ITS Logistics enhances safety culture with Lytx driver program
ITS Logistics, a third-party logistics fleet based in Reno NV, recently signed on for a full-fleet deployment of the Lytx driver safety program in an effort to meet its goal of operating 100% accident-free.
The ITS fleet of more than 200 trucks, 550 trailers and 350 drivers provides supply chain solutions to Fortune 500 companies, with dedicated fleet and asset-light transportation services that rank in the top 50 in North America. And with clients spread across the western United States, ITS drivers often operate in dangerous mountainous conditions and inclement weather.
After a three-month trial of the driver safety program from Lytx, a provider of machine vision and artificial intelligence-powered video telematics solutions, ITS opted to install Lytx DriveCam event recorders in approximately 25% of its vehicles, Lytx said, and expects to outfit its entire fleet by the end of 2019.
“The installation of Lytx in our vehicles has been a major component in helping us achieve our ambitious safety goals,” said Tony Frank, vice president of fleet operations at ITS Logistics. “The visibility that Lytx’s technology has given us has been extremely beneficial in understanding our driver’s experience and helping to improve it.”
Lytx’s driver safety program has allowed ITS to identify improvement opportunities, even with some of their most experienced drivers. The company has been able to catch situations in which drivers making small tweaks to their behaviors can have a big impact on reducing the potential for a collision. By proactively coaching these behaviors, the company already has seen results in reducing speeds, and frequency of hard braking.
By enabling ITS to pinpoint specific behaviors within its fleet, the program has helped open the pathways of communication between management and drivers. Having access to specific instances of risk, with video and data points to support it, gives the ITS operations team an opportunity to interact more frequently and productively with its drivers and better understand what their experiences look like on the road.
Even with 350 drivers, Frank describes the company’s culture as more closely aligned to that of a “mom and pop” organization.
“We’re very transparent with our employees from the top down and strive to be a very family-oriented organization, despite our size,” he said. “The deployment of Lytx has helped further this transparency internally to help drivers identify and correct their own habits. Our drivers have rallied around this and embraced Lytx and our culture of safety.”
In addition to using Lytx to better understand driving conditions and practices, ITS drivers now use Lytx as a way to communicate with management during trips, helping enhance company culture, Frank said.
“This is another tool in the toolbox to help all of the motoring public,” Frank said. “Beyond us at ITS, the more people that embrace this technology and install it in their equipment, the safer our communities and highways will be for all. And that’s the ultimate goal—for us and everyone on the roads to operate 100% accident free.”
