Proactively monitoring drowsy driving to prevent accidents

With a large portion of their fleet running overnight, safeguarding their drivers and the public from drowsiness is top of mind for DHL. Before Samsara, they relied on driver and witness accounts when investigating drowsy-driving incidents. 

With the Drowsiness Detection alert, DHL’s approach to driver fatigue has gone from reactive to proactive. In-cab alerts help keep drivers focused and if a drowsy event occurs, real-time notifications alert management to check on their driver. “When a driver shows signs of fatigue, we get them off the road to take a break or send out a relief driver—those are all accidents avoided and lives saved,” said David Russeau, Systems Operations Manager. 

In combination with the Drowsiness Detection alert, DHL uses Lane Departure Warnings as another indicator of fatigue—if a driver is not maintaining their lane and they’ve received a Drowsiness Detection alert, it’s likely that the driver needs to rest.

Drivers feel empowered and protected by Samsara

“We have a tagline at DHL Supply Chain that we change the behavior, not the employer,” said Jennifer Miller, Vice President of Integrated Transportation. “We don’t want to turn our drivers over—we want to empower them to change their behavior and keep them in the family.”

With Samsara’s Video-Based Safety solution, DHL can coach drivers proactively on leading indicators. Every driver in the DHL Supply Chain network has a weekly “performance dialogue,” where they receive personalized coaching based on Samsara data. “We’ve really moved from lagging metrics on safety to leading metrics,” said Miller. “With Samsara, we're getting ahead of the behaviors that cause accidents.”

Gamification of safety through Samsara Driver Safety Scores has been particularly impactful, motivating drivers to self-correct risky behaviors before they become bigger issues. Because coaches regularly mark safety events as “recognized” to acknowledge drivers for taking appropriate actions, drivers trust the accuracy of their Safety Scores.

Drivers’ trust in Samsara is further bolstered by on-demand Video Retrieval, which has helped DHL exonerate drivers from not-at-fault accidents and false claims. This has been key to driver buy-in, transforming their safety culture. In fact, their drivers feel so engaged and protected by Samsara AI Dash Cams, many now prefer to drive vehicles with this technology. 

“The two hardest things for any leader to change in their workforce are culture and behavior,” said Fred Matthews, Senior Manager of Safety. “What’s really remarkable about Samsara is the positive culture and behavior changes it enables.”

Next-level efficiency, made possible by industry-leading telematics

By integrating Samsara with their two biggest maintenance providers, DHL automatically delivers real-time alerts for DVIR defects and engine fault codes to their mechanics. As a result, they have significantly increased vehicle uptime. “It’s huge for us that we narrowed our communication gap when it comes to diagnostics and repairs,” said Matthews. “Follow-through is significantly faster.” Similarly, automated IFTA reporting has been a game changer for their operators, increasing back-office efficiency by eliminating previously manual work.

A future-ready partner for fleet electrification

DHL has a corporate goal to reduce their logistics-related emissions to net-zero by the year 2050. Electrification is a key component of their strategy, so they needed a partner that could provide EV telematics such as charging insights, battery health, and EV route planning. “With Samsara, we chose a technology partner that is ahead of the curve, with a clear vision and a focus on EVs,” said Miller. “When our EVs come online, we don’t have to add an additional vendor. That readiness is going to enable us to move faster in reaching our electrification goals.”

Complete trailer visibility means a better customer experience

DHL Supply Chain often transports high-value and temperature-sensitive items for their customers. Before, they manually tracked trailers to determine load status and location. If a shipment went missing, it could take up to two days to search the yard and locate the trailer, which was especially challenging with perishable goods. “Previously, trailer management was difficult—reporting was minimal and separate from our routing and ELD solutions,” said David Russeau, Systems Operations Manager.

With Samsara’s Smart Trailer solution, they have complete, real-time visibility into trailer location, cargo, and temperature. “Cargo Monitors allow us to report on which trailers have product and what the temperatures are, both in the yard and at delivery,” said Russeau. This visibility, along with real-time location tracking, enables DHL to eliminate manual yard hunts and quickly locate trailers and cargo. “Samsara consolidates this information into a single platform, allowing us to track our trailers’ location, status, and idle times,” said Russeau. As a result, their operators can more confidently monitor cargo location and integrity for their customers.

