Arnold Transportation Renews SmartDrive Partnership with Multi-Year Contract

Fleet experiences 57% reduction in mobile phone use, 56% improvement in seatbelt usage and 27% reduction in unsafe lane changes in the last six months

SmartDrive Systems, a leader in video-based safety and transportation intelligence, today announced that Arnold Transportation Services, the Original Regional Carrier, renewed its SmartDrive^® video-based safety program through 2023, citing tangible and significant safety improvements experienced as a result of adoption. Since implementing the SmartDrive program in 2015, Arnold Transportation continues to experience improved safety results, including a 57% reduction in mobile phone dialing and texting, 27% reduction in unsafe lane changes and a 56% improvement in seatbelt violations in just the last six months.

SmartDrive forward-facing camera captures safe driving of Arnold driver when a passenger vehicle cuts in front of the truck.

Headquartered in Grand Prairie, Texas, Arnold is a full-service, regional truckload carrier, offering a wide range of services to ensure on-time delivery of consignees’ freight. With a heritage dating back to 1932, Arnold prides itself on its flexible, performance-driven culture. Safety is at the core of Arnold’s company mission to be a safe carrier, take care of their people and provide a good service.

“While we host other technology throughout our fleet, SmartDrive provides the largest and most immediate return on investment,” said Bob Oakes, vice president of safety and operations at Arnold Transportation Services. “As a small safety department, we appreciate the managed service aspect of the SmartDrive program. It provides us with the information we need to focus our efforts and allows us to easily coach 100% of the events.”

Arnold utilizes the cab-facing camera to engage in open dialogue about driving behaviors and provides the foundation for great coaching. “The cab-facing camera gives us so many opportunities to coach drivers’ bad habits, habits they don’t even realize they have, along with recognizing good driving skills that prevent incidents from happening,” explained Oakes. “It’s an eye-opening experience for them when they see their video and are convinced that they don’t engage in the behavior being coached. As a result, our drivers are now being proactive and calling to tell me about something that just occurred.”

As part of its continued partnership, Arnold has upgraded its event recorders to the SR4 hardware platform. The upgrade provides Arnold with unprecedented computing power required for computer vision, new sensors for advanced risk identification and real-time driver-assist—all in a small, flexible footprint. The innovative architecture of the SR4 platform, with up to 512GB on-board data capacity, enables the convergence of data, devices and network connectivity, with a best-in-class video safety program.

“As a regional carrier, the majority of our miles are through big cities where the potential for collisions increase due to distracted driving, lane changes and overall traffic,” explains Oakes. “With the rise of lawsuits and verdicts hitting both transportation and insurance companies, video safety is simply a cost of doing business and the SmartDrive program not only protects us, but helps us improve year-over-year.”

“We are delighted that Arnold continues to see positive results and is one of a growing number of fleets to experience the wide-ranging advantages of the SmartDrive program,” said Steve Mitgang, SmartDrive CEO. “With our nearly 100% customer renewal rate, Arnold joins many other fleets in citing SmartDrive’s outstanding service and results delivered as the basis for their decision to renew. The fleet’s leadership and its drivers should be commended for recognizing the value and power of our video-based safety and analytics platform to drive operational improvement and business results.”

Category: Connected Fleet News, Driver Stuff, Featured, Fleet Diagnostics & Software, Fleet Tracking, General Update, News, Safety