Fleet management is not easy, but it can be made more manageable. Fleet operators face numerous challenges on daily basis, from ensuring driver safety to management operational costs and tight delivery timeline. As technology continues to evolve, many fleet managers are turning to innovative solutions to tackle these challenges head-on. One tool that is rapidly gaining traction is the use of fleet dashcam in commercial vehicles. These compact, yet powerful video recording devices are revolutionizing the way fleet operators oversee their vehicles, improving safety and boosting efficiency like never before.
In this article, we will explore the many benefits of fleet dashcams and mobile digital video recorders (MDVR) offered by KATSANA Fleet Solutions, providing examples of how they are not just a technological upgrade but a game-changer for fleets of all sizes.
What is Fleet Dashcam? Is it similar to regular car dashcams?
Fleet dashcams are designed specifically to address the needs for fleet operators. While it has all the basic features of regular car dashcams, it differs in several key ways.
- Purpose and usage: Fleet dashcams are engineered to improve driver safety, operational efficiency and accountability across the entire fleet. Meanwhile regular dashcams are consumer-grade devices designed for individual private vehicles, primarily used for recording of accidents or incidents.
- Integration with Fleet Management Systems: Fleet dashcams are typically connected to the cloud where it is transmitting live video stream to KATSANA Fleet Management platform, offering a unified fleet operation solution that fleet managers can access via PC and mobile devices. This integration allows for real-time monitoring, tracking driver behavior, automatic recording of dangerous/risky behaviors & events, and generation of operational reports. Regular dashcams may offer basic cloud connectivity & storage, but they are not well integrated with any fleet solution for mass-vehicle management.
- Data preservation and video security: Storage on fleet dashcams are secured with access key to prevent temper or unauthorised access by drivers or other individuals. In a regular consumer dashcam, drivers are able to temper with the storage medium of the dashcam should he has something to hide in an accident.
- Advanced safety & monitoring features: Fleet operators are concerned about driver safety, thus safety-driving features are often found in fleet dashcam. Features such as live cloud streaming, real-time alerts, DSM (Driver Status Monitor), ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System), BSD (Blindspot Detection) are typically found on fleet dashcams. Regular consumer dashcams have fewer features as they are unnecessary for smaller private vehicles. Higher-end consumer dashcams may have vehicle tracking and incident alerts, but these features are often not as robust or scalable.
- Scalability & Deployment Coordination: With many vehicles to manage, fleet dashcams are designed for easy deployment with centralized control and data management using KATSANA Fleet Management platform. Fleet operators can monitor dozens or even hundreds of vehicles from a single dashboard. A consumer dashcam on the other hand is meant for one vehicle, with no option to scale to multiple vehicles in a coordinated or managed way.
- Real-time monitoring & alerts: KATSANA Fleet dashcams provide live monitoring and real-time alerts to fleet managers for risky events such as possible collisions/accidents, harsh braking or unsafe driving behaviors. This capability enables fleet managers to take immediate action to risk risk of accidents. Regular dashcams do not offer real-time monitoring or alerts to third parties. They would only save footage of the incident which need to be manually reviewed later.
- Driver coaching and Performance Evaluation: Integrated fleet dashcam provide comprehensive driver coaching and training programs based on the captured footage. Fleet managers can review specific incidents to provide feedback and improve driver performance. Regular dashcams do not provide performance evaluation or coaching capabilities as they are not connected to a broader fleet system that tracks and assesses driver behavior.
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Benefits of installing fleet dashcams
Fleet managers generally install fleet dashcams to achieve three main objectives, namely:
- Accident Evidence and Liability Protection: Video footage captured during an accident provides a clear and hard-to-dispute evidence during an investigation. Availability of the footage protects your company from false claims or lawsuits by unscrupulous drivers.
- Improved Driver Safety & Accountability: Fleet dashcams are known to encourage safer driving behavior by making drivers more accountable. When the dashcam is paired by DSM (Driver Status Monitor) and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) cameras, it is able to detect driver driving attentiveness and alert the fleet manager when the driver is less-than-ideal to driver. For example, KATSANA Fleet Dashcam is able to detect drowsiness, sleepiness, use of mobile phone and smoking incidents. A 2013 study showed a beneficial effect through 60% reduction in the number of risky incidents, and an 86% reduction in the cost of vehicle crashes after implementing IVMS and supervisory coaching of drivers.
- Cost Management and Operational Improvements: A direct result of improved driver safety and accountability is operating cost reduction due to several related factors. One, safer drivers are known to consume much lower fuel than risky drivers due. The use of fleet dashcam also prevents fraud, minimizes engine idling time and route inefficiencies. Fleets may also enjoy lower insurance premium due to adoption of driving safety technology which help reduce insurance claims.
Accident Evidence and Liability Protection
Fleet dashcam footages serve as crucial evidence in determining fault. This can help fleet operators protect drivers from false claims or disputes over liability. In this real incident, we see a private attempted a sudden lane change in front of our customer’s truck. This lead to a minor collision which could be hard to settle without the readily available footage captured by the fleet dashcam.
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Improved Driver Safety and Accountability
KATSANA Fleet Dashcam improves driver safety through several direct and indirect measures. As drivers are aware that their driving is being recorded, this encourages them to be cautious and more responsible. This self-awareness alone leads to tremendous improvement in safer driving habits.
Beyond this intrinsic benefits, our dashcams come with several advanced safety features. The features are:
- Driver Status Monitor (DSM): The feature uses an AI (Artificial Intelligence) camera that faces the driver to detect his driving behavior and attentiveness. The camera will intelligently detect risky & unwanted behaviors such as smoking in-cabin, not wearing seatbelt, sleepiness/fatique, distractions and phone use.
- Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS): The feature uses a camera to monitor the road ahead of the vehicle for potentially dangerous incidents and to keep drivers alerted by helping them to improve perception of traffic. This includes Lane Departure Warning, Front Collision Warning System and Pedestrian Warning System.
- Blindspot Detection (BSD): The feature uses side cameras to be the third and forth eyes for the driver. The cameras keep tabs of blindspot areas (areas beyond the normal viewing angle of the driver) and alerts the driver of any object in the blindspot vicinity.
- Emergency Button / Action Button: The action button can be configured to take emergency videos or to alert the command center of any unwanted incidents. When this button is pressed, the command center will receive a message and alert through KATSANA Fleet operations platform.
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Improving Highway Safety
“Safety for our patrol team and highway users is our top priority. I am happy with the service that KATSANA is providing for us at LITRAK. We recorded noticeable improvements in fleet operations & occupational safety ever since we started using KATSANA Fleet solutions on our patrol motorcycles and tow trucks.”
Zainudin Mohamed Noah
Head, Traffic Safety Management
Lingkaran Trans Kota Holdings Berhad
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