Mobility Q&A: eDriving

We asked sponsors for the 2020 Fleet Forward Conference four questions regarding their mobility strategies as they relate to commercial, corporate, and government fleets. 

Global driver risk management platform eDriving weighs in:

1-What message would you like to impart to our Fleet Forward audience of commercial, corporate, and government fleet managers? 

The transportation ecosystem is evolving rapidly, and although advancing technology is transforming fleet management, the real game-changer is how data is used to reduce risk and change driver attitudes and behaviors behind the wheel. 

Telematics is becoming more commonplace in fleets, but alone telematics will not influence driver safety. The recipe for success is to combine telematics data with other inputs such as collision and license violation history to provide a comprehensive view of driver risk. Converting data into useful feedback for drivers enables them to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses. Combining the feedback with remedial training helps drivers to improve their on-road performance. 

2-Tell us about your company as it relates to mobility: connectivity, autonomous technology, shared mobility, or electrification.

Founded in 1994, eDriving (formerly Interactive Driving Systems®) has applied Total Quality Management (TQM), and continuous improvement principles and processes to solve the issues in driver risk management and develop a patented, closed-loop methodology originally embodied by its Virtual Risk Manager® program. Over the years, the methodology has evolved from a simple CD-based delivery platform to an end-to-end digital risk management program available online, across the 7 continents in more than 45 languages.

Today, eDriving’s patented approach is combined with the latest in-vehicle telematic devices, proven behavioral change and risk reduction techniques, and successful microlearning and gamification elements to provide an integrated smartphone-based driver risk management solution, Mentor by eDrivingSM. Having won multiple awards this year, Mentor is being widely recognized for its ability to help drivers to improve their attitudes and behaviors; something that could become even more important over the coming years as the traffic environment welcomes more vehicles with varying levels of autonomy. 

3-What is your specific value proposition or message to commercial, corporate, and government fleets as it relates to mobility? 

eDriving is redefining risk reduction. Mentor by eDriving combines our patented, proven, continuous improvement methodology for driver risk reduction with a unique smartphone app that not only identifies risky driving behavior, but also remediates it with in-app micro-training.

Thanks to our partnership with leading analytics company FICO, we are offering fleets a new industry standard for measuring driver risk. The Mentor smartphone app captures harsh acceleration, braking, cornering, speeding, and cellphone distractions, and performs proprietary predictive analytics to provide drivers with a FICO® Safe Driving Score. 

As well as identifying risky driving behaviors, the solution provides in-app micro-training modules to coach drivers to safer driving. Mentor also provides managers with dashboard reporting which provides a unified view of driver risk, including collision, incident, license violation, and driving performance data across their respective teams and departments, ultimately contributing to creation of a company-wide crash-free culture®.

Mentor incorporates many successful elements of gamification, including its “Circles” feature that encourages friendly competition between co-workers. Mentor Circles provides opportunities for managers and drivers (and family members) to engage both formally and informally as they work together to remain free from collisions, license violations, and injuries. Mentor also provides a coaching and scoring model that enables drivers to receive ‘professional coaching’ from eDriving RiskCOACHes if their FICO® Safe Driving Score drops below “good” and/or the driver is involved in a collision.

4-How do you see your part of the industry developing in the near future, and your business specifically?

A transport revolution is taking place – and Mentor is part of that! The flexibility of Mentor (no installation required) means it can be used by any driver, in any vehicle, whether that be electric, intelligent or semi-autonomous – or just a regular car, van or truck! Regardless of in-vehicle technology, Mentor identifies driver weaknesses, including harsh maneuvers and phone use. And, with concerns having been expressed about an increase in distracted driving on the path to self-driving vehicles, identifying and addressing distracted driving could become even more critical for fleets.  

eDriving’s risk management programs have already been adopted by global industry leaders with fleets of tens to tens of thousands of drivers in service, delivery, and sales sectors. Yet, as well as working with some of the world’s largest – and safest – fleets, eDriving works with insurance partners across the spectrum of UBI and RMI (Risk Managed Insurance) offerings, from full turn-key and white-labeled or co-branded solutions, to scoring and remediation services that augment a partner's existing telematics offering. Insurance partners can use the white labeled version of Mentor to extend its best-in-class risk management “toolkits” to their own customers as a value-added service. 

While having a robust solution in the arsenal, a major focus for eDriving over the years is on driver risk reduction through leadership commitment and support. eDriving’s patented approach to driver risk reduction focuses largely on the importance of safety culture (or crash-free culture) and the company provides extensive resources to help organizations build safety culture into their DNA.

eDriving is currently focusing on expanding Mentor across over 50 countries in 14 languages to support its customers’ vision and focus to protect their employees who drive for work purposes across the globe. It is also adding two new features to Mentor: a FNOL (First Notice of Loss) Collision Reporting option that enables clients to report their collisions to their insurers through the Mentor app, vastly reducing their total claims processing time and cost and a Vehicle Inspection Report feature that guides drivers through required vehicle checks before and/or after their routes or daily appointments.