Champion: Arval UK
Business Sector: Vehicle leasing and fleet management
UK Fleet Size:
LCV: 1
Company Cars: 220
Grey Fleet: 280
Total drivers for all company vehicles: 500

Business overview

Arval UK is a leading vehicle leasing and fleet management company, funding more than 96,000 cars and vans in the UK alone. With specialist teams dedicated to businesses of all sizes; from start-ups to FTSE 100 companies and internationally managed accounts, Arval provides a comprehensive range of products and services to its fleet customers. They include:

  • Vehicle funding
  • Driver solutions
  • Accident management
  • Mid-term rental
  • Short-term rental
  • Insured vehicles
  • Fuel management
  • Risk management
  • Arval active link
  • Salary exchange
  • Product packs

Leadership in fleet safety

Fleet and road safety activity is driven from the top as Arval’s Marketing Director takes an active interest in the company’s approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the safety of all employees, not only when they drive for work, but as part of Arval’s wider CSR commitment. He chairs the CSR Committee which regularly reviews Arval’s fleet performance, proactively promotes fleet safety best practice with Arval’s customers and actively works within our communities to educate and promote road safety.

Delivering products and services that touch thousands of business drivers in the UK, Arval has developed a longstanding commitment to driver safety; something that sits at the heart of its programme of CSR initiatives.

Working in partnership with leading road safety organisations, this commitment has allowed Arval to generate a culture of responsible driving amongst its own employees, mitigating their road risk. But that’s not where their efforts end as Arval works to spread road safety messages and promote best practice amongst external audiences; including its customers, suppliers, schools and the wider community.

As a ‘Business Champion’ within the ‘Driving for Better Business’ programme, we will continue to share and implement best practice as well as developing new initiatives to ensure that fleet safety remains high on the business agenda.

Gary Burns
Marketing Director

The most important impact our fleet safety programme has, is that it reduces the road risk of our drivers, all staff involved in our initiatives, and ultimately helps to improve the safety of the communities around us. However, there are clearly additional benefits that we realise such as a reduction in costs, an increase in driver satisfaction and a lessening of our environmental impact. We are proud of our activity and the knowledge that we are not only meeting our Duty of Care requirements but going above and beyond to truly influence the safety of all road users.

Tracey Fuller
Engagement Manager and Road Safety Ambassador

Work-related road safety policies, procedures and activities

Arval recognises that to minimise the road risk of employees, they must have information, tools and support at their disposal. That’s why they are sent a series of communications providing advice and tips and highlighting changing legislation. It is also why the use of mobile phones, including hands free, has been banned for years. All company cars are fitted with ABS, ESC and reversing sensors as mandatory features. The company car choice list also only includes vehicles that have scored 5 stars in NCAP testing.

The first check that any company car driver goes through is of their license. This extends to all company car drivers, as well as a further 500 casual car drivers and partners/spouses. Arval carries out these checks annually and this exercise helps to build a picture of the company’s driving licence profile which currently reports 95% with zero points on their licence.

This kind of information feeds into a programme of risk assessment to test employee capabilities and road knowledge. The higher the employee risk rating, the more intensive their training, however all drivers receive either on-road driver training, a safe culture workshop and/or regular e-learning modules.


Arval Driver Pack

For over a decade all employees have also been through Arval’s in-house ‘Drive4Life’ road safety training programme. As a result of its initial success, this training was extended from company car drivers to all employees and there has been widespread positive feedback from staff showing that they feel more valued because of the training. They perceive Arval as a “company that cares about them” and one that goes beyond the minimum legal requirements in support of their welfare. What’s more, much of the support that Arval employees receive is being opened up to their friends and family to ensure the widest possible reach.

Arval is well established in reviewing, on a quarterly basis, all aspects of the fleet’s safety performance, including highlighting any drivers whose performance falls below the company’s safety standards. Training requirements are identified to address specific behavioral or attitudinal weaknesses, and on a case by case basis, corrective measures and improvement targets are set to be met over a specific time period.

All of these things are supported with a comprehensive Fleet Safety Policy Document, issued to all drivers, which they sign for and acknowledge they have read. This is followed up with a Drivers’ Drive4Life Handbook containing practical ‘what to do’ and ‘how to’ advice when certain incidents arise.

Drivers are also supported through an annual ongoing road safety communication campaign including lots of regular activities and specific annual events. National Road Safety week is always recognised with a series of safety sessions, delivered by Arval’s Road Safety Ambassador and supported by suppliers and road safety specialists. Throughout the year, tyres are checked for wear with employees emailed if action is required. In conjunction with suppliers, Arval also holds ‘fill up with air days’ to check tyre pressures and has even introduced a tyre compressor on-site that employees and visitors can use. All of these things combine to support employees and reinforce key messages.

