TomTom eco-driving at GreenFleet, Arrive 'N' Drive, 17th May 2012

Delegates were asked to test their driving skills against that of the “Sprig”, an eco-driving expert, to see if they could better the Sprig's MPG and win a TomTom. The delegates initially drove Citroen DS3 cars around a public urban route without coaching from the UK Road Safety team, this was then followed by a route with coaching on the same route utilising ECO driving techniques.

Both routes were monitored by TomTom vehicle tracking technology and each driver's routes could then be compared after the session in TomTom's WEBFLEET management software, giving insight to the driver style using the Optidrive indicator. The Optidrive profiling feature was used to show how fleet managers can profile and benchmark their fleet to target driver training to get the best results, forming part of a long term and robust driver training programme.

We are delighted to say that there was a very high standard of driving on the day, with the best improvement over the two drives reaching 75% improvement!

Highlights of the results on the day:

• Best MPG for the day was 94 mpg
• Most improved for the day was 37 mpg (75% improvement)
• Average for the day 16.4% improvement

The above images show the UK Global Road Safety Driver Training Team – Ken Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, David Collins & Ian Littlefield and also Clive Brocklehurst, Balfour Beatty, the winner of the best MPG

This clearly demonstrates that even with modern eco-efficient vehicles, it can often come down to the knowledge, understanding & ability of the driver to achieve impressive results in efficienc adding, It also proves that it is essential for companies to have an on-going monitoring & targeted driver training programme to really optimise and drive efficiency in their fleetssaid Giles Margerison, Sales Director of TomTom Business Solutions .

This will in turn substantially reduce their fleet fuel bills along with maintenance costs, down time and achieve higher residual value for their vehicles, benefits any fleet manager would be proud of.