Category:
Services, Utilities & Logistics
Costa Express
Services, Utilities & Logistics
- Customer Story
Coffee, safety and environmental responsibility: Costa Express and the GreenRoad Platform.
GreenRoad fits our needs like a glove…its ease-of- use, the simplicity of implementation, its great reporting – it’s hard to imagine running our fleet without it.
Tiago Da Costa, Central Operations Manager
THE CHALLENGE
Costa Express, the self-service coffee bar arm of Costa Coffee, services over 10,500 machines in 11 countries. In the UK, Costa Express employs 185 drivers, many of whom use their own vehicles for work.
Costa Express first evaluated GreenRoad in 2015 as part of its search for a telematics solution to replace an older vehicle tracking system.
Tiago Da Costa, Costa Express’s Central Operations Manager, explained, “We soon understood that GreenRoad could give us a lot more than tracking, starting with alerts about driver behaviour – the ability to know not just where drivers are, but how safely they are driving.
We could see how this feature, combined with the platform’s extensive gamification and driver engagement features, would enable us to take a ‘carrot’ rather than a ‘stick’ approach to driver behaviour, creating a true safety culture across the company.
The Solution
In 2015, Costa Express rolled out the GreenRoad Driver Behaviour Solution across its fleet, including its Safety Scores, Idling Solution and Fleet Elite Driving Excellence programme.
Mr. Da Costa continued, “I went on a regional tour to present the system to our team shortly after we started working with GreenRoad,and thought to myself, ‘How is this going to be accepted? We’re talkingabout measuring people’s driving behavior – and people are defensiveabout change.’ But it was a surprisingly easy sell. They saw the value immediately: we’re keeping you safe, we’re keeping costs down, and we’re helping the environment at the same time.
“With very few exceptions, the entire team adopted it and embraced it and saw the benefits. We found it very easy to engage our drivers. And it has remained that way throughout the years, as you can see from the results.”
The Result
Safety Score: After a blind trial demonstrated an average Safety Score of ~40, Safety Scores improved slowly and steadily to the current level of 12-13, a reduction of ~70%. The target is currently set at 10, but the company believes it can be further lowered over the coming months.
Fuel Consumption: Using GreenRoad, Costa Express has been able to reduce its fuel consumption by 10% per year, even while adding new vehicles. In 2019, the company’s fuel consumption was down by 20,000 litres, generating savings that more than paid for the investment – even before considering the system’s environmental and safety benefits.
Fleet Elite: In 2017, 10 of Costa Express’s drivers (5%) achieved Fleet Elite status, meaning that they maintained a Safety Score of 5 or below for an entire year, and in 2019, the number grew to 35 (19% of its drivers). Mr. Da Costa commented, “We are aiming for 100% Fleet Elite. We believe that if 35 of our drivers can reach this level, all our drivers can.”
Management Control: Mr. Da Costa commented, “From a management point of view, GreenRoad has given us a whole new level of visibility, insight and control over our operations. We know how our people are driving and where they are, so we can optimize our planning.”
Mr. Da Costa concluded, “As successful as the programme has been, we see areas in which we can continue to improve, together with new features that we would like to add. We plan soon to add an MPG monitoring capability for our vehicles using the fuel card data. We are looking into the Privacy Suite so that employees can use GreenRoad also when they’re driving on private business. And we are investigating ways to use GreenRoad data via API for other applications.
“Taken as a whole, GreenRoad fits our needs like a glove. Its ease of use, the simplicity of implementation – not just at the start, but ongoing, with all of our vehicles and swap-overs – its great reporting – just the SUCCESS that we’ve seen from Day 1. It’s hard to imagine running our fleet without it.”
