VolkerRail provides railway infrastructure services to the UK public and private sectors. It works with its clients to implement large-scale structural changes to improve service reliability, performance and safety, often within limited timescales.
VolkerRail carried out an in-depth analysis of the road crashes involving its vehicles and employees. This analysis revealed a high number of these crashes could be attributed to a lack of basic driving skills or poor driver awareness.
To address the problem, VolkerRail introduced behavioural safety training (BHST) into its risk management strategy. The BHST scheme was aimed at improving individual driver attitudes and developing a positive driving culture within the organisation – training employees as front-line ambassadors to deliver the safety course across the business and encourage self-accountability within the workforce.
VolkerRail built on the initial success of the BHST programme, offering the training course to all its drivers and supporting the training with behavioural objectives and an annual refresher course. It also operates a robust licence checking system and undertakes annual health surveillance on its drivers to ensure that their eyesight and hearing meet required standards.
“The BHST scheme was aimed at improving individual driver attitudes and developing a positive driving culture within the organisation – training employees as front-line ambassadors to deliver the safety course across the business and encourage self-accountability within the workforce.”
Ensuring that its vehicles are fit to be on the roads has led to VolkerRail introducing daily vehicle inspections to identify wear-and-tear before it becomes a risk, and to keep safety at the forefront of drivers’ minds before they get behind the wheel.
The BHST programme is monitored using in-vehicle telematics data, insurance claims and driver testimonials. The system then rates the average safety-performance of their drivers to determine a ‘driver score’. In May 2014/2015 the average driver score per hour was 9.3, and by May 2018 this number had fallen by more than a half to 3.5.
Between 2015 and 2016, the average number of VolkerRail insurance claims was 135. This fell to 40 by 2019, illustrating an important decrease of claims following the introduction of the BHST programme.
Volker Rail received the Company Driver Safety award (medium fleet) in 2019. This award recognises the organisation with a total fleet size between 250 vehicles and 1000 vehicles that has implemented initiatives that do most to promote and achieve safer driving among employees.
See more previous winners.
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