To further ensure the most efficient service to customers, DHL uses the trailer Mismatch Alert to make sure each tractor is pulling the correct trailer. With this alert, DHL avoids costly delays and HOS violations as a result of excess driving time.

“We have deployed almost every type of Samsara device in the field—not just dash cams and telematics but also trailer tracking, temperature monitoring, and cargo monitoring,” said Miller. “It allows us to understand very quickly what’s going on across our operations, within one platform.

Proactive maintenance improves CSA score and road safety

Previously, DHL had limited visibility into trailer health—they relied on pre-trip inspections to report issues and lamp statuses which put them at risk for CSA violations. Smart Trailers’ ABS monitoring gives DHL complete visibility into trailer health so they can find issues before trailers hit the road.

Using the Health Graph and Fault History Report, DHL prioritizes maintenance and repairs, and avoids assigning faulty trailers to loads or drivers. With a proactive maintenance program, DHL gets ahead of ABS lamps—a roadside inspection target—as faulty brakes are both common and dangerous. “One accident or violation is one too many,” said Russeau. “Focusing on ABS improved our CSA score and means safer vehicles on the road, which is just good business.”

Trailer reallocation saves money and improves efficiency

“We didn't have a readily available utilization report. Keeping track of trailers fell to the site level, so visibility for upper management was slim,” said Russeau. “We ended up with a surplus of trailers because we didn't know where they were located.” Now, in combination with Samsara Utilization Reports and GPS tracking, DHL can identify and reallocate underutilized trailers to sites in need, avoiding new trailer purchases.

A seamless DVIR experience

With the Samsara Driver App, DHL customized their electronic DVIR (eDVIR) workflow to walk drivers through each step—making the process easier and more thorough. Once drivers submit an eDVIR, their mechanics are automatically notified of any defects via integrations with multiple maintenance partners, eliminating communication delays. “The quality and ease-of-use of the Driver App has helped our drivers a lot,” said Miller. “It has not only simplified the DVIR process, but helped us reinforce why doing DVIRs properly is so important,” said Miller.

Preventing HOS violations 

To proactively monitor HOS compliance and prevent violations, DHL Supply Chain’s sites receive alerts 30 minutes before a driver risks violating HOS rules. When alerted, supervisors check the driver's location and if they’re at risk of violation, they come up with a plan to maintain compliance—such as taking a rest break. With transportation supervisors often overseeing up to 50 drivers at once, this alert helps them proactively address the situation before it's too late.

Navigation, simplified

Before Samsara, DHL drivers had to manually type in every stop on their route to get directions. Now, they can simply tap “navigate” on the Samsara Driver App to access navigation for their entire route—a seamless navigation experience powered by Samsara’s integration with Sygic.  “There's no extra work for the driver,” said Miller. “Something as simple as that changes the driver’s day.”

Trustworthy data, seamless integrations, actionable insights

Because DHL’s transportation management system (TMS) powers their global visibility tools for their customers, it’s critical that their data is accurate, reliable, and updated in real time. With Samsara, they have found a partner they can trust to be the source of truth at the heart of their operations.

“The ease of integrating Samsara data—and the quality of the data—is key,” said Miller. “Bringing all of our systems together with data we can trust has been a game changer.”

In addition to their TMS, integrations with Ortec for routing and dispatching, multiple maintenance partners for electronic DVIRs, several fuel card providers for fuel transactions, and Kronos for driver hours and payroll have streamlined workflows touching nearly every aspect of their operations. They also use Samsara’s open API to feed data directly into Power BI dashboards, which combine data from Samsara and other sources to shed light on trends across both divisions.

“As a result, we have unlocked truly transformative analytics and insights for our business,” said Miller. “It’s incredibly valuable to have a partner that enables this kind of innovation.”