Driver Safety Scorecards: How Fleet Driver Scoring Works

A driver safety scorecard is a system that converts a driver's on-road actions into a number, typically 100, which is comparable to other drivers. It does this in telematics by tracking events like harsh braking, rapid acceleration, speeding or idling, assigning a risk value to these events, factoring in the amount of time the driver drove, and then adding them up into a single number. Scorecards help fleets gain an instant view of which drivers are safe and which require coaching, and monitor improvements over time. There is no single universal formula; the items that are scored and the weight given to them varies across providers.

At a Glance

What is a Driver Safety Scorecard?

A driver safety scorecard is a way of quantifying driving behavior and communicating it in a single number, which can be compared, tracked and acted upon. A motor manager instead of reading through a long list of individual events will see one number, typically out of 100, which will answer the simple question: How is this driver doing, and how do they compare with the rest of the fleet?

The concept is on the end of a chain. Each individual behaviour has its own risk and cost and the habits that lie behind eco-driving each have their own scorecard and risk and cost; the scorecard puts all of this into one comparable measure and makes driver behaviour manageable at fleet scale, rather than as isolated events.

What's the Driver Scorecard?

Most scorecards are created from driving events that the telematics can detect, as these events have been selected because they are associated with risk. The exact set depends on the provider and the hardware, but typical inputs include:

Rapid braking and acceleration, two of the hallmarks of reactive, aggressive driving.

Avoid hard cornering or making corners too fast, in terms of lateral force.

Driving too fast, or faster than posted or some pre-set maximum speed.

Excessive idle time, running engine with vehicle at a standstill.

Use of seatbelts and phones, collisions and near-misses, on systems with appropriate sensors or AI cameras.

For example, Motive's Safety Score documentation includes speeding, harsh braking and acceleration, hard cornering and distracted driving. What can be monitored on a scorecard depends on the hardware: use of phones, seatbelts, and collisions require the right sensors or AI cameras, and not all systems monitor them. A scorecard should be seen as a set of risk indicators that one provider has selected to include in the package, rather than a standard set of indicators for the industry.

What is Meant by a Driver Score?

The short answer is Events are given a weight based on their risk level, adjust the total based on the amount of driving the driver completed, and a score is derived, typically out of 100. How this is done depends on the provider.

It is easier to understand with an example. Although how the telematics provider Quartix builds its driving-style score is different from other providers, they have all followed the same general pattern, which is published by Quartix.

One illustrative example (not a universal formula or a feature in Fleet Stack): Let's say that two drivers each log 4 bad events in a week. The first ones, Driver A's, are all mild, and the second ones, Driver B's, are two severe ones over 200 km. A raw counts them equally: "four events each. However, since the severity of each incident is weighted and the total is divided by distance, the severe events over a short distance given by B do much more to influence the score, and so a well-constructed score gives a higher score to A. Because of this, it is important to take into account severity weighting and exposure normalisation, as the numbers will vary based on the provider's model.

A colour banding is sometimes given for scores, with green being the best, amber in the middle and red for attention. What is important is that a score is only as useful as the process used to obtain it, and that a score of 85 on one system does not equate to a score of 85 on another.

Why Use Driver Scorecards?

A scorecard is important because it makes the invisible elements of behaviour visible so that they can be acted upon consistently by a fleet. It identifies risk early, as a declining score will alert a driver that he or she might need assistance before a near-miss turns into a collision. It allows a comparison of a long haul driver to a short run driver in a level way which was impossible when the event count was used. It allows you to see if coaching is working by comparing scores over time to the fleet's previous scores. Good driving is recognised, not just problems; it's about the safest drivers. These benefits are inextricably linked to safety, fuel and maintenance trends, so scorecards are generally not used as standalone programs, but as part of a broader driver management program.

What defines a fair and reliable driver score?

It's important to not jump to conclusions about the score before making an action, it's a risk marker, NOT proof of the person being at fault or driving unsafely. The variables such as route and traffic, vehicle type, sensor capability, thresholds used and the scoring window, and data quality can all play a role in the outcome, which can vary between two careful drivers on two completely different runs without their fault. The key to a scorecard is the trust that the drivers of the business have in it, and how it is constructed and utilized can be as important as the maths itself. There are some principles that distinguish a scorecard that makes things safer, from one that leads to resentment.

A scorecard treated in this way becomes a tool that drivers are willing to accept as a form of coaching, not a league table that resembles a form of surveillance.

What are Fleet Manager's options when using Scores for Coaching?

A score is not a judgement, it's a place to begin a conversation. If a driver has a poor score or is dropping, it's important to look into the situation before making a decision:

When used like this, scores point coaching where it is needed and fit seamlessly into a manager's wider driver behaviour monitoring and live GPS tracking and harsh-event alerts, not take their place.

When selecting driver scoring software, there are several factors to take into account.

When picking a system for scoring drivers, features which are important score in a way that is fair, understandable and actionable. A short checklist:

FAQs

In simple terms, what is a driver safety scorecard?
A single score, typically out of 100, that reflects driving safety. It is created using telematics data on events such as harsh braking and speeding, enabling a fleet to benchmark drivers and identify who needs coaching without having to trawl through all the trips.

What is the formula for a driver's score?
The severity of each one of the risky events is assigned a weight, the total is scaled according to the distance or time the driver has driven and the outcome is converted to a score. The formula may differ between providers, and therefore the number could refer to different things on different systems.

What's included on a driver scorecard?
Typical braking, fast acceleration, hard cornering, excessive speed, and idling, and on systems with the appropriate sensors, seatbelt usage and distracted driving. There is no set standard set of mix, as providers choose their own.

What are the challenges of creating driver scorecards?
Normalizing the data (by distance or time, so that they can be compared on a level playing field), being clear about what is being measured, reviewing serious events in context (ideally with video) and coaching and recognizing good driving through scores, not just penalties.

Are driver scorecards effective for safety?
They are intended to, by making risk-taking behaviour visible, be coached before it results in an incident, however their true impact is dependent on how a fleet uses them. It's fair design and supportive coaching that count for as much as the score and progress is best judged against previous scores.

What's a decent driving score?
This will vary by system as scales and bands vary. Many scorecards employ colour bands (green being the safest driver's, red the driver that requires attention), which is often more indicative than the raw number and the trend over time is equally important.

Your Fleet Platform and Driver Scorecards

A driver scorecard is only as useful as the data included and the confidence drivers have in it. Data about a fleet's drivers that should be used to understand and coach them is stored in self-hosted GPS tracking and fleet ERP platforms like Fleet Stack, allowing it to be held on infrastructure that you control and facilitating the type of fair, transparent review described in this article. For an appreciation of the role of driver scoring in the broader context of fleet management, begin with the overall fleet management guide.

About the author:Prerit Khera is CEO and Co-Founder of Fleet Stack (a brand of Quantumlogic Private Limited), with hands-on experience integrating GPS tracker protocols (GT06, Teltonika, Queclink and others) into fleet platforms. Before founding Fleet Stack, he worked at Tata Motors, and today he leads the company’s push to connect fleets worldwide through IoT telematics software. Connect on LinkedIn.