Fleet Auto News’ Caroline Falls talks with Tim Roberts, founder of Perth-based consultancy Fleet Strategy and former President of the Australasian Fleet Management Association (AfMA). They talk about eco-driving among other things. In particular they discuss a project Tim worked on with the National Roads Safety Partnership Program (NRSPP), developing a tool box kit designed to help fleet managers lead a conversation with their drivers on the benefits of eco-driving.
Thank you to Sofico Services for sponsoring this podcast. To listen to this podcast, tap on the link here. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.
Caroline: Hello, Tim, and welcome.
Tim: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.
Caroline: I love the idea of this package you’ve helped put together with the NRSPP. Before we start talking about eco driving, can you tell us about the program’s toolbox kits? Because there’s a series of them isn’t there, and the eco-driving package is just one of them?
Tim: Yeah, that’s right. The toolbox talks have been building for a number of years and it’s one of the best fleet resources that we have available in the country. They’re well researched. They’re very professionally put together. There’s a series of posters and facilitation guides and PowerPoint shows and we’ve started to put some videos in now. It’s a terrific resource for fleet operators around the country. It’s a real credit to the National Road Safety Partnership Program.
Caroline: It sounds like a really valuable resource for fleet managers or trainers to use, to have all those prompts in the package, to have those conversations with their fleet drivers, and in this case how to conserve fuel consumption. How do you access the package? Do they need to belong to the NRSPP? Do they need to pay to use it? How do they access it?
Tim: It’s a free resource. NRSPP has been around for quite some time. And one of the strengths of the program is that it’s a collaborative program. So Jerome Carslake, the director of NRSPP, has put together a great network of fleet operators and suppliers and road safety people from around the country, and they all contribute freely of their time and their knowledge to put these together. What I’ve found in my consulting role is that one of the most powerful resources I’ve been able to provide my clients is directing them to these toolbox talks, and allowing them to to create their own knowledge, their own processes and procedures based on the resources that their peers have put together.
Caroline: Let’s get into the key learnings from the eco-driving project. I figure now that we’re paying $2 plus a litre for fuel, this topic may be of huge interest to fleets, who, let’s face it, are always keen to save money. What are the two biggest driving practices that can help economise on fuel usage?
Tim: I think the first one is the most fundamental and that is always to challenge the need to drive. It seems counterintuitive for a fleet manager perhaps to say that, but there are a number of different benefits by doing what we’re doing today, for instance, you know, talking over the internet, rather than getting out there on the road.
It’s not always possible to do that or practical, of course, but the first element is to challenge that need to drive. There’s an environmental benefit; you’re not using fuel, you’re not contributing to pollution in the environment, and so forth. And we might talk about things like microplastics shortly, but the other aspect of it, from a road safety point of view, is that you’re not exposing people to an environment that can be inherently dangerous — driving out there on the road. So that would be number one.
Number two, I guess, is just the nature and the method of driving. We talk about smooth driving and softening the braking, taking a little bit of speed away and things like that. For every few kilometres that we reduce our speed, not only do we reduce our fuel usage, which has impacts on the environment, but by reducing our speed a little bit, we can also reduce road safety risk as well.
Caroline: I was thinking, suffice to say this package is focused on conventional internal combustion vehicles, which account for probably 99 percent of most fleets today and will account for the majority into the near future. But, as you say, just even challenging the need to drive also has relevance to electric vehicles.
Tim: We’re definitely in a transition period. And look, I think it’s just wonderful to see that we are finally moving into a sustainable future, with different types of vehicles.
Of course, we’ve got issues with supply at the moment and getting the right vehicles in. But we’re starting to see people move into electric vehicles, and talking about hydrogen vehicles. And, by virtue of the fact that we’ve just been going through this pandemic, we realised that we can communicate effectively in many circumstances without being out there on the road.
So rather than seeing a lot of the negatives, at the moment, I’m seeing a lot of the positives. We’ve had this catalyst where things are starting to change, perhaps more rapidly than they would have done if we hadn’t had some of the challenges we had recently.
Caroline: So true. What are some of the other driving practices that can help conserve fuel consumption, and also as you’ve noted, carbon and toxic emissions, and micro plastics? Every litre of fuel not consumed means less emissions and this podcast series is all about promoting sustainability, and the circular economy. So what are some more of the eco-driving tips?
Tim: Journey management, route planning and things like that. One of the issues is shared travel, and trying to link up commuters or colleagues in the workplace that might be going from one place to another to optimise their travel. Plan those routes well to make sure that they are the most efficient and direct paths that are available.
You may be able to have a look at congestion on the roads and avoid congestion, avoid peak-hour travel. Sometimes being able to travel outside those hours is possibly just one of the common-sense factors that we can look at.
