Analysis of the Influence of Training and Feedback Based on Event Data Recorder Information to Improve Safety, Operational and Economic Performance of Road Freight Transport in Brazil

Luid Pereira De Oliveira,Marcelino Aurélio Vieira Da Silva,Diana Mery Messias Lopes,Breno Tostes De Gomes Garcia,Felipe Jiménez Alonso

doi:10.3390/su12198139

Abstract

Road transport is the principal means of transporting freight and passengers in most developing countries, but several factors, both alone and in conjunction, contribute to increased inefficiency, risk and instability in the sector. The main factors are related to the high number of accidents, structural precariousness, fleet obsolescence, low-skilled drivers and high rates of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper evaluates the influence of implementing a training and feedback procedure associated with event data recorder (EDR) systems for the promotion of better behavior among professional drivers based on safety, operation and economy criteria. The analyses are based on interventions that were carried out during four monitoring phases using data generated by vehicles collected over 13 months of research. The data were converted into indicators and evaluated individually against the criteria and through data envelopment analysis (DEA). The analyses led to the conclusions that the use of EDR systems had positive impacts on all three of the criteria under analysis, and that safety levels can be increased without having to reduce productivity or increase fuel consumption. However, the safety criterion was more sensitive to the association between the technology and training process applied, leading to significant reductions in the indicators analyzed. The study contributes to the association between the methods of analysis and the adoption of specific indicators derived from time variables, leading to the conclusion that the use of EDR systems associated with management training and monitoring procedures can improve economic and operational results in road freight transport (RFT). Furthermore, using the trip data as a structural basis for the training and feedback proved to be very promising for the reduction of unsafe behavior to avoid road accidents.

Highlights

In Brazil, road transport represents 61% of transport volume
Data published in [11] indicate that the total cost of traffic accidents on Brazilian roads has been about USD 7.89 billion, which adjusted by the Hamonised Index of Consumer Price (HICP) to values of December 2017 reaches USD 12.69 billion
This paper evaluates the results of applying a specific training procedure, developed by us, based on the data collected by the event data recorder (EDR) systems, and evaluates the efficiency indices calculated from those data through data envelopment analysis (DEA) with respect to safety, operational and economic criteria during different monitoring phases

Summary

Introduction

In Brazil, road transport represents 61% of transport volume. This creates an imbalance due to the excess supply of road transport, which favors unfair competition with other modes of transport and limits the emergence of a scale that would justify investments in transport segments with higher fixed costs [1]. To understand the causes of this inefficiency in Brazil, data presented by several authors were analyzed, including [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28] Based on these sources, it was possible to prepare an Ishikawa diagram (a cause and effect diagram) in which the problem (effect) was inefficiency in the Brazilian RFT, and the causes were the following factors: vehicular, human, economic, environmental, safety and infrastructure (Figure 1). Ref. [33] found relationships among vehicular, human and structural factors in the occurrence of accidents

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Results