Compliance EnviroSystems, based in Baton Rouge, La., provides sewer system evaluation services to municipalities throughout the Southeastern United States. The company uses 22 BlackBerry smartphones to help key employees stay in touch -- and early in 2010, Compliance EnviroSystems deployed cellcontrol's distracted driving solution to make sure they do so safely.
"A lot of the equipment that we utilize for the evaluation and the actual physical cleaning of sewer lines is big, heavy equipment -- it looks like a cross between a cement truck and an 18-wheeler -- so I don't want guys rolling around all over the Southeast in those big trucks texting and emailing," explains company vice president Brad Dutruch.
Dutruch says the company selected cellcontrol over other distracted driving solutions because it's fully enforceable, and because it doesn't prevent users from accessing their smartphones if they're passengers in a moving vehicle.
Instead of using GPS to determine when the BlackBerry is in motion, cellcontrol uses a device connected to the car's OBD port (and connected to the smartphone via Bluetooth), which allows each truck to be tied specifically to a single BlackBerry or a group of BlackBerrys. "And once that vehicle moves one mile an hour in any direction, it automatically blocks whatever I decide to block on their phone," Dutruch says.
In most cases, that's all text, email and voice access, though Dutruch says the exact set of rules is customized for each user -- some employees are given a white list of key numbers they can call. "They can always call 911, but some of them can call the home office or their direct supervisor," he says.
What's more, because the system is reading data from the ODB port, it provides Dutruch with remote access to a wide range of other information, including idle time. "We have project managers who manage projects all over the country, and this time of year, in the heat, they like to pull up on a job site and leave their vehicle running... With the amount of rolling stock that we have, to be able to start cracking down on that idle time will give us a beneficial cost savings on fuel," he says.
Similarly, the system lets Dutruch monitor employees' driving speeds. "I can look at any one of my guys' top speed for the month, or any speed for the month... and when you can put a little bug in their ear that one of them did 88 miles an hour on such-and-such day at such-and-such time, they know that you have access to that at all times, and it keeps them in check," he says.
When the cellcontrol devices were first installed, Dutruch says, just about every employee tried to figure out how to uninstall them. "But the minute they do anything, I get a text message... saying such-and-such is tampering with his device -- and then I can follow up with a phone call and ask them what the problem is," he says.
And the result, Dutruch says, is peace of mind -- not only for him, but also for his employees on the road. "Everything still functions in the background on your phone, so if you're getting emails, you can hear them coming in... but you don't have to worry about it until you stop," he says. "Or, if you feel like it's a pressing issue, you can pull over, and once you've been sitting for a certain period of time, you have access to your phone again."
Ultimately, Dutruch says, it just made sense for his company to implement a solution like this. "It's good technology, and hopefully it'll save many lives down the road -- and be a good tool for business owners," he says.
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