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Identifying High Risk Drivers at Eagle Transport
US based petroleum hauler Eagle Transport has grown from a $50-million-a-year carrier in 2001 to nearly $140 million a year in annual revenues in 2017.
It operates from a number of freestanding, company-owned terminals and successful safety, including using eDriving’s Virtual Risk Manager® (VRM) to evaluate and rank driver performance, is a key element in its progress.
VRM measures collisions, incidents, roadside inspections, license violations (Continuous Monitoring), and motorist complaints. Each driver is given a score based on those factors. The higher the score, the higher the risk.
The safety team intervenes aggressively with any driver who reaches a threshold score of 60 points. Following an interview with the driver, safety managers set up a 90-day training program to address risky behavior. That is coupled with ride alongs by a field safety coordinator and the terminal manager.
According to VP of Safety Bree Bryant, the fleet owns 500 power units piloted by 800 company drivers out of 23 operating terminals.
Eagle delivers bulk petroleum in an eight-state region running from Maryland south to Florida and west to Tennessee. It services both commercial and retail accounts so its drivers, who operate within a 125-mile radius of their home terminals, drive over everything from Interstates to city streets.
That means Eagle can’t help but have a high exposure to both collision and product-handling risks, making VRM well worth the investment. Simply stated, we’re finding the suite of VRM solutions helps quickly identify at-risk employees, taking into account accidents, incidents, motor vehicle records and other data to give a numeric value to a driver’s safety performance. The higher that value, the higher the safety issues or severity of issues for that driver.
VP of Safety
Bryant says Eagle is using VRM as a proactive tool to help ‘catch’ drivers before they become a liability – and then use remedial training or an intervention to rehabilitate those drivers whose performance has declined or threatens to.
“When a driver moves into or above the 90th percentile on the VRM Index, we will schedule an intervention with that driver,” Bryant explains. “Additional training will be determined and assigned as needed. This program allows us to focus our efforts on individual drivers or activities,” she adds, “rather than rely on a shotgun approach to risk management.”