Author: Robin Roberts
Volvo’s revolutionary City Safety technology is giving a lift to the business operations of a leading chauffeur company, Tristar Worldwide.
The down-the-road monitoring system is improving customer safety and driving down vehicle-off-road costs by dramatically reducing its at fault accident rates and associated costs in the first six months of trialling.
City Safety acts as an additional pair of eyes in heavy traffic, helping drivers avoid collisions at low speeds, and has contributed to a 28% drop in Tristar’s rear impact accidents where one of its drivers has been at fault – and that’s just since September 2011.
Tristar’s newest V70, XC70 and S80 models are all fitted with City Safety as standard and help keep its Virgin Atlantic Airways’ Upper Class customers safe when chauffeuring them to and from the airport.
The chauffeur company has been so impressed with City Safety, it believes it has the potential to further decrease its rear impact statistics by up to 50% once all its models are fitted with the technology.
City Safety works by keeping watch on vehicles in front with the help of a laser sensor built into the windscreen at the height of the rear-view mirror. The technology works at speeds of up to 19mph and will make the car automatically brake if the driver does not respond in time when the car in front slows down or stops.
Dean De Beer, Tristar’s Group CEO said: “We have been incredibly impressed with the improvement City Safety has made on our rear-end impacts in such a short space of time. While the majority of rear-end collisions occur at relatively low speeds, this type of accident can be costly, as it can involve personal injury. Our drivers do a lot of inner city driving, and City Safety helps them stay alert in heavy traffic, avoiding costly accidents and keeping our passengers and those around us safe.”
Tristar chauffeurs 115,000 Virgin customers to and from airports annually, and having now successfully trialled Volvo’s City Safety technology, it is also keen to adopt other technology, such as Volvo’s BLIS system.
BLIS is Volvo’s award winning Blind Spot Information System, and works by helping detect vehicles in the rear blind spot on both sides of the car. With changing lanes causing 12.8% of Tristar’s accidents, Tristar is keen to utilise Volvo’s safety technology to further reduce this statistic.
Using a chauffeur service for some business mileage can be cost effective and company car manager duties should include assessment of all possible transport means for particular situations.
