Jaama, the UK’s leading fleet industry asset management software system provider, will be showcasing new functionality introduced to its smartphone ‘MyVehicle App’ - a genuine fleet and transport industry game-changer - at this year’s Commercial Vehicle Show.
‘MyVehicle App’ was unveiled at last year’s Commercial Vehicle Show and since then Jaama customers with a combined total of more than 100,000 drivers have procured the tool.
At this year’s Commercial Vehicle Show, being held at the NEC in Birmingham, from April 24-26, Jaama will showcase a range of additional features specifically designed to help commercial vehicle operators reduce van and HGV downtime and ensure maximum compliance.
Those features include:
•‘MyVehicle App’ retaining a historic record of vehicle defects highlighted by drivers when undertaking daily checks, the rectification date and other details including the name of the person signing the vehicle back on to the road. That means that should a Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) enforcement officer stop a vehicle, the driver is in possession of a defect history record so reducing downtime and paperwork.
•Drivers being able to take a photo of a ‘critical’ defect and attach ‘off-road’ status to the commercial vehicle via ‘MyVehicle App’. That in turn, via auto-triggering will create an ‘urgent job’ alert in Jaama’s multi award-winning web-based vehicle, driver and workshop management solution Key2.
•A facility that combines ‘non-urgent’ vehicle defects notified by drivers via ‘MyVehicle App’ into one job thus reducing vehicle downtime. Rule sets within Key2 will link such reported defects together and where applicable to a vehicle service or MoT if imminent.
•The ability to log via ‘MyVehicle App’ ‘nil vehicle defects’. The additional function provides an audit trail of all vehicle checks irrespective of whether any defect was spotted.
•Drivers being restricted from adding a vehicle to ‘MyVehicle App’ if they do not have the required licence categories to drive it, for example if not holding an HGV licence. The preventative measure is designed to maximise compliance and links from the applicable licence categories section in Key2’s ‘asset type manager’.
It is the third consecutive year that Jaama has exhibited at the Commercial Vehicle Show and such was the past interest from fleet decision-makers, transport operators, senior managers and engineers in both ‘MyVehicle App’ and the company’s industry-leading Key2 technology that it is returning in 2018.
More than 1.2 million vehicles are now managed via Key2 with the mark broken after Jaama reported that it had sold a record number of vehicle management systems to car and commercial vehicle fleets, contract hire and leasing companies and rental specialists in 2017 up 84.5% on 2016.
Jaama, an Associate member of the Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) and a partner to the Freight Transport Association’s Van Excellence scheme, is firmly focused on helping fleets achieve compliance best practice through implementation of Key2 and the roll-out of ‘MyVehicle App’. Many Jaama customers have already achieved FORS bronze, silver or gold accreditation and are also Van Excellence accredited.
Furthermore, one of the reasons for development of the new functionality within ‘MyVehicle App’ was the DVSA’s launch of its Earned Recognition pilot scheme last year. The pilot, which involves Jaama customers, sees the feeding of vehicle compliance information, including from daily walk-around vehicle inspection checks as recorded by drivers using ‘MyVehicle App’, directly into the DVSA database.
The information recorded by fleet/transport managers demonstrates to the DVSA that fleets are practicing robust and timely compliance methods.
Jaama managing director Martin Evans said: “The Earned Recognition Scheme initiative is designed to reduce the number of vehicle roadside checks by DVSA enforcement officers. Roadside checks typically have an impact on business efficiency because they inevitably result in delays and subsequent fines from customers for missing allocated time slots. Additionally, vehicle defects found in checks can result in legal action and trigger a chain reaction nightmare for bosses.”
‘MyVehicle App’ is beneficial to fleet/transport operators in many areas including:
•Significantly reducing administration time for fleet/transport managers by providing information to drivers on a ‘self-help’ basis, which is fast-becoming an essential requirement, and negates the need for further manual intervention.
•The immediate notification of any vehicle-related accident/incident – and importing of information to Key2 – ensures speedier management in terms of recovery of vehicle and driver; notification to insurers; and alerting clients of any impact thus further improving customer service.
•Greater compliance around ‘daily checks’ critically increases audit trail accuracy to meet duty of care regulations in respect of who is driving which vehicle, notably when multiple vehicles are available to different drivers.
•Increasing overall management efficiency by streamlining operations which in turn minimises off road times and ultimately reduces costs.
Mr Evans continued: “Jaama is committed to further improving standards within the commercial vehicle operating sector. Regulatory compliance is essential for all commercial vehicle fleets and that can prove administratively burdensome without the solutions in place to efficiently and effectively manage vehicles and drivers.
“‘MyVehicle App’, via auto-triggering, works in tandem with Key2 so drivers and their fleet/transport managers have all the very latest data relating to service, maintenance and repair and other vital compliance information, including odometer readings, at their fingertips to keep businesses at the cutting-edge of operational management.”
In an age of ever-increasing mobility and connectivity, ‘MyVehicle App’ was designed by Jaama following extensive customer, technological and usability research. ‘MyVehicle App’ is available from the App Store and deployable to Android and iOS devices.