National Grid Radically Improves Fleet Safety with Lytx Driver Safety Program and Custom Data Dashboard

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lytx^®, a leading global provider of machine vision and artificial intelligence-powered video telematics, analytics, productivity and safety solutions for commercial and public sector fleets, today released impressive results from its work with National Grid. The leading provider of natural gas and electricity in the northeast region of the U.S., National Grid first deployed Lytx technology in 2010 across its gas operations fleet, made up of almost 4,000 vehicles.

"The support we get from Lytx through their Driver Safety Program and coaching workflow has been invaluable in helping our team achieve such strong results," said Samantha Murray, vehicle safety manager at National Grid. "When it comes to safety, our work is never done, and Lytx gets that. With thousands of vehicles and drivers in our fleet, it's an understatement to say that we're dealing with a lot of data, and this is an area where Lytx really distinguishes itself and adds value. They provide the precise insights and actionable data we need to become safer and more efficient."

Like many fleets, National Grid deployed Lytx technology to reduce the number of unsafe driving incidents in its fleets and provide individual drivers with greater awareness of their own risky driving behaviors in order to develop safer habits. An early adopter of video telematics technology, National's Grid's decision paid off. From 2010 to 2018, their utility fleets saw incredible results, including:

• 94% reduction in collisions
• 84% reduction in avoidable near-collisions
• 83% reduction in severity of events
• 84% reduction in frequency of events

"We have many employees on the Lytx Driver Safety Program in Customer Meter Services who drive from job to job throughout the day to manage different repairs and respond to gas emergencies. While they're technicians first and foremost, they may spend hours on the road each day," Murray said. "Over the past decade, the Lytx Driver Safety Program has helped us make safe driving a top priority by coaching and reducing unsafe driving habits. Additionally, and just as important, we are shifting toward a culture where we emphasize the safe driving habits from our good drivers through positive recognition programs."

For instance, National Grid's program marks any event flagged as an "unavoidable near-collision" as one deserving of positive recognition for the driver. When there is no other risky behavior found, the driver in that situation successfully avoided a collision using their defensive driving skills. These positive recognition events are emailed directly to supervisors as well as the driver's management and executive teams, providing an opportunity to acknowledge exceptional safe driving. 

This long-term commitment to safe driving continues to pay off for National Grid; even with its fleet displaying dramatically safer behaviors than a decade earlier, the company continues to see year-over-year improvements. From April-June 2018 to April-June 2019, the fleet saw a:

• 51% decrease in unsafe following distance behaviors
• 24% decrease in collisions
• 25% improvement in frequency of events
• 23% improvement in severity of events
• 13% decrease in handheld cell phone use
• 12% decrease in late response behaviors

A Custom Safety Dashboard Focused on Positive Growth

This year, National Grid used Lytx's open application programming interface to customize its own internal vehicle safety performance dashboard, combining data from the Lytx Driver Safety Program and Fleet Tracking Service via an extract-transform-load data process with options to integrate internal and third-party data. The resulting internal event warehouse serves as a central location for National Grid to access real-time and historical fleet data and is tailored to the precise metrics that matter most to the team.

"We've seen such strong improvements in safe driving from using Lytx's technology," said Tyler Virkler, National Grid program manager, who spearheaded the design of this data project. "The new dashboard reconfigures the information we're getting from Lytx to highlight the improvements of our driving behaviors even further, while continuing to note areas for growth." 

National Grid has seen a positive response to this creative use of data across the board, with drivers and supervisors alike noting how positive reinforcement can fuel growth when combined with constructive feedback and coaching.

About National Grid
National Grid is an electricity, natural gas and clean energy delivery company serving more than 20 million people through networks in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The largest distributor of natural gas in the Northeast, National Grid also operates the systems that deliver gas and electricity across Great Britain. National Grid is transforming electricity and natural gas networks with smarter, cleaner and more resilient energy solutions to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Our Northeast 80×50 Pathway is an industry-leading analysis for how to reach that goal in the states we serve, focusing on the power generation, heat and transportation sectors. Read more about the innovative projects across the company's footprint in The Democratization of Energy, an eBook written by National Grid's U.S. president, Dean Seavers. For more information please visit our website, follow us on Twitter, watch us on YouTube, friend us on Facebook and find our photos on Instagram. 

About Lytx
Lytx^® is a leading provider of video telematics, analytics, safety and productivity solutions for commercial and public sector fleets. Our unrivaled Driver Safety Program, powered by our best-in-class DriveCam^® Event Recorder, is proven to help save lives and reduce risk. We harness the power of video to help clients see what happened in the past, manage their operations more efficiently in the present and improve driver behavior to change the future. Our customizable services and programs span driver safety, risk detection, fleet tracking, compliance and fuel management. Using the world's largest driving database of its kind, along with proprietary machine vision and artificial intelligence technology, we help protect and connect thousands of fleets and more than one million drivers worldwide. For more information, visit https://www.lytx.com, @lytx on Twitter, LinkedIn, our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

Contact:
Lytx
Alison Graves
858-380-3114
[email protected]

SOURCE Lytx

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