Courtice Auto Wreckers ranked among the top fleets of 2016 and Q4 2016 in Azuga’s Safe Fleet Awards. They are in their fourth decade of operations as a moving service company in Oshawa, Canada.
When you are in the Auto Moving business, monitoring trips to and from job sites as well as the hours spent on-site can make a significant impact on the efficiency of field operations. Key priorities for Courtice were maximizing fleet utilization and reducing unsafe driving, particularly in congested areas with lower posted speed limits.
For Courtice, Driver Safety has gone up, and fuel usage has improved as supported by data from Jan to Oct 2017. During this period, the number of Hard Braking events per 100 miles reduced by 57%, and Hard Acceleration events per 100 miles also reduced by 72%. This is not just reduction in risk but offers nuggets to negotiate insurance premiums down. And when drivers drive a bit safer, fuel consumption decreases. Azuga has seen 6-8% decrease in fuel when drivers change behavior on safety-related metrics.
Another area in which time saving and higher asset utilization has been achieved is in the way real-time vehicle tracking has allowed management know about vehicle locations and to provide better customer response times.
As with all of Azuga’s customers, driver safety and risk reduction are important concerns and, to curb unsafe driving effectively, Courtice uses email Alerts and trend reports. These let managers know about any instance of unsafe driving behaviors. Clearly, with both Hard Braking and Hard Acceleration events down by significant percentages, the solution has proven effective for Courtice.
Better control over fleet and work-hours
The ability to pinpoint the nearest available resource and assign it speedily for a customer requirement and the lowered slack time on and between sites has positively impacted productivity at Courtice.
"I can configure Azuga’s fleet tracking software exactly the way I want and get the information I need quickly and easily."
Steve Mihalic Owner, Courtice Auto Wreckers
The results are very visible
Increased productivity—because the company optimizes trips to transfer stations, supply houses, and disposal sites.
Optimized equipment—the amount of empty-truck drivetime has considerably reduced because they are located early and re-routed to a nearby service location.
Improved safety management—achieved by communicating with drivers about unsafe driving behaviors such as hard braking and speeding to improve the fleet’s safety score.
A survey of tens of thousands of vehicles operated by Azuga’s customers shows multiple business gains besides fuel savings—reductions in unauthorized vehicle use of 12% and productivity increases of 10%.
Azuga has been an industry trendsetter with its Driver Reward Program which helps organizations incentivize performance by evaluating Driving Scores. The scores directly reflect the driver’s behavior on key parameters such as acceleration, braking, speeding, and idling, taking into account the prevailing weather.
True to its credo, “When drivers compete, everyone wins”, Azuga is advising customers on increasing driver engagement through gamification, improving productivity, and improving safety.