Motor Transport Awards 2021 shortlist: Innovation Award – sponsored by Goodyear Dunlop Tyres

Balfour Beatty Plant and Fleet Services

Balfour Beatty Plant and Fleet Services, in partnership with Connect Plus Services, has designed, built and delivered an innovative system that enables maintenance crews to collect litter of all shapes, sizes and weights from the roadside with the use of a handheld vacuum device. The device is serviced by a bespoke machine, mounted on a truck bed. The litter is deposited into a compartment, with any dust contained through a specialised filter.

The litter picker was developed to ensure the vehicle improved health and safety when working on the UK’s busiest motorway, while also improving the rate of litter picking. Through the implementation of the vacuum pump, which pulls litter in with suction as opposed to teams collecting the waste, the machine has proven to increase the speed at which litter can be collected while reducing the amount of time workers spend in a live highway environment.

The judges said: “This entry really stood out as solving a unique challenge in removing danger from roadside working.”

Brigade Electronics

Brigade Electronics has developed its latest safety system, SideScanPredict, using artificial intelligence technology that constantly gathers object detection data, such as the speed and distance of a cyclist or other vulnerable road user from a lorry. Additional technology in the system gathers information such as the speed, direction, acceleration, and the turning rate of a vehicle. This data feeds an algorithm created by Brigade to calculate the risk of a collision with cyclists and/or pedestrians alongside the vehicle. The system is always switched on when the vehicle’s speed is below 22mph/30kph, regardless of the indicator selection, and cannot be deactivated by the driver.

By creating a predictive system, false alarms are significantly reduced allowing the driver to be confident in the accuracy of the warning. SideScanPredict also differentiates static objects such as road furniture from moving objects such as pedestrians and cyclists and only sends audible alerts to the driver when there is a potential risk of collision.

The judges said: “A great innovation that tackles the increasing challenge of vulnerable road user safety.”

eDriving

The Mentor by eDriving smartphone app identifies risky driving behaviours for intervention and safe driving habits for recognition. Features include micro-training and coaching, collision reporting, vehicle inspections, and an individual FICO Safe Driving Score validated to predict the likelihood of being involved in a collision.

Through a five-stage, crash-free culture risk-reduction methodology, eDriving helps organisations embrace safety as a strategic imperative and build a company-wide culture of safety. The company’s Virtual Risk Manager platform integrates and analyses on-road driver performance data within a privacy-first, data-secure environment that supports drivers and managers every step of the way.

The judges said: “The technology clearly addresses the challenge of driver behaviour and offers a wide range of modules for operators.”

Lytx

When it comes to monitoring vehicle incidents, Lytx realised that fleet managers faced three main issues. Firstly, managers were only seeing part of the picture – that an incident had occurred. Secondly, they had to watch hours of footage to find the incident. Finally, many drivers saw cameras in the cab not as an aid to safety but as Big Brother.

To overcome these challenges, Lytx examined the role that AI-powered technology could play, particularly how it could be used to identify behaviours not triggered by a G-force, and act as a second pair of eyes for drivers. The result was Lytx’s enhanced machine vision and AI-powered video telematics solution, which features four new risk-detection capabilities and gives fleet managers an insight into risky driving behaviours, such as mobile phone use or failure to wear a seatbelt.

The judges said: “There was a very clear focus on road safety and strong supporting evidence provided in the entry.”

TyreWatch

TyreWatch noted that technicians in tyre and vehicle servicing have become scarce, therefore better use of this limited resource and more support from digital and automated technology is key. It developed a robust, fully automated platform to enable digital tyre management to be conducted from anywhere remotely.

Suitable for use on all brands of tyres and vehicle make, key features include pressure checks, temperature monitoring, predictive time to becoming critical, remote automated monitoring, automated alerts and reports, and environmental impact measuring of CO2.

TyreWatch said tyres can naturally deflate by 2% to 3% every month without effective monitoring. However, by using TyreWatch’s automated system, operators can achieve fuel savings of between 1% and 2%, improved tyre life up to 30%, a reduction in CO2 and particulate emissions, and improved road safety.

The judges said: “An excellent entry that clearly identified the challenge to be solved.”