists in allaying fears. Once the employee can witness first hand the benefits such as real-time job dispatch, expenses, overtime, personal security and so on the balance often tips in favour of system implementation.

 It is important to mention two particular cases: the UKand Ireland. They generally lack permanent or statutory information and consultation rules. However, voluntary works council-type structures do exist in these countries, especially the UK. Here, approaching 30% of establishments with 25 or more employees have (voluntary or agreed) workplace joint consultative committees (JCCs), with their presence closely linked to workplace size. Including committees at a level higher than the workplace (i.e. organisation-wide bodies), 43% of private sector workplaces are covered by a committee at one or both levels.

 Airmax has been involved with 3 cases where JCC’s have requested assurances that the personal data is secure. As a result Airmax has developed an in-vehicle privacy switch designed at 2 levels. 

1. On/off button to deactivate GPS location but retaining mileage.
2. Web based and rules based data filters to deactivate GPS by time or by manual input. 

Employee and works council engagement

Airmax Remote works with employers and Unions to educate all parties into the benefits of Telematics. We also listening and initiate employee satisfaction surveys and evaluation studies. Over the years their outcomes, being direct employees feedback, put issues of privacy as the main worry and lack if understanding as the second. This all wraps into the Big Brother comment but fades away on explanation, indeed the workforce will often become enthusiastic as the benefits are clear for them to see. People Survey is the main pillar of our listening initiatives. The last 8 years and over 700 fleets signed up to our or branded services has never had an issues that hasn’t been overcome.

The UniCredit European Works Council (UEWC) is a governance body providing for the information and consultation of Employees in Community-scale and Community-scale groups of undertakings as required by the European Works Council Directive (94/45/EC) and lately by the revised 2009/38/EC recast directive.

There are at least 25 separate pieces of legislation which impact on the safe management and driving of employees while at work.

The legislation ranges from road traffic laws such as the Road Traffic and Road Safety Acts and the Road Vehicle (Construction and Use Regulations) to the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations and more recently the Working Time Directive, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act and the Health and Safety (Offences) Act.

Apart from the police, which typically will investigate road crashes, prosecutions for breaches of laws and regulations could also be bought by the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency and the Health and Safety Executive, which will usually confine enforcement action to incidents where the police or VOSA have identified that serious management failures have been a significant contributory factor in the incident.

In theUKthere are an estimated up to 200 road deaths and serious injuries a week resulting from crashes involving at work drivers, and more employees are killed and seriously injured onBritain’s roads while driving on behalf of their employer than in any other work-related activity.

In addition to legal compliance, however, businesses have a moral duty to ensure the health and safety of all employees while at work, while the financial argument too highlights that investment in road safety delivers multiple wins.

Additionally, media coverage resulting from a work-related road crash could prove disastrous for an organisation and its future trading with brand value damaged.

Finally, depending on the seriousness of the offence and the law(s) under which employees, managers, directors and the company could face prosecution punishments could range from fines and penalty points for drivers for breaches of road traffic law to fines running into thousands of pounds and jail terms for managers and directors and multi-million pound fines for businesses.  

The issue

In the event of a serious or fatal road traffic accident involving a company employee driving on business, police investigations will focus on numerous issues including demands placed on the employee by management, vehicle maintenance levels, reasons for the journey and they will also look to identify ‘serious management failures’ that may have contributed to the incident.

Investigations will essentially focus on the driver, the vehicle and the journey. According to David Faithful, solicitor and legal adviser to RoadSafe, a leading forum for promoting and devising solutions to road safety problems: “Those investigating a road crash will aim to identify who is responsible for managing occupational road risk. Where no evidence of an organisation planning, delivering, monitoring and reviewing road safety can be found charges could result.

“Businesses must be able to demonstrate how they manage road risk and that someone is responsible for managing that risk. But bosses cannot simply delegate the management of that risk and expect no comeback if things go wrong. Fleet managers must be given the support, the tools and the authority to be able to manage the risk effectively”. Agreement with unions and works committees is a full part of setting down procedures.

Additionally, the law does not differentiate between an employees driving a company provided car or van on business of their own. Therefore, occupational road risk management policies and procedures should cover both fleet vehicles and privately-owned vehicles driven on business trips – the so-called ‘grey’ fleet.

The Health and Safety Executive’s ‘Driving at Work: Managing work-related road safety’ document is established as the benchmark for occupational road risk management best practice guidance and asks: “Do you have adequate systems to allow you to manage work-related road safety effectively? You need to consider what steps you should take to ensure that your employees use the road as safely as possible”.

The document adds: “Do you monitor performance to ensure that your work-related road safety policy is effective? Do you collect sufficient information to allow you to make informed decisions about the effectiveness of existing policy and the need for changes?”