Collecting, analysing and acting on data

Monitoring and review are crucial to Arval’s strategy as information is regularly used to enhance the company’s fleet safety policies and procedures. Arval sets targets and monitors progress against the following key Performance Indicators:

  • Incident ratio – as a percentage of the fleet to have an incident during the year.
  • Fault to Non-Fault ratio.
  • Arval risk scores.
  • One tactical measure based on the key issue for improvement.
  • Driving Licence Profile.

Business benefits and lessons learned

Good practice is essential in keeping drivers safe, and feeling valued, but there is also a strong business case that Arval has witnessed. Working with Brake and RoadSafe, Arval implemented the ‘Drive4Life’ platform over a decade ago and the ongoing focus on fleet safety has produced real tangible benefits.

In 2005, Arval’s incident ratio (the percentage of the fleet involved in a collision in each year) was about 43%. Bent metal costs alone amounted to almost £150,000 and third party claims totalled £70,000. With the company self-insuring, these figures had an immediate impact on the company’s bottom line. An analysis of incidents revealed that low speed crashes were most prevalent, making up 28% of all incidents.

By the end of 2016, following the introduction of a wide range of road safety initiatives over the years, Arval’s crash repair costs have dropped to just £26,000 and third party claims have dropped to just £11,000. The incident ratio is an impressive 14%, the lowest it’s ever been and the types of incidents which occur are less serious and so less costly to the company.

The business is therefore now saving over £180,000 each year in direct costs compared to 2005. The reduced number and severity of collisions also means that hidden costs have been significantly reduced. The business now requires much less management and admin resource to deal with collisions and time lost due to staff absence following a collision is much less.

Additional WRRS Related Activities

External Activity

With clear benefit to the Arval business and such a strong base to build upon the company initiated a programme to share what it had learnt with customers and the wider business community.

This began with safety related products which reduce the complexity and time needed for customers meet their Duty of Care legal obligations. Arval Fleet Protect offers a complete range of risk solutions and covers:

  • Online driver risk assessments
  • Driver Licence checking
  • Business Insurance checks (also for non-company car drivers)
  • MOT checks (also for non-company car drivers)
  • Road risk seminars
  • Practical Driver training
  • Fleet Risk Assessment

But Arval activity covers much more than just products and services and one initiative in particular has been a huge success in recent years:

Arval Fleet Safety Forum/Seminars

Arval facilitates the sharing of ideas, good practices and safety messages amongst Arval customers all year round. Starting with a fleet safety forum in 2009, since then there have been countless events over the years bringing together hundreds of businesses spanning a range of industries.

Education, debate and advice are the three strands of the events and those involved have an active interest in fleet safety, having either implemented their own corporate strategy or are in the process of doing so.

By bringing organisations together Arval can understand how key issues should be managed, attendees learn best practice from each other and some have started taking messages to other businesses. Experts attend meetings to provide information and have already included manufacturers, DFT, legal experts, fatigue specialists, RoadSafe and Brake.

Arval’s long standing partnership with Brake is key to their driver safety engagement programme, in particular the Brake Pledge campaign, Arval not only sponsor but deliver the Pledge workshops on behalf of Brake to businesses nationwide.

Arval customer David Jones, Company Buyer at Wingate Building Services, attended a workshop in March and said: “What a great refresher workshop to attend with like-minded people. It was great to share views and understand how different organisations deal with similar day to day issues regarding fleet safety, in particular seeing how I can get the Brake Pledge driven through our organisation. As always the content and information was thought provoking and helpful and delivered with passion by Arval”

In the Community

Arval activity extends outside of the business community and has been ongoing for many years. This has included a dramatic re-enactment of a road traffic crash which local school children, staff and Arval customers were able to attend. The re-enactment was filmed and made into a DVD which has been played in many schools and businesses since its production and is available for anyone to use as part of their road safety campaign.

Over the years, Arval have supported an annual Road Safety Quiz for 15 – 16-year-old pupils and a primary school programme called “School Travel Ambassadors” that encourages younger pupils in schools to promote safe and green travel to their school.

They have been long term supporters and sponsors of “Safe Drive Stay Alive” a Dorset and Wiltshire programme aimed at educating Year 11 students before they start driving.

Arval also continue to produce useful resources like tyre tread cards, top 10 safety tips and YouTube films, all available for anyone wishing to use them

Awards

The combination of initiatives detailed in this case study, have seen Arval become widely recognised for its road safety practices. The company signed up to the EU Safety Charter and became one of the first Business Champions in the Driving for Better Business campaign. In recent years Arval has won many fleet safety awards including:

2013 Fleet World Honours, several Brake awards, most recent in 2016, a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award and RoSPA awards, as well as winning Fleet News awards in 2011 & 2012 for Fleet Safety activities. Also in 2010 Arval became the first company to receive a European eSafety prize for fleet management.

Policies

Arval UK Company Car and Road Safety Policy

Arval UK Drive4Life Handbook