 |
Arriva North West and Merseytravel have won the Alexander Dennis Innovation Award for 21st Century's fuel saving system, EcoManager, at the UK Bus Awards. EcoManager was developed by 21st Century to allow bus operators to save fuel and reduce carbon emission whilst also giving passengers a better journey experience.
The annual UK Bus Industry Awards took place this year at London's prestigious Park Lane Hilton and was attended by over 650 industry representatives. In all there were 20 awards, covering all aspects of planning, delivering, marketing and operating bus services.
The Innovation Award recognises and rewards new thinking in the industry – amongst operators, authorities and suppliers. It focuses especially on products which can reduce environmental impact, improve efficiency or make bus travel more attractive.
EcoManager is a 'black-box' unit fitted to the bus to monitor driving styles and measure fuel consumption. The unit provides detailed feedback to drivers after each shift to allow them to identify how they might moderate their driving style to save fuel and ranks their performance against their colleagues. Drivers are identified and linked to a particular route and shift without the need for a separate log in. The system includes an in-cab red, amber green display to alert drivers if they are driving outside of set "eco-friendly" parameters.
 |
EcoManager also won an award for innovation at last year’s Bus Awards. The system uses an interactive LED display and integration with on board computers to provide highly accurate feedback to drivers about their acceleration and braking and how safely and efficiently they are driving. The live feedback enables drivers to adjust their driving style to improve their rating and the overall management data enables managers to review their individual driver and vehicle performance.
In addition to the Brake Company Driver Safety Award, Arriva was highly commended in the Eco Fleet category for the 12.1% fuel savings achieved through the 21st Century EcoManager system.
Lynne Beale, Group Risk & Eco Project Manager for Arriva, commented: “The Brake award is recognition of everyone’s hard work and this was made possible by our drivers who have successfully embraced the EcoManager system and adopted an eco driving style that not only helps Arriva reduce its CO2 emissions but also provides a smoother and more comfortable customer journey experience. As a direct result of the introduction of EcoManager, Arriva has experienced significant improvements in safety performance”.
 |
Arriva Wirral has won the Environmental Award at the annual Wirral Investment Network (WiN) Awards because of the environmental benefits seen by the company since the installation of EcoManager to the company's fleet of buses.
The judges awarded the annual prize because of the company's commitment to protecting the environment through the introduction of EcoManager. Special focus was placed on the innovative approach to reducing emissions and saving fuel.
Arriva demonstrated to the judges that by utilising EcoManager's driver's aid, drivers could adjust their driving techniques to improve fuel economy and emissions. The objective of the scheme is to improve fuel efficiencies by 4% or more, to embrace greener driving practices through awareness, and to reduce the carbon footprint.
The EcoManager system has also been instrumental in another set of awards for Arriva. Data from the system was used to identify five Arriva drivers who have adopted the most economic, smooth and safest driving style over the last twelve months. They were presented with ECO Driver of the Year Awards at Arriva's annual Make A Difference (MAD) Awards, sponsored by 21st Century.