How Airmax Remote™ can help

Airmax Remote provides an auditable management of occupational road risk thus helping to reduce the risk of prosecution.

Whilst standard reporting is limited exclusively for driver-access only, as part of an organisation’s occupational road risk strategy, through a ‘Fleet Manager view’, authorised fleet managers and HR department staff, can access a wide range of management reports to see how vehicles are being driven.

With information available on drivers’ hours, journey times, mileage patterns, speed, braking and acceleration details, the available data gives access to unique duty of care indicators (DCI’s) thus enabling fleets to manage their key health and safety issues more effectively.

Fleet managers can then use the information to introduce a range of solutions to reduce occupational road risk exposure and, simultaneously, improve the safety of their employees such as driver training, encouraging staff to take a break from driving every two hours and realigning work schedules to reduce a culture of long hours that may have built up over the years.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that when drivers know that they are being monitored their performance behind the wheel improves automatically.

Meanwhile, the telematics system enables businesses to prove that they are managing road risk as demanded by the law.

Airmax Remote delivers

• Improved legislative compliance
• Improved risk management
• Reduced risk of prosecution
• Reduced risk of accidents
• Improved ownership of corporate social responsibility issues

Manage your risk

By benchmarking fleets can compare themselves and see how they might be able to improve their risk management

Whilst cost control remains critical, tightening health and safety legislation requires today’s fleets to demonstrate that they not only have an occupational road risk policy but that they pro-actively monitor the performance of work related road safety at regular and frequent intervals. Airmax Remote provides auditable management records of all business journey data, thereby reducing the very real risk of prosecution and safeguarding against potential driver fatigue.

By opting for the Fleet Manager view, with driver consent, fleet managers have a complete overview of their fleet and the driving habits of their employees, with dashboard reporting to highlight areas of potential risk and the necessary interventions to manage this risk. The dangers couldn’t be clearer for businesses. If found guilty of breaching Health & Safety legislation, the penalty for corporate manslaughter is an unlimited fine with individual prosecutions potentially resulting in imprisonment and personal fines.

Airmax Remote Privacy

Airmax Remote & Privacy

The standard data held on Airmax’s hosted service consists of mileage and journey logs transmitted by the telematics unit in the car. This information is anonymous and in itself does not constitute personal data. Upon registration by the driver the service will hold personal data submitted by the driver, such as the driver’s name, address and contact details.

Additional vehicle data such as speed, acceleration and braking is only available where the driver’s employer has opted for an upgrade to the Airmax Remote service as part of their commitment to complying with health and safety legislation. Should your employer opt for an upgrade with these additional services you would be notified in advance but such data would still only be available where a driver’s consent had been granted.

Access to data held on Airmax’s hosted service is initially restricted to the driver only and access to this data is controlled by the driver of the vehicle exclusively. Therefore, if the driver does not grant access to anyone, the information cannot be viewed by anyone else. Likewise, if the driver does not activate / register his or her account, no-one has access to the journey data and Airmax can use the data for any purpose. Newer recruits may find that the T and C’s of their employment are more stringent.

 The driver’s contact details will not be used for any other purpose. The driver can log on to the system at any time to check or amend his or her personal details.

Airmax Remote has no facility to allow employers to have access to drivers’ records and journeys without the consent of the driver. If the employer requires a view of drivers’ records and journeys they must seek each driver’s consent which can be provided via the Airmax Remote web interface.

This information would assist employers in meeting their health and safety obligations e.g. ensuring that their company vehicles are road-worthy and that drivers are not driving for excessive periods of time without a break.

Employer Obligations

Under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 employers need to “ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees”.

This is achieved through “the provision and maintenance of plant and systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health” and “the provision and maintenance of a working environment for employees that is, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe, without risks to health, and adequate as regards facilities and arrangements for their welfare at work”.

To comply with the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations1992 avehicle used for work purposes – whether it is a supplied by the company or is owned by an employee and used for regular or occasional work journeys – constitutes a ‘workplace’ while used for work purposes and must provide the driver with a safe place of work.

To the extent that the journey data recorded by the Airmax Remote device constitutes a driver’s personal data, it is subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998. This data is only available to the driver using a username and password, and is not available to the driver’s employer, unless the driver authorises the disclosure of this information. Where a driver’s terms and conditions of employment are such that vehicles are provided for business use only consent may not be required from you the driver as part of those terms and journey data may be provided directly to your employer.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states that “health and safety law applies to on-the-road work activities as to all work activities, and the risk should be effectively managed within a health and safety management system” and recommends that employers need to comply with duty of care by implementing policies with procedures to ensure occupational drivers are not exposed to unnecessary risk e.g. through a documented occupational driving policy with evidence that it is being performed.

The Department for Transport also commissioned a report into occupational driving and recommended that “companies and stakeholders should consider aspects of safety culture when addressing work-related road safety issues, in particular, training, procedures, planning, incident management/feedback, management/supervision and safety communications”.

