Hardy & Harper Improves Collision Detection, Reduces Fuel Costs by 24%, and Optimizes Operations with Motive

It rarely rains in Southern California. We have great weather, but varying traffic conditions. Alert drivers who follow the rules of the road, signal before lane changes, and keep a safe distance between vehicles still have plenty to worry about with heavy traffic and aggressive drivers on the road. With commercial drivers, the stakes are even higher.

As we grew at Hardy & Harper, the stakes got really high and we initiated a comprehensive evaluation of dual-facing AI dash cams. Adopting a new platform with Motive has been transformational for us in terms of advancing safety, reducing costs and helping the company scale and grow. Now, we have a single system that gives us data and insights regarding safety and spend management together. Early estimates reflect a 24% reduction in fuel spend and obvious improvements in driver behavior. We've got more road to pave ahead of us, but we can also see plenty of paved road in the rear-view mirror.

Unfortunately, accidents happen, and when they do, we need to immediately know the what, when, where, and why. It’s one thing when a private vehicle—like a car or SUV—is part of a collision. But when a commercial truck is involved, that’s a whole different ball game, especially when it is owned or operated by a company like ours. 

Hardy & Harper is a very successful paving company. In business since 1946, we specialize in asphalt paving, slurry seal, concrete, and sidewalk grinding and our employee numbers can surge to nearly 150 in our busy season. We dedicate much of our resources to the success of our field employees, so our front office runs lean and mean.  

It's not easy to manage a fleet of up to 300 vehicles and a group of drivers with varying levels of experience. As our Equipment Manager, I have taken on several roles that aid in the success of our team and fleet. Creating standard processes is incredibly important in an atmosphere that absorbs mass quantities of adversity, information, and challenges. Managing equipment, acquisitions, retirements, cost, utilization and maintenance just scratch on the surface of what's required. I am also heavily involved in our safety program, including everything from building and maintaining our new injury and illness prevention program (IIPP), scheduling and maintaining safety training, creating and standardizing processes, and measuring KPIs to keep our fleet, facilities, employees, and operations safe.

Outgrowing the Status Quo

Standardizing—and in many cases, creating—some of our processes has been a big lift. One of our biggest concerns was developing a more proactive approach to collision detection and notification. We didn’t have a consistent system or plan to follow after an incident. We didn’t know what truly happened when an accident occurred, and there were no KPIs to monitor our safety performance and processes when dealing with vehicle collisions. Everything was reactive. The only commonality we had in every case was that our company name was on our vehicle and we were almost always deemed at fault.

Our system couldn’t scale to keep up with the number of new units we were operating and the growth of our business, either. The situation wasn’t anyone’s fault. The company had added a lot of units to the fleet in the last few years, which grew a whopping 31% in 2017, another 52% between 2019–2021, and an additional 25% between 2022–2023. There was no one on the team who had the experience needed or capacity to proactively manage the fleet.  

We had to do better and we did attempt some improvements. For example, in 2020, we onboarded a market-leading GPS service. However, without proper leadership and support by the GPS provider to help build the customizable framework needed to make a seamless and scalable launch, it was doomed to fail.

All Providers Are Not Created Equal 

In 2022, Hardy & Harper hired me to take control of the fleet. My very first task was to get an accurate inventory of what existed and what didn't. Spreadsheets are useful, but practically dead due to their reliance on constant input. I then went to our current GPS provider for help, but found their data was inaccurate and lacked credibility and accuracy. The customer support team lacked passion and desire for my specific needs. 

The GPS was all we had, so over the next several months, I consistently turned to the GPS system for information. It became familiar and usable, but it was never great. It lacked the scalability we needed to deal with the realities of life in the field, including accurate mileage reporting, fuel stops supported by an integrated industry-leading fuel card, and AI-powered dash cam footage. Equally concerning was that it couldn’t mirror original equipment manufacturer (OEM) equipment from third-party suppliers like Caterpillar and John Deere. This gap forced us to make additional asset gateway purchases since we depend on this equipment visibility for our business.

These limitations grew larger as we continued to operate and acquire more units with the same human and technical resources. I started to consider upgrading our fleet management system, which created the perfect opportunity to add dash cams to our toolbox. We thought we wanted to adopt dash cams, but the thinking always was, “We’ll do it next time.” Suddenly, it was the next time, and all options were on the table.

An Unexpected Master Class in Collision Detection

There are many vendors in this space, and we requested demos from a few standouts, including our incumbent vendor and Motive. As part of a trial, we received six dash cams from each vendor and installed them in random vehicles across the fleet, including the Motive AI Dashcams in my personal vehicle. If I was going to push this out to the fleet, I needed to know how it felt from behind the wheel.

Motive impressed me from the start. The software was easy to use. It offered effortless, detailed reporting and used AI to detect risky behavior and monitor dash cam footage. That latter feature was crucial to our operations because we do a lot of hot-seat trucking, where different drivers operate the same vehicle at different times on any given day. Motive’s AI-powered dual-facing dash cams monitor what’s happening inside and outside a truck. We can see the events leading up to a collision, who was driving the vehicle, their behavior, and road conditions.