One of the tools that we have available to us to assist in this optimisation is telematics to look at where vehicles are operating, when they’re operating and how they’re operating. That assists in environmental, as well as from an effectiveness and affordability point of view, and a road safety point of view. When I talk to organisations about their fleets, I ask them to look at their fleets through four filters: I call it SEAS and that stands for Safe, Effective, Affordable and Sustainable.
Caroline: Fleet Auto News recently published an article saying fleets can save something like 15 percent on fuel consumption and costs by following eco-driving practices. Do you have any comment on that statistic?
Tim: I don’t know the research of that statistic specifically, but it’s very much in line with the findings of a number of different research areas. The eco-safe driving toolbox that came through the NRSPP and Monash University talks about poor driving behaviour increasing emissions and environmental pollution by up to 30 percent. Eco-safe driving practices can also have a correlation with the reduction in crashes and statistically this could be up to 50 percent.
Caroline: Well, I’m definitely sold on the idea but I’m just wondering if talking eco-driving to drivers gets any resistance or pushback, or do most people feel grateful to learn more about it?
Tim: I think most people are grateful. One of the elements with this eco-safe toolbox talk was linking it to microplastics in the environment, the wear on tyres. The less we’re driving the less wear we have on tyres, and the less wear and tear on those tyres, the less microplastics.
So drawing that connection has created a lot of comments from people going, “You know what, I never really drew that connection from the way I drive and what that’s actually doing in the environment in terms of putting these microplastics in, the leaching into the oceans and getting into the ocean food chain.” I think it’s a very positive thing, and the feedback has been very positive.
Caroline: I’m glad you raised that. I was reading somewhere the other day that something like 10 percent of microplastics in the ocean are from tyres. I’m also happy to hear that driving just a little bit slower on the highway is a good thing to do because unless pushed by faster drivers I’m happiest driving below the speed limit. So that can be my excuse for driving slow now, environmental consciousness. Anyway, I’m curious about what else you’re doing these days. What other fleet-related work are you going to be involved in?
Tim: I’ve officially retired. I think the best way to describe it is, I’ve started to focus on areas that I’ve always had an interest in, but that working full time hadn’t had the opportunity to sort of delve into too much. And one of those is in this creative space. I’ll be working on a number of different toolbox talks for NRSPP.
What I’m particularly excited about at the moment is in the heavy vehicle sector. There is somewhat of a lack of this structured sort of resource in that industry. In May, we’ve got the first of a series of heavy vehicle toolbox talks coming out. We’re working with the national heavy vehicle regulator (NHVR), and again, the NRSPP to produce these factsheets, posters, PowerPoints, and again, a series of videos.
There are going to be 21 of these released over the next 18 months or so. We’re getting drivers to talk about their experiences on the road, the issues that they face, and how they deal with those issues. And it’s everything from the basics of load restraint and pre-starts, through to well-being and diet and fatigue and distraction. It’s absolutely incredible to listen to the industry and the drivers talk about it from their perspective. That’s the type of work I’m looking forward to doing over the next few years at least.
Caroline: That’s all sounds like a lot of fun for you and will be very helpful for the industry. Now you’ve been involved with the fleet world for a long time. Do you have any reflections on how it’s developed over the decade, and also on the period that we’re in now transitioning to greener fleets?
Tim: Yeah. It’s an amazing profession. You know, fleet is with us, as a society as a community 24 hours a day, seven days a week and without the wheels of fleet turning, everything grinds to a halt.
I can recall in the early 90s, that we were still trying to sort of work out what the place of fleet management was going to be in the industry to some degree. And I recall the first days getting into it, we didn’t even have a computer system. We had to build a computer system to start dealing with some of our clients. So there’s a lot in terms of technology and depth of professionalism that has evolved over the last 30 or so years, and it’s been wonderful to see and it’s been wonderful to be a part of.
If we talk about our theme of today, a little bit about the environment and greener motoring, I can recall in 2001-2002, one of the very first things that I did in the presidency for AfMA was to introduce the greener motoring program and that was to encourage organisations to reduce their fuel consumption.
I think the baseline figure was something like 10 percent and we had 16 organisations from memory that actually qualified by putting in programs. The only real programs we could put in place at the time were to look at fuel reduction, and to some degree that was reductions in fleet size, so they were quite coarse.
People were starting to think about the environment in fleets going back 20 odd years, and now technology has evolved. We’ve seen a couple of starts and stops in the EV space for instance over the last decade or so. To see what’s happening at the moment is really encouraging.
If I look at everything that’s happening with EVs coming on board, with the infrastructure that’s starting to go in, with people starting to talk about hydrogen in some spaces, it’s really wonderful to see that. The number of different organisations and people coming into the industry now is great, and for me, it’s the perfect time to step aside and let people who have that incredible passion get in there and make those changes to fleet. I think it’s very positive going forward, even though we do face a few challenges.
Caroline: I love that. Tim, I just want to say thank you very much for your time today. It was so interesting to talk with you. And I hope our listeners learned something they can put into practice every time they drive.
Tim: I hope so too. Thank you very much Caroline.
