Safety in fleet management: how to prioritize risks

Fleets have many areas that need to be controlled for their operations to function properly. One of the main ones is safety in fleet management.

This can include everything from the care needed to avoid traffic accidents and cargo theft to operational data management. All these different management “levels” have different meanings for safety. That is why we will cover:

• The different aspects of safety in fleet management;
• How to improve safety in fleet management;
• How to identify threats to safety in fleet management.

The different aspects of safety in fleet management

People and traffic

When we talk about safety in transport and fleet operations, the first thing that comes to mind is traffic accidents. That is only natural, since they are indeed one of the main risks faced by companies in the industry.

Protecting drivers and third parties should always be a priority for fleet managers, including through implementation of a “zero accidents” culture. To make this a reality, defensive driving training should be prioritized and good traffic practices encouraged.

This starting point is not just cultural. In Brazil, the Brazilian Traffic Code establishes in Art. 28 that drivers must remain in control of their vehicles at all times, driving with the attention and care essential to traffic safety. It is this general duty that many defensive driving best practices seek to translate into routine.

That is why good management, working hours management and route allocation are fundamental to safety in fleet management — showing that the manager’s role in accident prevention is also very important.

These are crucial actions that preserve lives.

Property

When we talk about safety from a property perspective, we mean preserving the company’s integrity and credibility. Any threat to this aspect of safety in fleet management includes damage to its material assets, such as the vehicles themselves or other work equipment.

Actions are therefore taken with the intention of avoiding theft and property damage, as well as fraud.

It is worth separating the two aspects, because the same measures do not solve both. Property loss is usually addressed through access control, checks and contracts; risks to people depend on how the operation drives, maintains and inspects vehicles. A fleet that only monitors financial losses may take longer to see the second group, which appears in other records — incidents, failed inspections and fines.

Fleet management areas

Tire management

Tire management itself is not tied to risks, but if this stage is not carried out properly, vehicles become more susceptible to accidents. This is because tires affect vehicle performance, balance and weight distribution.

There is an objective, verifiable limit here. In Brazil, CONTRAN (the National Traffic Council) Resolution No. 913/2022 prohibits, in Art. 4, circulation of a motor vehicle fitted with a tire whose tread wear has reached the indicators or whose remaining tread depth is below 1.6 mm. Paragraph 1 of the same article provides for visual verification of this remaining depth through wear indicators — which, under Art. 3, must be placed at the bottom of the tread pattern.

And reaching this limit has enforcement consequences. CONTRAN’s Brazilian Traffic Enforcement Manual places vehicles with tires whose wear has reached the tread wear indicators (TWI), or whose remaining tread depth is below 1.6 mm, under entry 672-61 — Art. 230, XVIII, of the Brazilian Traffic Code (CTB) — classified as a serious infraction, with a fine and the vehicle being held by the authorities until compliance. Notice who is liable: the entry identifies the owner as the offender, not the driver. In a fleet, this falls on the company.

Therefore, you need to know and correctly apply all tire management processes to prevent these assets from reaching a level of wear that compromises safe routes. In practice, this means measuring tread depth at each inspection and scheduling replacement or tire reconditioning before the limit, rather than on the day it is already reached.

Maintenance management

Unlike tire management, maintenance management processes can pose risks both during services performed at the operations base and while driving routes.

When maintenance services are performed, vehicles need to be lifted, parts assembled and disassembled, and mechanical and electrical systems worked on, among other activities that may pose risks to mechanics and drivers.

On routes, any maintenance problem that was not identified, or was found but neglected, creates risks for the driver and vehicle — a topic already covered in a report on accidents attributed to mechanical vehicle failures.

On the regulatory side, the limit is explicit in Brazil: driving a vehicle in poor condition, compromising safety, or one that has failed a safety and pollutant and noise emissions inspection is an infraction under Art. 230, XVIII, of the Brazilian Traffic Code, classified as serious, with a fine and the vehicle being held by the authorities until compliance.

Data management

With the emergence of management technologies, information security has become a topic in fleet management. This involves protecting the data of the company as well as its employees, suppliers and customers.

Part of this is no longer just goodwill. In Brazil, the General Data Protection Law (Law No. 13,709/2018) requires, in Art. 46, that processing agents adopt technical and administrative security measures capable of protecting personal data against unauthorized access and accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, disclosure or any form of improper or unlawful processing. The same law defines personal data in Art. 5, I, as “information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”; each operation must verify which of its records fall within this definition.

That is why having tools for company data management and investing in an IT department ends up being an alternative adopted by many companies in the transport industry.

How can you improve safety in fleet management?

Understanding the risks to safety in fleet management in its different aspects is the first step, because this allows you to identify where your operation’s shortcomings lie.

If you determine that traffic accidents are the main threat to your operations, you need to prioritize this issue and plan actions aimed at reducing the company’s accident rates.

For example, by investing in driver training and reviewing working hours and route planning. Through companies specializing in this type of service, the market also offers fleet monitoring and video telemetry systems, purchased separately by transport companies. As a bonus, these alternatives also contribute to protecting the operation’s property.

Cargo theft is another example, since this type of situation is usually associated with companies transporting high-value products, such as electronics or cars, but can happen in other operations too.

In this case, solutions also involve using technologies from specialized suppliers, including fleet monitoring and intelligent route planning.

Essentially, to improve safety in fleet management, you need to identify your main problem and seek alternatives based on it. Adopting an expensive measure for a risk that barely occurs in your operation consumes budget without reducing what actually happens.

How can you identify threats to safety in fleet management?

To know whether your operation’s safety is compromised, evaluate performance indicators and the number of risk incidents.

Much of this diagnosis does not depend on new technology. It comes from records the fleet usually already produces and rarely reads together: departure checklists and arrival checklists, tire inspections, workshop records and the history of fines and incidents. Reading these sources side by side reveals patterns — the same vehicle failing inspections, the same road section concentrating incidents.

But remember: before facing a risk and solving a problem, it is better to be prepared and prevent it from happening.

If your fleet has a risk management plan, that is your starting point. Use it to identify which preventive actions you can take to keep risks from becoming real problems.

On the other hand, if you do not yet have this plan, start there: identify all the risks a transport operation may face and classify the likelihood of them occurring in your fleet.

This way, you will know where to prioritize your efforts to contain and prevent danger. A simple criterion for ordering the queue is to cross-reference likelihood with severity: probable and serious risks come first; rare, low-impact risks can wait until the next plan review.

Keep reading more tips to optimize your fleet management and make it safer in our free e-book. Download our Fleet Management Guide now (in Portuguese).