Enforcement action can be taken against employers who fail to comply with their duty of care, or who fail to monitor driver behaviour. In serious cases, corporate manslaughter cannot be excluded, particularly as new laws on corporate manslaughter will improve prosecution success rates.

In order to achieve compliance, it is necessary for employers to demonstrate not only that they have implemented a policy, but also that they monitor the performance of work related road safety at regular and frequent intervals e.g. recording whether drivers are driving for more than 2.5 hours without a break, driving more than 6 hours in any day, driving at times where fatigue-related accidents are more common or driving more than3000 milesper month, etc.

If an employer fails to implement a system of monitoring and acting in respect of “at risk” drivers, they are likely to suffer enforcement action by the Health and Safety Executive where police identify serious management failures have been a significant contributory factor following a road traffic accident” (extract taken from HSE Guidance on Work Related Safety). 

Driver Consent & Data Protection

Airmax Remote uses the personal data of the driver such as name, email address; etc Airmax Remote transmits GPS data to record the car’s mileage and journey logs. This in and of itself is not “personal data”, but when put together with the driver’s registration details it will amount to personal data and be subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Where an employer wishes to have access to the journey data of their employees, driver consent is required. The employer must inform the driver of the uses which will be made of the data and by whom e.g. to help it comply with its health and safety obligations, monitoring of business journeys, adherence to road traffic law speed limits, etc. If ProFleet2 data was to be made available in a disciplinary investigation this would have to be made known to the driver at the point of obtaining consent.

However, irrespective of whether a driver has provided his/her consent, Airmax Remote data may be disclosed:

• to the police or other body as required by law;
• to VOSA along with ALL vehicle data in respect of road traffic accidents in which a fatality occurs;
• in connection with any legal proceedings (including prospective legal proceedings);
• for the purpose of obtaining legal advice; or
• as otherwise necessary for establishing, exercising or defending legal rights.

The employer will commit an offence under data protection legislation if information is not used and stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. The extent of the penalty depends on the breach. Summary offences attract fines up to ££5,000 per offence. Indictable offences attract unlimited fines. The destruction of data can also be ordered. Directors may be liable and “punished accordingly” for their consent, connivance or neglect in breaching the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.

*Please note -The consent of the driver may not be required where vehicles are provided under the employees terms and conditions where a vehicle is provided for business use only.

Disclosure of your information

We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

• In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
• If Airmax Remote or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
• If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use or terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Airmax Remote, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Drivers rights

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks and affiliates.  If drivers follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Drivers should check these policies before submitting any personal data to these websites.

Access to information

The Act gives the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

The Royal British legion, one of the UK’s leading and most widely recognised charities, is set to install the Airmax Telematics and Remote Vehicle Diagnostics system within its Poppy Calls service van fleet.

The system will be installed in the all new Ford Transit Poppy Calls Fleet which covers most of the UK and is dedicated to providing a facility for minor household repairs and installations to its beneficiaries in need.

The Airmax system, also recently adopted by a number of UK police forces and environmental service companies will deliver operational, duty of care, fuel consumption and vehicle fault data. High on the Royal British Legions list of real time data requirements is management information which allows it to maintain and where possible improve its customer facing levels of service by gaining detailed information related to, amongst others,  time on customer site, journey mileage and time taken, detailed route planning and scheduling information. The system also enables a major enhancement of information obligated under Duty of Care legislation in that the system automatically flags up unsafe driving practise in respect of high speeds, acceleration & braking, overreving, driving without a break. A significant factor in the decision to adopt the Airmax system was in its ability to report accurate fuel consumption, refuel events and, on an environmental level, CO2 emissions.

A spokesman for the Royal British Legion explained: Our prime motivator has always been to improve the levels of service that we can deliver to our beneficiaries in need. The detailed operational data that the Airmax system delivers substantially enhances our ability to do this whilst at the same time enabling a greater level of awareness under the duty of care legislation in respect of our employees. The fact that we can now monitor driving style will allow us to detect unsafe driving practise and offer additional driver training where needed.

The Airmax General Manager, Richard Perham ‘Quotes we are delighted to be working with, what must be one of the most high profile organisations in the Country and to be able to assist in their service level improvement programme’.

Airmax remains relatively little known in the direct business to business sales arena but has established an industry leading reputation for its technology in the vehicle leasing, asset management and UK police sectors. It was also recently appointed as a direct supplier to Vauxhall Special Vehicles within its ‘Blue Light’ Division.

