Helping organizations to reduce collisions, injuries, license violations and total cost of fleet ownership through a patented driver risk management program, eDrivingSM is a clear market leader in its field. As the global enterprise celebrates twenty-five years of growth since its inception in Huddersfield, 1996, we take a more in-depth look at eDriving and find out the key to its success.
eDrivingSM is the driver risk management partner of choice for many of the world’s largest organizations that include big brand names such as BT, Nestlé and Pfizer, supporting over 1,000,000 drivers in 96 countries. Over the past twenty-five years, eDriving’s research-validated programs have been recognized with over 100 awards around the world.
Shortly after its inception in 1996, following an intensive research program with universities in the UK and overseas, eDriving concluded that taking a data-led proactive risk management approach to fleet driver safety was the key to successfully reducing collisions, injuries, license violations and total cost of fleet ownership. To help fleets achieve this, it developed and patented its pioneering closed-loop solution, Virtual Risk Manager® (VRM), that has since seen fleets achieve a reduction in collisions of up to 67%.
Today, its team having grown from just seven in Huddersfield in 1996 to a company of 120 ‘Wizards’ located in nine offices around the world, this risk management approach remains at the heart of everything eDriving does. It is also the backbone of its smartphone-based driver behavior improvement program, Mentor by eDrivingSM.
Launched globally in 2018, this smartphone app was created in partnership with industry analytics leader FICO and operates on iOS and Android devices. The app provides a solution that collects and analyzes driver behaviors that are linked to greater crash risk and helps remediate risky behavior by providing engaging, interactive micro-training modules delivered directly to the driver in the smartphone app.
Using telematics-based driving data collected by MentorSM, the FICO® Safe Driving Score can help predict the likelihood of future driving collisions by evaluating driver behaviors most predictive of risk such as Acceleration, Braking, Cornering, Speeding, Phone Distraction – the latter being one of the biggest threats to road safety today – and assigning a personalized score. Detailed trip feedback and engaging micro-training modules are delivered to drivers’ phones, helping them understand their risk exposures and make safer decisions behind the wheel.
“The FICO® Safe Driving Score was developed to address the ever-present issue of commercial fleet losses caused by collisions, and has been fine-tuned to the specific needs and requirements of fleet safety management programs,” noted Rachel Bell, Vice President, Scores & Analytics, at FICO. “We’re absolutely thrilled to see…the FICO® Safe Driving Score’s ability to be used to provide valuable and accurate driving insights, and to help promote sustainable improvement in driving behaviors, and a safer driving experience.”
As such, Mentor helps managers identify drivers most at risk, automatically identifying the lowest scoring members of their teams each month, and enables the managers to observe performance changes and decide appropriate intervention, for example coaching or one-on-one mentoring sessions. It also enables them to identify safe, collision-, incident- and injury-free drivers, and reward them accordingly.
Despite being less than three years old, the Mentor app recently passed 1.7 billion miles driven, and in-depth analysis has confirmed its ability to reduce risk. A study carried out by eDriving found that over six months, Mentor drivers initially categorized Very High Risk or High Risk improved their FICO® Safe Driving Score by an average 32%, becoming Medium Risk and eventually reaching Low Risk after 15 months. Over the same period, drivers initially categorized Very High Risk or High Risk decreased speeding events by an average 71% and 82% over 15 months and distraction events by an average 39%, which further decreased by 57% over 15 months.
A key differentiator regarding competitors in the market is that eDriving provides a view of driver risk within a company-wide crash-free culture®. This is a culture that does not accept collisions as an inevitable part of driving for work purposes. Instead, research shows that 94% of collisions are caused by a driver’s attitude and behavior behind the wheel! Mentor works to help drivers understand their risky behaviors, leading to fewer collisions, injuries, and license violations, offering comprehensive online resources that are tailored to the individual modern learner. Offering bite-sized learning modules that can be accessed through the app at times convenient to the driver, as well as intensive course programs, eDriving has created a full-spectrum of engaging content designed to effectively communicate the importance of safer driving.
The eDriving team is fundamental to the success of the company. Its strong leadership team has decades of experience working with drivers across the world, and a global Customer Success Network supports eDriving’s clients’ strategy analytics, and implementation needs from beginning to end, effectively becoming part of their team.
Founder and CEO Ed Dubens’ commitment, dedication and desire for ensuring that every working driver makes it home to their communities and loved ones every day is infectious, and every single person that works at eDriving gets up in the morning with this shared passion.
Ed entered the executive team of eDriving in March 2016 as part of the firm’s acquisition of Interactive Driving Systems, which he had established and led for many years as a pioneer in the development of telematics-based safety solutions. It was Ed’s experience in the field that led to the refinement of the eDriving VRM, which has since trained over a million fleet drivers and continues to transform the ways in which companies manage risk and prioritize the safety of their drivers. Leading his team in research and innovation in road safety, Ed’s leadership has been pivotal in eDriving’s establishment of industry benchmarking initiatives, which have in turn earned the firm its international acclaim for mitigating risk on the roads and consequently saving lives.
Addressing global challenges
The COVID-19 pandemic saw the delivery and service sectors facing unprecedented challenges, with many companies recruiting additional delivery drivers to accommodate increasing home deliveries and many service organizations adding vehicles to their fleets. Mentor’s portability enabled organizations to continue protecting employees who drove for work purposes during this time and helped them promptly incorporate drivers into their safety programs, requiring only a smartphone to begin measuring driver performance and risk levels. All of this was achieved while prioritizing driver privacy; all of eDriving’s programs operate within a highly secure, privacy-first environment in accordance with the firm’s ISO 27001 accreditation from BSI, in which the only data shared with the manager is the data relevant to risk management. No location data, or individual trip data, is visible.
As the pandemic rolls on and working environments continue to evolve for at-work drivers, incorporating greater autonomous features and even more mobility options, eDriving remains dedicated to developing new technologies and incorporating the latest eLearning and behavior-change techniques to remain at the forefront of driver risk management. By doing so, eDriving is providing its valuable support in helping fleets to proactively manage the safety of the at-work drivers who continue to keep the world moving forwards in the midst of the global pandemic. To those drivers, the Wizards of eDriving say, “we salute you all!”
The future for eDriving is indeed very bright, with plans and developments underway in order to further advance the Mentor app and allow it to become an even more integral part of a company’s fleet. Such developments include the introduction of a dashtop camera into Mentor; enhanced predictive analytics; windscreen ‘tags’ to provide additional insights into driver behavior; and additional versions of the FICO® Safe Driving Score to broaden its scope and make it more accessible to a wider audience.
Moreover, in February of this year, eDriving was able to celebrate a remarkable landmark of twenty-five years of successful driver risk management. “We are absolutely delighted and proud to be celebrating our Silver Jubilee this year,” says Ed Dubens. “What an exciting journey this has been and continues to be! From our humble beginnings back in 1996 with a handful of employees working with paper and CD-ROM, to the business we have today working in the cloud and on smartphones, with over 120 wizards supporting over 1,000,000 drivers and riders across the world, eDriving has certainly come a long way! It is an honor and a privilege to support our clients’ missions to protect their employees and their families, as well as the communities in which they live and work. We look forward to the next 25 years to do all we can to help keep roads across the world as safe as possible for all drivers, riders and pedestrians.”
For further information, please visit www.edriving.com
