Samsara Honors 5 Fleets Powering the Economy

Samsara announced the winners of its annual 2020 Top Fleet Awards, honoring the exceptional fleets that power the economy. The winners and finalists were selected based on their ability to drive tech-forward programs that delivered a considerable impact for their organization and community.

The Samsara award categories recognize outstanding performance across safety, driver experience, innovation, efficiency and productivity, and the public sector.

This year's winners include a waste services provider, a trucking and logistics company, a for-hire fleet, a heavy civil construction fleet, and a public-fleet solid waste division. 

Safest Fleet: Sprint Waste Services

The Top Fleet Award for Safest Fleet recognizes fleets that have made a lasting impact on safety in their organization. This fleet demonstrates a relentless commitment to safety initiatives that drove significant improvements in accident frequency and severity, risky behavior (like speeding), and associated costs.

Sprint Waste is a waste services provider for large businesses across Houston and the Gulf Coast. The fleet saw incredible results from its safety program, increasing miles per safety incident by almost 51%, reducing speeding by 58%. By decreasing the frequency and severity of accidents, Sprint Waste estimates a savings of approximately $500,000 in its recent insurance renewal. Sprint Waste was also able to exonerate drivers from 52% of its accidents in 2019, resulting in millions of dollars in savings of potential litigation costs.

Before rolling out dash cams to the fleet, President Dave Nelson demonstrated his commitment to safety by installing one in his own personal vehicle. All owner-operators they work withalso agreed to install dash cams and participate in their video-based coaching program. Additionally, to ensure accountability and reinforce safety as a daily exercise, Sprint Waste manages a “Safety Calendar” of safety activities across all 14 of their locations. Activities include mock inspections and hidden “red tags” for drivers to find during pre-trip inspections. By engaging and rewarding drivers, Sprint Waste has further decreased their already stellar driver turnover rate to just 25.6%.

Finalists: Archer Daniels Midlands, Swire Coca-Cola

Best Fleet for Drivers: GP Transco

The Top Fleet Award for Best Fleet for Drivers recognizes fleets that have built a culture centered on the driver experience. This fleet understands that an organization’s success starts with their drivers, and invests in technology to make a quantifiable, positive impact on their drivers’ day-to-day workflow.

GP Transco, a trucking and logistics company operating outside of Chicago, is committed to elevating the driver experience. To better understand the needs of their drivers, they used surveys to collect feedback and Samsara to uncover inefficiencies. With these insights, the team implemented driver-focused solutions that improved their operations.

Last year, GP Transco launched a program to reward the top 50% of drivers with a monetary bonus each month based on their fuel efficiency. The company was able to save 205,000 gallons of fuel—the equivalent of $350,000—to help fund the bonus program.

Additionally, GP Transco continues to create new safety policies based on driver feedback. For example, they added another layer to their existing company policy against using a hand-held device while operating a motor vehicle by asking dispatchers to confirm drivers are hands-free before engaging in a phone conversation.

Finalists: Carter Logistics, Rock Solid Stabilization & Reclamation.

Fleet Innovator: ArcBest

The Top Fleet Award for Fleet Innovator recognizes fleets that are trailblazers in their field — a technology-forward fleet that uses telematics and integrations to build a connected operation.

ArcBest is the 14th largest for-hire fleet in the United States and includes nearly 7,000 drivers. They offer everything from long haul to less than load to final mile services. Pragmatic innovators, the ArcBest team is invested in using technology to do more with less: starting with reducing the complexity of their operations. They connect current and new technologies to automate repetitive tasks, improve data accuracy, and increase overall efficiency. Ultimately, less complexity means more time to focus on their customers.

Last year, ArcBest designed and worked to deploy 32 new API endpoints to develop a more connected operation between their internal systems and the Samsara platform. The team regularly shares their expertise with Samsara, building a partnership that has influenced new products that will benefit fleets of all sizes.

By integrating Samsara Hours of Service data with their in-house compliance tool, they were able to decrease time spent on managing unassigned HOS by 50% resulting in better ELD compliance.

Finalists: MacAllister, Outwest Express

Excellence in Performance: Goodfellow Bros.

The Top Fleet Award for Excellence in Performance recognizes fleets that are raising the bar for efficiency, productivity, quality, and customer service. Fleets considered for this category are laser-focused on their operation, turning visibility into quantifiable improvements with real business impact.

Goodfellow Bros is in the heavy-civil construction industry operating across the western United States, including Hawaii. Their primary mission is to do the right thing when nobody's watching andcomplete jobs on time and under budget. This was critical during their work to clean up the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, one of the worst natural disasters in history.

To accomplish this, Goodfellow Bros. leveraged Samsara’s technology to complete the task 10 months ahead of schedule and vastly under budget. Goodfellow Bros. was able to improve their routing and dispatch efficiency to decrease haul times by 40% and reduce billable hours by 20%. Furthermore, Goodfellow Bros. improved the efficiency of their operations, which has helped save taxpayer dollars and improve quality of life for over 50,000 local residents.

Finalist: KeHE

Excellence in Public Fleet Management: Athens-Clarke County

The Top Fleet Award for Excellence in Public Fleet Management recognizes public organizations who have used fleet technology to improve quality of life in our cities, counties, states, and schools.

The Solid Waste Division at Athens-Clarke County provides waste collection, recycling, composting, and tree trimming services to over 125,000 residents across 117 square miles. The community has high expectations of their public servants, and Athens-Clarke County made great strides to efficiently serve the public by transforming their collections operations in a number of ways.

They saved more than 12,400 pieces of paper, improved billing accuracy, and reduced staff hours by using the Samsara Driver App to digitize paperwork, like route sheets, violation forms, and more. Athens-Clarke County also improved the safety of their fleet, coaching drivers with route playbacks and feedback from driver scorecards. They saw a 50% decrease in harsh events, and a reduction in the frequency of unsafe turnarounds. Furthermore, tracking route performance allowed the county to expand their service area while achieving a 58% improvement in fuel efficiency.

Athens-Clarke County epitomizes public sector innovation and excellence by providing essential services to their community and demonstrating accountability to county leaders and taxpayers.

Finalists: MBTA, City of Auburn