The release of real time fuel monitoring reporting by telematics provider Airmax promises to radically change the operational and management efficiencies of vehicle fleets in the UK and across Europe. As part of the company’s latest telematics release, the fuel report module delivers data on actual MPG refuel events detailing the amount of fuel/ the refuel location and the date and time of refueling. Additionally the system brings a higher level of detailed fleet management with a red, amber, green rating against individual drivers together ‘driver leagues’ to identify drivers whose driving style delivers MPG results above predicted fuel usage and those whose fuel consumption is deemed to be higher than predicted and who can benefit from additional driver training.

Initially aimed at the massive LCV service fleet sector where the ‘reactive on call’ scenario has made effective fuel monitoring difficult, the Airmax system now delivers fuel consumption data against customer configurable parameters such as usage per journey, per day, per week or whatever a fleet manager deems to deliver most management value. The system also identifies the likely reasons for higher fuel consumption by incorporating driver style monitoring and profiling to identify events such as over revving, rapid acceleration, harsh braking and excessive idling.

Prominent amongst the service fleets adopting this latest telematics release is ‘Take The Weekend Off ’best known under its trading and contact name of ‘Shine’ a leading nationwide supplier of minor repair and valeting services both in its own right and as a contractor to several of the UK’s major ‘high street’ vehicle DIY and spares outlets.

Airmax, best known as the developer and supplier of the ALD Automotive ProFleet2 system and for the recent award of the West Yorkshire Police Data Monitoring contract, has included fuel monitoring as a standard module within its current telematics package,

One of the UK’s biggest police forces has reinforced its position at the forefront of advanced telematics use within the UK police sector with an order to equip an additional 500 of its vehicles with the Airmax system.

This latest order will take the West Yorkshire force to around 600 telematics equipped vehicles.

The system developed in partnership with telematics and remote vehicle diagnostics supplier Airmax has been designed from the outset to provide an advanced ‘police specification’ system providing data across the operational, driver training and vehicle diagnostics areas, as well as conforming to the emerging UK wide ACPO and Home Office ‘OneBox/DVDMS standard, which is currently being trialled across a number of UK police forces and on which Airmax is partnered with both West Yorkshire and Hertfordshire.

Among the key features of the system, in addition to real time GPS, are vehicle status related to blues and twos, fuel usage, driver profiling, and KPI’s on speed/over revving/idling/harsh acceleration and braking.

The system also automatically logs each vehicle journey to an individual driver via a discreet RFID proximity reader based on the West Yorkshire force’s RFID enabled warrant cards. This latter feature also incorporates an ignition inhibit facility which requires driver ID in order to complete the ignition cycle.

The supplier, Airmax, based in Dorset and Coventry is an established supplier within the vehicle telematics arena with some 30,000 equipped vehicles predominantly in the UK but also in France, Holland and the US.

Although relatively little known under its own brand name, the company is the developer and supplier of ALD Automotive’s ProFleet 2 system.

Airmax has also recently equipped part of the Vauxhall police demonstrator fleet with its system to provide enhanced integration and functionality with their ES (emergency services) CAN vehicles.

Extract:

Hydrogen is considered to be an ideal energy carrier for low-carbon vehicles in the near future. It can be produced from water by using a variety of energy sources, such as solar, wind and nuclear, and it can be converted into useful energy efficiently and without detrimental environmental effects. The only by-product is water or water vapour in fuel cell vehicles, but small amounts of NOx are produced in combustion systems. Hydrogen can be used in any application in which fossil fuels are being used today, especially cars, buses and trucks. This paper considers how hydrogen can be combined with two other technologies; online vehicle monitoring and computer maps to give significant reduction in carbon emissions from combustion engines, especially on trucks.

To read more, please download our PDF

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to offload its car and van leasing business Lombard Vehicle Management (LVM) to ALD Automotive in a five-year deal.

The business will still operate as LVM under a white label deal being managed by ALD Automotive, which is owned by Societe Generale

Managing director of ALD Automotive Keith Allen said: “We’re delighted that RBS and Lombard have chosen ALD to provide contract hire and fleet management solutions for Lombard.

“The new proposition will have access to all the vehicle leasing business generated through RBS banking and Lombard relationships, reinforcing the success of the multi-sales channel strategy we have adopted to grow our business and driving the business further forward to become a top three player within the UK leasing industry.”

The new arrangement will be officially launched in June/July this year.

Fleet News reported more than a year ago that RBS, which is 84%-owned by UK taxpayers, was willing to listen to offers for the company as part of a programme to sell non-core assets.

But, with GE Capital understood to be close to acquiring the business, Sky News reported that RBS had pulled the plug on talks after failing to agree on the price and structure of a deal.

Lombard Vehicle Management had a risk fleet of 70,621 vehicles and a number five ranking in last year’s FN50, while ALD Automotive had a number six ranking with 63,561 vehicles.

A joint operation would give a combined risk fleet of more than 130,000 vehicles and would effectively put it in the number two spot, behind Lex Autolease but above LeasePlan, based on 2011 figures.