Durham School Services, the safety leader in student transportation, is the largest operator in the National Express, LLC family. National Express is a North American commercial transportation firm operating 22,500 school buses and shuttles in 600 school districts, transporting more than 1.2 million students each day. Durham School Services has been in business for more than a century and has completed installation of video telematics event recorders from Lytx across its full fleet of 15,000 buses in December 2018.
The Opportunity
With such a large and widespread fleet, Durham School Services looked to develop a proactive safety program that would allow it to assess driver performance and preemptively coach its drivers, as opposed to corrective coaching after accidents have already occurred. The organization was looking to create a holistic approach to company-wide safety management.
Integration of a New Resource and Partner
Working directly with Lytx to design a program that would help support a strong safety culture, Durham School Services rolled out a full-fleet deployment of the Lytx Driver Safety Program last year, following a successful trial. Lytx’s Driver Safety Program delivers video-based coaching workflows, comprehensive reporting and professional, highly accurate reviews of more than 60 risky driving behaviors to help reduce risk across an array of fleets.
“The adoption of Lytx’s technology into our proactive safety management program has helped us to further strengthen our commitment to safety by addressing unsafe driving behavior before it results in an accident,” said Bob Ramsdell, who serves as chief safety officer at National Express, LLC, as well as board member and safety and security committee chair at the National School Transportation Association. “Now, rather than manage safety reactively, we can better focus on proactively identifying and lowering risk for each driver.”
With the program, Durham School Services was able to create a robust view of driver performance, built around instances of behaviors like seatbelt violations, late responses and unsafe following distance. And this enhanced approach to safety has paid off, with the company achieving strong results, including a significant reduction in coachable events and risk scores.
“Lytx technology has enabled us to notice critical details in driving behavior, like failing to come to a complete stop at stop signs,” Ramsdell said. “This sort of attention to detail allows us to identify not just when dangerous driving occurs but understand how it happens, so that we can better prevent risk before it leads to an accident.”
Following the firm’s impressive results, parent company National Express is working to equip every bus within its family of fleets with the solution.
Learn more about Lytx and The Durham Difference.