The wide angle of the driver-facing camera provides great views of activity behind the vehicle and in the side mirrors. We obviously see our drivers' demeanor, however, it became obvious that monitoring the driver was more about helping them stay alert than disciplining them for poor driving.

One of our drivers experienced a collision during the trial. A car tried to pass a rig on the right, and then the car's driver panicked and ran into our vehicle. The Motive AI Dashcam caught the entire incident. Reviewing the footage was a revelation. Motive’s high-definition camera gave us a clear picture of what happened. We instantaneously got the key details: what, when, who, where, and why. And since the Motive AI Dashcam was an indisputable witness to the incident, the camera that initially wasn't well received by the driver instantly became their best friend.  

Prior to installing cameras in 2023, the standard post-collision process began with blaming our driver for not being in a defensive driving position and automatically submitting the insurance claim. Those days are over. Once we receive a Motive alert about a potential collision or the driver notifies us of a collision, the first thing we do is ask: Are there any injuries? The second thing we do is get an exact time of the incident so we can quickly pull footage, support our driver, and respond to the incident appropriately.

Inside the vehicle Motive offers complete visibility into driver behavior. Are our employees driving safely? Are they braking late, accelerating too fast, taking hard turns, or driving in a reckless manner? Motive AI Dashcams allow us to monitor and coach our drivers, helping us instill safer and more fuel-efficient driving practices. We even set up friendly competitions between divisions to identify the best drivers and encourage desired behavior. Everyone can improve, and Motive helps us make our drivers better and safer drivers.

Visibility into Fuel Consumption Fuel Loss and Drivers’ Lives

Beyond the dash cams, there's much more to like about Motive, including GPS, heavy equipment mirroring capabilities, thorough reports, and best-in-class customer support. They offer the Motive Card, a fleet card our drivers can use to fuel up and purchase what they need on the road. It’s directly connected to Motive’s fleet management platform, and we can manage card privileges from a centralized dashboard with the same log in. 

When I started this quest for a new fleet management system, I wasn't looking for a new card provider. In fact, we had a stellar fuel provider that had been with the our company for over 20 years. Their prices where always competitive and they constantly provided market-leading service. But I took a look at Motive Card. It works seamlessly with the Motive platform, and it captures actual mileage through the system as an additional security measure. Administrators can even control the level of restrictions on the card, requiring a driver to interface through the driver app and unlocking the card up to 30 minutes prior to use.

Using the Motive Card, we can track where and when our drivers stop for fuel and their actual mileage between fill-ups. Fuel is one of our most significant expenses, but we had to guesstimate these figures, missing a critical data points in the past. Motive lets us optimize fuel consumption by restricting expenditures when we need to, optimizing routes, rerouting trucks based on real-time traffic and weather conditions, and training our drivers on fuel-efficient vehicle operation, such as reducing idling. Instead of simply monitoring our fuel spend, we can implement active measures to control it. Drivers also have to verify their identity with the Motive Driver App, which helps prevent fraud. 

Motive gives us real-time insights and alerts to help stop unauthorized spending, and we get built-in discounts from several providers. The best part is that we can see every transaction and fleet operation immediately on the Motive dashboard in the context of all the other data Motive captures. That late night, early morning, or mid-day call from a driver complaining, "My card doesn't work," is an easy fix. We can tell them to unlock their card with the app, use the chip reader, or stand by so we can increase their spending limit. Instant results are at our fingertips with the Motive Card, and forced adoption of the driver app has boosted driver interaction with the system and expedited my ROI. 

Comprehensive Customer Support

Motive’s AI and automation features give Hardy & Harper complete visibility into our fleet and spend management. We have hard data and facts, which help us make informed decisions about our growth, needs, and everyday operations. We can monitor fuel consumption as well as analyze and improve driver performance instead of guessing how we’re doing.

This visibility means we have the freedom and scalability to grow responsibly. Instead of growing our management team to oversee more vehicles on the road, our existing team can get a bird’s-eye view and zero in on specific aspects of our expanded fleet’s operations, continuing our long tradition of running lean and mean while investing in our field workforce. Using Motive is like riding alongside our drivers and coaching them in real time. It gives us perspective into our business’s human, financial, and mechanical realities so we can be proactive instead of reactive. I know that Motive can scale with us. I can add one vehicle or dozens as the company grows, and I’ll have equal visibility into all of them.

In adopting Motive, we’ve gained support that’s second to none. Motive is adamant about supporting us. I’ve gotten emails and calls alerting me to issues I haven’t even noticed—before they snowball into a problem. When you combine that level of support with an excellent product, you can’t lose.

A Better Life on the Road

Motive has streamlined and optimized how we manage our fleet and deal with the realities of life on the road, including accidents. Motive’s comprehensive suite of tools, including the Motive AI Dashcams and the Motive Card, have taken driver insights, collision detection, and spend management to the next level. We’ve seen fewer injuries, lower insurance claim costs, and improved fuel consumption.

At Hardy & Harper, we can confidently say that we fully understand what’s happening on the road and in the field with our drivers, operators and units, which bodes well for our growing business, the people we employ, and the customers we serve.