On 4 June 2021, the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Management Department hosted its first Smart Driver of the Year Winners’ award ceremony at the Smart Living Education Centre in Green Point. Read more below:
The City’s Environmental Management Department leads and manages the Smart Driver programme that cuts across all City directorates, and is aimed at training all City Fleet touch key drivers.
Currently, approximately 10 000 fleet drivers participate in this programme. They in turn get behind the wheels of about 8 000 City fleet vehicles on a daily basis.
To date, 5 500 drivers have completed their Smart Driver training and received their competency certificates.
The programme provides drivers of City-owned vehicles with the skills to develop sustainable driving habits, and exposes trainees to the importance of changing driving habits, mind-sets and driving styles. Apart from promoting driver safety and saving the City money, the new skills also have a positive impact on the environment. By improving driving skills, the driver can ensure fuel savings, cut CO² emissions and reduce maintenance costs, among other things.
This means:
* Improved driver safety by decreasing and preventing accidents
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* Drivers operating their fleet and own vehicles more efficiently and cost effectively (reducing fuel usage and maintenance costs, and increasing the asset life of the fleet)
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* Reduced vehicle carbon emissions that will have significant health and environmental benefits
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* Improved vehicle life span due to better driving techniques
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* Establishing a culture of vocational pride
* At the event, the 20 top performing fleet drivers received commendation certificates during the ceremony – ten drivers were emergency drivers from the Safety and Security department and the other ten were non-emergency drivers from other departments.
The top 10 staff from the Safety and Security Directorate who were honoured are:
* Thembekile Vani
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* Mzuzile Makeleni
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* Jacobus Fourie
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* Jacques Swanepoel
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* Mbuyiselo Ketelo
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* Randall Williams
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* Thembekile Van
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* Roderick Gubielo
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* Sakhikhaya Nyubuse
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* Thiron Syster
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* Zizipho Mnayini.
* The top 10 staff from other City Directorates who were honoured are:
* Elgar Andrews from Roads Infrastructure and Management, Transport
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* Everin van Rooyen and Monwabisi Kayita from City Health
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* Gillian Adriaanse from Social Development and Early Childhood
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* Harun Esterhuizen from Library and Information Services, Community Services and Health
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* Hilton Basson and Major Pama from Housing Development, Human Settlements
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* Nathan Scheepers and Zakhele Galdada from Solid Waste Management, Water and Waste
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* Sibusiso Tyuluba from Fleet Management, Economic Opportunities and Asset Management.
* The top performer for Safety and Security was Jacques Swanepoel and the top driver from the other departments was Harun Esterhuizen from Library and Information Services, Community Services and Health.
The overall winner was Jacques Swanepoel from the Fire and Rescue Department within the Safety and Security Directorate. He had the highest percentage driver improvement.
‘I am proud of the drivers who made use of this opportunity. Their new skills will ensure they are using City resources more efficiently. The programme is also in keeping with the City’s Environmental Strategy that strives for resource efficiency and low carbon development across City directorates. The City will keep on supporting innovative technologies and behavioural changes that promote resource efficiency and programmes that lower people’s carbon emissions and footprint,’ said City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Marian Nieuwoudt.
Each driver of a fleet vehicle is issued with a touch key (ID Tag) that is required to start and operate any vehicle. These touch keys must be renewed periodically to ensure credibility, while keeping up to date with the continuously advancing technology. Thus, it was decided that before a renewal can be processed, the driver will be required to first complete the mandatory training and be declared competent, and for this they received a Smart Driver competency certificate.
The On Board Computer system (touch key) information is currently used for monitoring driver behaviour. This monitors harsh braking, idling, speeding, harsh cornering, fuel usage, CO2 emissions and road safety, among other things.
‘The City Fleet drivers are monitored three months before they attended the Smart Driver training programme and 18 months after training. The difference is clear . We are already seeing significant fuel savings and (CO²) emission reductions,’ said Alderman Eddie Andrews, Chairperson of the City’s Spatial Planning and Environment Portfolio Committee.
In future, the Fleet Management Information System (FMIS) will add great value to the monitoring of fleet drivers. FMIS is a fully integrated solution that uploads data automatically and provides a shared platform for the management of all fleet related information. This will ensure integrity, efficiency, accuracy, reliability and sustainability across all fleets.
This will assist the City to get a much better picture of each of our fleet drivers and will assist greatly in terms of appropriate corrective actions where necessary, and also to acknowledge excellent drivers.
Caption 1: Alderman Eddie Andrews, Chairperson: Spatial Planning and Environment portfolio committee and Jacques Swanepoel, Fire and Rescue Department, Safety and Security Directorate
Caption 2: Jacques Swanepoel, Fire and Rescue Department, Safety and Security Directorate
Caption 3: Award ceremony attendees
Source: City Of Cape Town
