African Petrochemicals Edition 16.3

FINALLY, TECH TO KEEP YOUR DRIVERS’
EYES ON THE ROAD
By Mark Chertkow, Managing Director at Graphic Image Technologies
Usually, technology and driving shouldn’t be mixed. Devices
like mobile phones, GPS navigators - and even the radio - can
take a drivers’ eyes off the road, which has the potential to be
fatal.
Distracted driving accounts for approximately 25% of all vehicle crash
fatalities and all it takes is seconds of distraction to cause an accident.
Driver behaviour while on the road is usually beyond the control of
logistics and fleet managers, with the presence of technology inside
the truck cabin only contributing to driver distraction. That is, until
today. Major developments in cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
have allowed dashcam technology to evolve into the foundation of
truly functional fleet management tool that offers more control over
every vehicle and every driver, with complete visibility into vehicle
treatment, including the ability to keep the drivers’ eyes on the road
at all times.
Eyes on fleet management
Today’s dashcams are intelligent and connected, transforming
vehicles into video-connected fleets. Modern dashcams have a choice
in connectivity - 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi - which makes them capable of
streaming video with less than one-second latency. Eyes are provided
by front and driver-facing integrated full HD cameras, and smart
sensors bring intelligence by automatically registering potentially
dangerous events, such as sudden stops, sharp acceleration, harsh
turns and even detecting when the driver takes his eyes off the
road. AI provides the element of control that fleet managers crave,
providing performance reporting and behaviour analysis into every
driver. This allows fleet managers to achieve new levels of safety and
efficiency in order to truly optimise their fleet performance.
Capturing a clear view of the road and the truck interior both day and
night, these connected devices automatically upload a 10-second
video clip of every trigger event to be stored in the cloud, prompting
an email notification that allows fleet managers the ability to respond
in real-time. Unlike conventional video driver monitoring technology,
distracted driver alerts take place in real time in response to the
driver’s eyes leaving the road and not in response to erratic vehicle
behaviour - by which time it’s usually too late to avoid an accident.
Complete visibility into every driver, every vehicle
For logistics managers, today’s smart dash cam solutions offer full GPS
tracking in real time, to deliver total transparency into each vehicle’s
trip with deep contextual information such as point-by-point location
Mark Chertkow, Managing Director at Graphic
Image Technologies.
information, time, and travelling speed, all of which make it simple
to locate footage relating to a specific event to effectively manage
accident investigations, insurance claims, and driver training. When it
comes to post-event investigation, no longer will safety officers have
to trawl through reams of footage to isolate the incident. A central
dashboard that is web-accessible through any device, provides the
means to manage all footage with all events logged by description,
date, time and type.
An extra set of eyes on the road
Given all this intelligent functionality, logistics companies will
find modern cloud-based dash cam solutions a welcome addition
to the team, with low upfront hardware costs, affordable annual
subscription fees and easy scalability. Fleet managers will finally be
able to proactively monitor their vehicles and drivers, with the ability
to respond faster to incidents and gain complete visibility into driver
behaviour and vehicle treatment.
Contacts
Graphic Image Technologies
Laurence Smith
Tel: 011 483 0333
Email: Laurence@git.co.za
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