Dive Brief:

• New Jersey-based Action Environmental Group has made efforts to increase its internal safety team, leverage third-eye cameras to monitor drivers, and implement employee safety training and testing. These safety tools have contributed to a decrease in both incident severity and employee injuries, according to Action Environmental Safety Director Ken Levine, as reported in Waste360.
• Cameras record drivers and the road to check for safe practices, then the videos are forwarded to a third party who reviews them for violations. From there, drivers with infarctions are coached. The technology also helps facilitate route optimization, service verification, risky behavior mitigation, and crash documentation.
• Through a partnership with Vertical Alliance Group Action, employees also participate in a web-based safety program with training and testing components. Its safety teams meet regularly in a forum to revisit incidents and discuss ways to mitigate future ones.

Dive Insight:

A multipronged approach is playing out well to enforce a safety culture focused specifically on fleet operations and employees' day-to-day functions. The digital training and testing help gauge whether employees understand their errors and guide them along a safe course moving forward.

Regarding the driver footage, Levine says, "In the first three months ... I have personally seen a 30% to 50% reduction in risky behavior. In some cases, we have even seen the system play a serious role in workers’ compensation claim investigations," as reported in Waste360.

Action Environmental isn't the only company that has installed cameras. In March, Waste Pro announced that it would set up video systems in 1,800 of its trucks. The use of cameras has been used practically as well, including in one incident where a garbage truck drove off of an I-95 ramp in Florida. Officials were able to look at the DriveCam videos taken during that incident to evaluate the cause of the crash. 

Meanwhile, Action Environmental is trying to have an impact beyond its own walls and truck routes.

"We are considered a large regional company here, but to the Waste Managements and the Republics we are a small company," said Levine to Waste360. "Our ownership has stated that we need to be as safe as the Waste Managements of the world and with that in mind, we serve on the NWRA safety committee to get input for the smaller guys."