Are your driver scores measuring behaviour or where people drive?

A road with cars driving in London.

New connected-vehicle data from Geotab highlights why fleet managers should be cautious about comparing driver scores without considering operating environment.

Its analysis of more than 130 million journeys across seven European capitals found London recorded 462 harsh acceleration, braking or cornering events per 1000 journeys.

That compares with 1191 in Paris and 1088 in Madrid, while Berlin recorded just 225.

What makes London interesting is its congestion. The city ranked second-worst for road efficiency in Geotab's study, yet its harsh-event rate was less than half that recorded in Paris or Madrid.

For fleet managers, the message is that location matters when interpreting driver data.

A vehicle operating all day in congested central London encounters different braking, junction and traffic conditions from one operating on regional roads. Identical thresholds could therefore create misleading comparisons.

Data programmes should identify genuine risk while allowing enough context to distinguish poor driving from the environment in which someone is working.

Driver scoring becomes more useful when fleets benchmark comparable routes and operating environments, rather than treating every journey the same.

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