Stephen Fitter

Having a good approach to risk management is good practise. The best way of doing this is to quantify the risks in terms of probability and what the impact would be of it happening. That way you can put focus onto those big impact risks that are more likely to happen, and just keep an eye on those that don't. But don't just make it a paper exercise, make sure that that is something that is regularly managed with a view to either mitigate or eliminate the risk.

Technology can play a huge part for transport operations. However behind nearly all great technology is data and to get the most out of your solutions you need to ensure that not only can you produce a good data set, but you can maintain it. You also need to ensure that you have the skills and the expertise to be able to analyse that data and put it to best use. There is no point in producing lots of data and doing nothing with it.

Transport operators need to consider the end of diesel and petrol vehicles. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with the ban of the sale of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), it is coming and businesses need to be prepared for it. Most transport operating models have evolved or been designed to operate a fossil fuelled fleet. Therefore, transitioning to alternatives needs to be carefully considered to ensure that operational demands and customer expectations are met.

One of the quickest ways to reduce emissions is simply to make what you have more efficient. Route planning and optimisation is key in doing this. Artificial Intelligence is going to play a massive part in this and create routing solutions much quicker and more efficient than previously could be done.

Make sure you do your homework in advance! Transitioning to alternative fuels needs to be thought through. After all, most operating models have been built and evolved on the plentiful availability of fossil fuels, so to just try and switch to alternative fuels without understanding the impact will put your business at risk. Some organisations are finding this the hard way. Energy for transport operations now has to be thought of in ways in never did so before

To measure is to manage. Establishing a dashboard and required data to populate it is key to getting a good solid baseline. Monitoring progress needs to be done as simply as possible so that on-going populating of the metrics is not too onerous and time can be better spent understanding the insight that they are telling you. Data is just data unless you do something with it! There are lots of tools out there that can help you do this job but it is recommended getting specialists in place to get you up and running.