Gratte Brothers Ltd, a UK building service company, is using a tracking system on its vehicle fleet. Fleets belonging to the group’s catering, security service and maintenance companies all employ the Quartix tracking system.
Danny Alborough, Deputy Group Facilities Manager, says the system allows the group’s managers to determine choice areas for improvement, such as regulating speed and ensuring road safety: “We use the Speeding Reports to reduce speeding on motorways and in towns. The data provided by the Quartix system helped us bring our average top speeds down by 17 per cent.”
Accident rates from the previous year fell from 35 to 15. “This has been hugely beneficial for us with regards to our drivers’ road safety, which we deem to be very important,” Danny Alborough adds. “We were keen to inspire safer driving with the aid of telematics and the Quartix system allows us to do that. As a result, our drivers are now much more careful on the road.”
The system’s reports on utilisation and idling times let the group keep tabs on vehicle movement and fuel usage; and to combat vehicle theft, fleet managers can be notified of any signs of irregular activity using Geofencing alerts. Moreover, departments within Gratte Brothers make use of engineer time sheets to know the duration of on-site visits and travelling times, to better communicate with customers.
Initially, drivers were wary of vehicle tracking, mainly citing the system as invasive to their routines. “We had some feedback issues because drivers thought we were just watching them. But I went around the country and explained to our drivers what we were actually hoping to achieve using tracking, and they became more receptive.”
Gratte Brothers previously used another tracking system: “Contractually, we were stuck for two years with a system we barely used. I tried countless times to contact them for training and got no answer. Needless to say, I knew we were going to change suppliers when we had the chance.” Gratte Brothers looked into other options in the market: “One of the reasons we picked Quartix tracking from several other candidates was due to the flexible contract terms – specifically the option allowing 12 months followed by 1 month rolling.”
As for the customer service and support from Quartix: “The service from Quartix has exceeded our expectations. Queries are dealt with the same day and the staff are all friendly, reliable and very experienced. The system ticks all of our boxes and we use it every day in our service departments. Overall, the online application is very easy to use and the daily reports emailed to us are second to none. Quartix tracking plays a very important role in our day-to-day management – it has become a vital tool for us to run the fleet effectively!”
About Quartix
Founded in 2001, Quartix (www.quartix.co.uk) has more than 5,000 customers across a range of sectors – including government organisations, housing associations, construction firms, hospital trusts, the emergency services, SMEs and large British brands – use the online service, while the company’s own-design tracking system has been installed in over 80,000 vehicles.
