Renault Environment is partnering with a Belgian driver training company to expand the availability of a program targeted at teaching ecodriving. Renault Environment is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of the automaker that focuses on helping other green businesses expand their reach.
Key Driving Competences (KDC) SA has been providing its ecodriving program since 2005 and over 50,000 hours of training have been conducted with 10,000 drivers. The partnership will expand the program to several more countries next year. The techniques taught to students can help reduce fuel consumption by an average of 10 percent.
One of the keys to the program is the short and long-term followups to help reinforce the lessons learned. Drivers come back after three weeks and after one year to review what they learned and how they are doing. KDC uses simulators, telematics and online support systems to get drivers to use less fuel.
[Source: Renault]
press release
RENAULT ENVIRONMENT EXPANDS ECODRIVING ACTIVITIES BY TEAMING UP WITH KEY DRIVING COMPETENCES
• Renault Environment (RE) is teaming up with Belgian firm Key Driving Competences (KDC) SA to expand innovative ecodriving training courses and sustainable mobility services for everyone.
• Since 2005 Key Driving Competences has delivered more than 50,000 hours of training, contributing to a genuine attitude change in 10,000 professional and private drivers in their daily habits.
• Starting in several European countries in early 2010, Renault Environment and KDC will run joint training courses that can significantly reduce corporate fleets' fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
Renault Environment and Key Driving Competences: "It's time to change the way we drive"
Renault and KDC are both deeply committed to an active environmental protection policy. Together, Renault, through its subsidiary Renault Environment (RE), and Key Driving Competences (KDC) are offering ecodriving training courses for fleets and individual customers, which can significantly reduce fuel consumption (by 10% on average) and carbon emissions. Starting in 2010, RE and KDC will offer a full range of products and services tailored to the specific needs of their customers, to support them in their responsible development strategies. The significant gain in fuel consumption will considerably reduce vehicle running costs.
Key Driving Competences: a method for attitude change and competences making
KDC's founding motto is "What you can't measure, you can't manage". The company, started in Leuven in 2005, deploys a method based on objective measurement of driving attitudes before, during and after the ecodriving training course. Since 2008, the method has been supplemented with a tool developed jointly with the Department of Motivational Psychology at Ghent University. The tool measures the trainees' motivation to change, which encourages their commitment and acceptance of the aims of the training course.
To reinforce the new driving reflexes learned on the practical training course, KDC runs short-term and long-term personalized follow-up plans. Plan 21 (follow-up 21 days after the training course) and Plan 12 (monthly follow-up for a year) help reinforce trainees' attitude change in order to make the results they achieved on the course last.
In early 2009, KDC enhanced its method even further by signing a partnership with Transics International, a company that manages transportation fleets, to develop a system to analyze, interpret and evaluate truck drivers' ecodriving competencies in real time. The ecodriving algorithms will be incorporated into Transics' installed base of on-board computers (60,000 currently used in the vehicles). Expansion in the main European markets
RE and KDC will rapidly become the benchmark for ecodriving and mobility services in Europe, by providing corporate and government fleets and individual drivers with effective methods and tools (simulator, on-board telematics, online support – http://mon.keydriving.be -, etc.) to monitor progress on a daily basis. The method ensures standardized, quality services for customers with international subsidiaries. It is by changing the behavior of every driver that significant, ongoing gains will be achieved.
The partnership will provide financing for KDC's international growth and develop new products and services in synergy with Renault engineering. The European rollout should also create direct jobs. It will drive mass environmental progress in line with the commitment of the Renault eco2 label.
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