Sport Waikato’s focus on health and safety in the workplace, with particular regard to the safety of those who drive Sport Waikato vehicles, has had a huge impact on their staff’s driving behaviour.

In late 2017 Sport Waikato installed a GPS tracking system into their vehicle fleet, primarily to ensure that in such a large region driver location and safety was known. The flow on results of this investment have been outstanding.
 
The GPS tracking can be used to monitor driver safety behaviour through allocation of risk points. Risk points are accumulated once a driver travels over the speed limit by 10km, however Sport Waikato has an allowance for staff of 4km over the speed limit.
 
The tracking system also looks at other attributes that are occurring in the area at the time of the over speed - for example, sustained and open road speeding, night time, school zones and adverse weather conditions all contribute to points accumulated. Each month Sport Waikato’s average score is benchmarked against the other 46,000 vehicles in the provider’s tracking system. 
 
A Sport Waikato staff member is quoted as stating that having the GPS system installed has definitely helped her become far more aware of her driving as well as those around her.
 
“Having the GPS installed was initially quite daunting, so it’s been a big surprise how much it’s improved not only my driving ability and speed awareness, but how it has also made me so much more aware of the driving habits of those around me. It has definitely made me a better and safer driver overall.”
 
When the GPS tracking system was first implemented, Sport Waikato had an average risk point of 106 for the whole fleet. After the first month of having the system installed, the risk points dropped dramatically to an average of 28 points.
 
Overspeed reports summarising all incidences of speeding in a week are sent to drivers to show them where they were occurring in order to make them more aware of where they were putting themselves at risk. This self awareness has proven a change in driving behaviour has occurred. Since the reports began circulating in early 2018, the drop in risk points has been dramatic – drivers are now down to an organisational total of 5 risk points per month. The industry average is 179.
 
Sport Waikato CEO Matthew Cooper says “Sport Waikato services a huge geographic area and our vehicles are our biggest safety risk due to the volume of driving required. The results from the GPS tracking system indicate to me that we have a workforce who know how to drive safely which in turn reduces both their own and other road user’s risk. This helps get them home safely to their families and loved ones each day.”