Fleet vehicles

834 HGVs (mostly specialist vehicles)
1,600 vans 
171 cars

“Managing driver risk is one of our highest priorities, not least because of the complexity and challenges associated with the tasks we perform every day – and the role of specialist vehicles in completing them. The way we support our drivers to keep them, their colleagues, and all other people safe is derived from our values – to be leading, agile, nurturing, engaging and safe and secure. We aim to lead on driver risk, engage with colleagues to reduce it, and nurture safe driving. This way, everyone can be safe and secure.”

Keith Stableford, Group Head of HSEQ, Lanes Group

Business Benefits

• 50% reduction in collisions
• 24% reduction in speeding
• 180% improvement (based on the number of drivers achieving >90/100 across a range of metrics)
• Average insurance claim value reduced by £3,000
• £85,000 reduction in insurance premium costs in 2024
• A substantial reduction in the severity of claims
• A higher proportion of collisions are found to be no-fault (as opposed to 50:50)
• Reduction in unscheduled maintenance events
• 20-30% reduction in legal costs relating to vehicle incidents (fees and settlements)
• Lanes Group drivers are in the top 15% for safety performance for drivers monitored by Samsara globally.

The Challenge

The company operates 2,605 vehicles: • 834 are HGVs • 1,600 vans • 171 cars.
Most HGVs are specialist drainage, tanker and vacuumation vehicles. These include: jet vac tankers (small, medium and large), high vacuumation tankers, and standard tankers (6,000 gallon articulated trucks; and 3,000/4,000 gallon rigid vehicles). The company’s drainage vans have water tanks, jetting systems and CCTV camera survey vans.

Lanes Group vehicles drive to and from work sites along all types of roads. Many of the HGVs are large and are expected to operate in highly- constrained spaces to reach specific assets, for example, on construction sites, sewage treatment works, factories, hospitals and retail sites. These scenarios, with multiple stops and vehicle repositioning, in complex spaces, and on congested or hazardous roads, are the reasons why the company identifies driving as one of its major risks.

Reversing in depots and at worksites, many of them live sites, is identified as a specific key risk. To counter these risks, Lanes Group has developed a bespoke driver management programme that combines advanced online telematics with driver support initiatives to monitor activity and develop a safe driving culture. Lanes Group is undergoing planned rapid growth, through major contract wins and acquisition. The driver management programme is designed specifically to support this strategy and set consistent exemplary standards.

Telematics

Lanes Group has adopted the Samsara telematics system across the whole company. It is one of the few businesses in the UK to have a dedicated Samsara team (4 personnel) to: 

• Optimise the system’s use 
• Drive up vehicle safety and maintenance standards 
• Encourage safe driving 

This will allow the company to fast-track driver safety improvements as the company grows. 

Samsara recorded 18m vehicle miles in 2023, and 31m in 2024, an increase of 72%. Key metrics, gathered via sensors plus forward and cab cameras, include speeding, harsh braking, rapid acceleration, seatbelt use, distracted driving (including eating and phone use).

Metrics show clear driver improvement in 2024 compared to 2023. 

• 50% reduction in collisions 
• 24% reduction in speeding 
• 180% improvement (based on the number of drivers achieving >90/100 across a range of metrics) 
• Average insurance claim value reduced by £3,000 

The company decided to tighten its metrics in 2024, to ensure continuous improvement. It now has tighter parameters for exception events than 97% of Samsara’s fleet customers. Nonetheless, driver scores continued to improve. 

Lanes Group subsidiary Sapphire’s 650 vehicles joined Samsara in February 2023. This was supported by a bespoke communications, coaching and incentive programme. Driver improvements in 8 months included:

• 25% reduction in speeding 
• 92% reduction in distracted driving 
• 72% improvement in driving scores 
• 63% reduction in cameras being obscured 

Samsara’s data also helped to disprove 63% of external complaints about drivers, which helped to engage drivers who had initially been sceptical. 

Maintaining Driver Engagement

Lanes Group now has 3,250 drivers are on Samara system, plus 760 users (managers and supervisors). All receive user training and all drivers and users have the Samsara app on their phones, so can monitor their own data and receive driving advice. 

This monitoring and intervention is supported by a wider programme of activity that positively reinforces high performance. Lanes Group first trialled its incentive programme in 2023 and it is now being rolled out across the group. Every month, five cash prizes (£75 to £100) are awarded to the top three drivers, the most improved driver and the ‘speed control superstar’. 

The programme and its winners are promoted via internal communications. Good practice is celebrated and the advantages for colleagues, the company and other road users explained. 

Quarterly driver campaigns run during 2023/24 are being stepped up to monthly activities during 2025. These are sent out by email and text.

The Samsara ‘Send to Drivers’ feature is used to send out training sessions and toolbox talks. These are usually sent to drivers if Samsara indicates they have potentially unsafe driving episodes, such as harsh braking or speeding. The driver will first receive a live spoken alert as to what has happened, called an in-cab ‘nudge’.

If they get two nudges in one driving session, an alert is sent to the Samsara Safety Inbox. Managers and members of the Samsara team can review these alerts and decide what action to take. The action is usually to send out one of the training sessions or a toolbox talk. These are short digital learning events that the drivers must digitally sign for and complete within 14 days.  

The platform’s analytics keeps a record of who has, and has not, completed these sessions within the required period, allowing follow up activities to be planned if necessary.

The Samsara system also prompts drivers to give daily wellbeing scores and promotes support available to them.

Driver Coaching and Discipline

All managers and supervisors are trained to deliver a bespoke coaching programme. Samsara data and video is used to identify at risk drivers and advise them about adverse behaviours.

For a small minority of drivers who do not respond to coaching, retraining may be provided, or further disciplinary action will be considered. 

Driver Wellbeing

Health, safety, wellbeing, customer service, incidents and unsafe acts have a direct correlation between each other. Evidence-based occurrences confirm a direct link between emotion and attitudes. With Wellcrowd, we launched an app which captures and records realtime, non- invasive data about how staff feel over time.

The Wellcrowd app supports over 1500 operational personnel, providing instantaneous feedback in relation to their state of wellbeing by the click of a button

“The wellbeing app is making everyone in the organisation recognise that feelings, emotion, and attitude contribute to our success as individuals and as a business. Unlocking that insight, and reminding us of it every day, is transformational.”

Andy Brierley, Framework Director, Lanes Utilities

Lanes Group and Thames Water have saved £1.2 million pounds per year on training and recruitment in a year since using the Wellcrowd app. This averages a saving of £800 per employee, per year.

Driving for Work Policies

Lanes Group has driving for work policies and procedures for supporting safe driving, which extend to policies on vehicle maintenance, and incident reporting, monitoring and investigation. 

It has also pioneered the integration of its driver documents, including tachographs, and vehicle checks into the Samsara system. 

All defects are managed electronically, which is speeding up maintenance and reducing VoR times. This is also more sustainable as it has eliminated paper-based systems. 

Conclusion

Lanes Group prioritises driver safety, and given its rapid growth wanted to ensure that its road risk management solution would be scalable. It now believes it has achieved a solution which will continue to manage drivers effectively, regardless of number. Additionally, it believes its reputation has been enhanced and, in 2024, it won Samsara’s Excellence in Driver Engagement Award for the work done to introduce the system to the Sapphire fleet.