Why it’s essential for fleets to be fitted with cameras

Running a commercial fleet can be expensive and stressful. Having operated a fleet operation myself since 2003, I know all the headaches fleet owners face. Fortunately though the introduction of cameras on my own fleet, I was able to achieve savings of 64% on fault claims and generate a return on investment of up to 7 times within the first few years. I am certain that without cameras, my fleet operation would have not been able to trade profitably due to the rising costs of insurance claims.

Systems save fleet owners money

Having found the benefits that cameras had on fleet owners, that’s when I setup Centrad to help other fleet owners achieve the same benefits.

Many of our customers have advised they have had significant savings as a result of fitting cameras within their fleet. One of our customers who operates a fleet of 230 buses recently reported that a single claim worth £240,000 was dismissed as a result of the video evidence provided by their camera system.

Reduce incidents and accidents

Once a high-quality CCTV system is installed both internally and externally, the cameras can be utilised as visual and parking aids which completely eradicate all blind spots when driving and give the driver greater visibility when manoeuvring or parking.

This dramatically reduces the chance of having a collision with a third party object or road user – ultimately saving your fleet money and potentially saving lives.

What options are required?

A great benefit of having a Camera system is that the footage can be downloaded quickly and easily sent to insurers or third party.

The advantages of having a 4G enabled system can be huge. It allows users to access video footage remotely without having to wait for the vehicle to return back to base. System health checks can be done routinely, a suite of reports and live GPS data can be provided and high end systems can provide additional features such as two way driver messaging.

Ensure that your preferred supplier’s software has the ability to download and export video footage quickly and that it can be exported to a third party securely to comply with GDPR. As a fleet owner myself, although it is never welcome news to have a fault incident, the ability to determine whether my vehicle was at fault or not quickly was huge and enabled us to deal with the claim in the most cost effective manner possible and reduce third party costs. You can find out if your fleet vehicles are GDPR compliant by reading this article (link to GDPR article)

What is the potential saving for fleet owners?

On average companies that invest in high-quality vehicle CCTV across their fleet have reduced the number of false claims by up to 60%. They can also expect to see a reduction in insurance premiums and some insurance underwriters will even help support the purchase of camera systems.

There are many other ‘hidden’ savings a high quality camera system can provide. The time investigating and managing complaints about drivers or your fleet of vehicles will reduce, whilst not inflicting unnecessary stress levels on your staff who were previously a victim of a false claim.

Prevention is better than cure and so many accidents are prevented by having a camera system in place to encourage careful driving, and act as training videos for new fleet drivers.

Protecting your fleet and assets

The Centrad solution allows fleet operators to live stream HD footage from individual vehicle cameras across the entire fleet directly to their desktop PC or mobile device at the touch of a button alongside accurate GPS tracking. This allows fleet operators to instantly track, monitor and communicate with each of their vehicles and drivers in real-time.

All video footage is saved on the Vehicles Recording Unit including full GPS data including speed and time and date embedded onto a watermarked file.