The Fleet Technology Award was presented yesterday (Tuesday, December 6, 2011) at a ceremony at London’s Savoy Hotel hosted by Prince Michael of Kent. He founded the awards more than 20 years ago to give public recognition to organisations and individuals throughout Britain – and more recently worldwide – who have made a major contribution to improving road safety.

The award is the latest to be won by the fleet management company for the system, which is branded "RiskMaster", and earlier this year was called "the most complete occupational road risk management solution on the market" in an independent survey undertaken by Toot Rock Consulting.

Prince Michael described RiskMaster as an ‘innovative web-based fully integrated management information programme that reduces risk, enhances compliance and helps to improve business efficiency’.

RiskMaster is used by a wide range of leading UK organisations to manage vehicles and employees who drive for work in accordance with best practice. Those businesses include: Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions, Dun and Bradstreet, Geoffrey Osborne, Michelin, Molson Coors Brewing Company, RWE npower and WH Smith.

Employees being issued with permits to drive – after the validity of their driving licence has been checked with the DVLA – is at the heart of RiskMaster thus enabling employers to manage road risk and compile individual driver risk profiles. 

More than 20,000 employees who drive on business are now logged on to the RiskMaster system and each has a Driver Operating Life Report that builds to contain a day-by-day record of each person’s driving history thus enabling the company to provide support to help staff drive safer.

RiskMaster allocates points to individual drivers for each type of vehicle violation – for example, an accident, motoring offence, maintenance abuse and speeding. Once a pre-determined points allocation figure is reached drivers are the subject of interventions. For grey fleet drivers – employees who drive their own vehicles in business – documentation also relates to vehicle maintenance records, insurance details, MoT and VED records.

There are an estimated up to 150 road deaths and serious injuries a week resulting from crashes involving at work drivers, and more employees are killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads while driving on behalf of their employer than in any other work-related activity.

Geoffrey Bray, FSG chairman, said: 'It is tremendous recognition for Fleet Support Group that our in-house developed RiskMaster system has won a Prince Michael Award.

'To totally manage at-work driving, three essential areas need to be addressed in the control process – the driver, the vehicle and the journey. RiskMaster continues to be the only fully-automated, web-based, seamlessly-linked end-to-end control system that comprehensively addresses the three elements.'