Driver Scorecard: Complete Performance with Both Telematics and Dash Cams

There’s no questioning the value of a good telematics program for managing your fleet. But if you’re not using a driver scorecard solution that integrates both your telematics and your dash cameras for complete driver performance, you’re leaving a lot of that value on the table.

The typical telematics system is made up of multiple pieces that all work together to provide in-depth data on the performance of a fleet. Most companies are dealing with data from GPS devices, ELD devices, and video cameras that are plugged into their trucks. These devices produce an impressive breadth and depth of data.

That deluge of data is both a solution and a problem. It contains everything a manager would need to know about their drivers and vehicles. But it doesn’t present this information in a way that’s useful to a human being. That’s why the typical manager often experiences information overload.

Most managers already have Geotab. They have dash cams that integrate with Geotab. They can log onto their Geotab portal to find all the data points they need to make smarter decisions about managing their drivers and vehicles.

The problem is managers don’t have a driver performance scorecard which includes dash cam events, idle, driver MPG, ELD violations, and miles driven all in one place. They can see that John was driving too fast on Tuesday at 3:17 PM. They can see David had 4 ELD violations last week. They can see Ralph had a large amount of idle and Matt had 2 distracted driving events with 1 near collision. But they only see these data points in isolation. They don’t have a complete driver performance scorecard that includes telematics and dash camera events together.

That’s why we refer to the current state of telematics as information overload. And that’s why we believe managers everywhere need a complete driver scorecard to help them make sense of all this data.

What is a driver scorecard?

If you’re already working with a telematics provider that offers a driver scorecard solution, you know that a driver scorecard takes telematics one step further by bringing telematics data from multiple systems together in one place. This way, people from different disciplines across your business can get the insights they need to make better decisions. Generally, the data in a driver scorecard should be:

1. Accurate. Many managers have trouble trusting telematics data because it doesn’t always correlate with their perception of reality. If they see inconsistencies or errors, they’ll tune out the best insights. So a good driver scorecard system will cleanse the data and make sure it’s formatted appropriately for the audience.
2. In context. Seeing data points in isolation won’t help managers do much more than jump to conclusions. A good driver scorecard system will present the data in a way that any stakeholder can click through it to find root causes or navigate to related reports.
3. Intelligent. The driver scorecard should frame up the data in ways that help managers make day-to-day decisions. It should make it easy to make comparisons, find correlations, and draw conclusions—while tying everything back to the bottom line.
4. An indicator of performance. Using the driver scorecard, stakeholders should easily be able to determine whether their business is getting better or worse.

How does a good driver scorecard system work?

To give you the most comprehensive and relevant view of how your business is really performing, a good driver scorecard system will let managers analyze three years’ worth of historical information, including:

• Miles per gallon
• Total miles driven
• Safety (speeding, distracted driving, driver fatigue, seat belt use)
• Critical engine events
• Hours of service (HOS) compliance
• Electronic driver vehicle inspection reports (eDVIRs)
• Vehicle performance

This is a combination of both telematics and dash camera events – not just one or the other. Based on this analysis, the driver scorecard will display bar charts, trend lines, and other graphics to help stakeholders understand how all the data works together. The system will make it easy to perform further analysis, normalize the data for apples-to-apples comparisons across regions and business units, and identify areas for immediate improvement.

The key difference between a typical driver scorecard and an integrated solution is that an integrated solution will also bring together camera events with telematics data in ways that will make sense for the stakeholder. The cameras in your vehicles can tell you when your drivers are smoking, eating, texting, or falling asleep. They can also track road conditions. You can now see the data behind these video clips in the context of your drivers’ overall performance.

You can also use the driver scorecard to combine camera events with your MPG and idling data so you can identify the root causes of waste. Or, you can see camera events related to your HOS violations and get insights into how to prevent costly fines.

With all your safety events in a single scorecard, your managers can quickly identify the highest priority areas to address and make decisions that protect your bottom line—and your people. Rather than spending long, frustrating hours jumping back and forth between systems, they’ll get the perspective they need on one screen.

Navigating a driver scorecard system

Suppose you’re a fleet manager, operations manager, or safety manager who’s deeply involved in the telematics side of your business. You’re very interested in supporting regulatory compliance, tracking critical engine events, and maximizing productivity and asset usage. You’ve invested heavily in cameras for fleet safety. Now you want to assess the return on your investment in each of these areas.

When you log onto your driver scorecard system, you’ll want to see all the telematics data you’re used to seeing today across multiple systems. You’ll also want to see productivity on each of your routes. And you’ll need an integrated scorecard view in which you can see telematics data and video footage side by side.

Now, suppose you’re trying to get the information you need to make a big decision around safety, compliance, or fuel efficiency. The first place you can look is at the relevant high-level scores in the driver scorecard. These scores help you compare one region to the next and then drill down for more granular comparisons. Using an intuitive interface, you can see all camera events for the data you’re reviewing, or focus your search on specific drivers. You can specify date and time ranges. Based on the parameters you enter, you’ll come up with scores that help you assess safety, compliance, fuel efficiency, or a host of other metrics.

This is the type of functionality you need to identify your biggest problem areas from last year, build a safety plan for this year, or come up with a corporate initiative for next year. It’s a perspective that’s nearly impossible to gain if you’re toggling between five or six systems and trying to piece together the story of your company’s performance.

If you want to share your driver scorecard with peers who aren’t logged in, that’s easy to do. You can export the data from any view you create into a report format that will make sense to any colleague. You can also configure the system to email reports automatically each week or month, depending on the preferences of each stakeholder.

By giving you one place to log on and manage compliance, fuel efficiency, and safety, the driver scorecard can speed time to decisions for your company. And because the scorecard makes it easy to spot exceptions and outlier scorers, you can quickly identify which drivers to coach first, and why—which means each one of your decisions will have a greater impact.

Driving better performance across your organization

If you’re considering investing in a fully integrated driver scorecard solution, you’ll want some way of ensuring that the solution is actually helping your company perform better. A good scorecard solution will show you scores over time as well as trend lines so managers can understand if driver behavior is improving or getting worse. You’ll also maintain a clear view of exceptions. For example, you’ll be able to see your 25 most at-risk drivers based on their number of exception events and the statistical likelihood that they will get into an accident in the near future. These are your drivers who drive too fast, smoke or eat while they drive, or ignore road conditions.

The best driver scorecard will also help you identify the drivers who are trending in the wrong direction—even if their performance is still satisfactory—so managers can be proactive on a potential issue in the future. Taking the time to intervene in cases like these can have a major positive effect on the overall performance of your fleet. It’s much more efficient—and cost-effective—than simply launching broad-based incentive programs and hoping they work.

Learn more about integrated driver scorecards

What are your biggest goals for your fleet? How are you tracking them? How much time do you and your staff spend jumping between systems to monitor your progress towards these goals? Consider how the best driver scorecard system will integrate with both your telematics and dash cams, can help you filter out the statistical noise, and will identify the areas in which your decision-making can have the fastest, greatest impact on your bottom line.

Gridline Analytics delivers all the driver scorecard functionality we’ve described in this article. It’s already helping our clients in the transportation industry to reduce their number of exception events—and it can do the same for your business. We’d love to tell you more. Schedule your consultation.