Canal & River Trust Saves £235K in Insurance Premiums and Builds a Safer Fleet with Netradyne

Company Summary

Canal & River Trust (C&RT) is the charitable organisation responsible for maintaining more than 2,000 miles of waterways across England and Wales, including canals, rivers, reservoirs and docks. Supporting these operations is a fleet of approximately 500 vehicles used by around 1,500 drivers working across maintenance, operations and community programmes. With a diverse field fleet operating across urban and rural environments, C&RT's drivers navigate some of the UK's most varied and challenging road conditions every day.

Challenge

A Fleet That Needed a Safety Reset

Managing the safety of a fleet of approximately 500 vehicles operated by around 1,500 potential drivers was a key priority for Canal & River Trust. Unlike traditional transport fleets, most employees are not professional drivers, yet regularly travel between operational sites, waterways and remote locations across England and Wales.

While the organisation had strengthened vehicle compliance and fleet management practices, leadership wanted to further improve both driver safety and fleet safety. Existing telematics solutions provided vehicle tracking and utilisation data but offered limited visibility into driving behaviours that could increase risk, such as speeding, harsh braking and aggressive cornering.

The Trust also wanted to take a more proactive approach to driver coaching. Safety conversations were often based on reviewing incidents after they occurred, making it difficult to influence behaviour in the moment and prevent risks before they escalated.

At the same time, reducing fleet risk had become increasingly important from an insurance perspective. The organisation was looking for a way to demonstrate measurable safety improvements, reduce accident-related costs, and strengthen its long-term insurance position.

Finally, the Trust needed reliable, objective evidence to support incident investigations. In the event of a collision or near miss, understanding exactly what happened was critical to protecting drivers, improving safety outcomes and managing insurance claims effectively.

Solution

To strengthen its fleet safety programme, Canal & River Trust conducted a formal evaluation of telematics and camera-based solutions. The organisation was looking for more than vehicle tracking and reporting. It wanted a solution that could improve driver safety, provide greater visibility into fleet risk and support long-term behavioural change across the organisation.

Following a competitive tender process, Canal & River Trust selected Netradyne's Driver•i platform in partnership with Teletrac Navman. A key factor in the decision was Netradyne's ability to combine AI-powered video telematics, driver coaching and fleet visibility in a single platform, providing managers with a more complete understanding of driver behaviour and fleet risk.

"We wanted best in class. We wanted market-leading technology that would support us for the long term. We firmly believe we selected a best-in-class solution."
Steve Mulvaney, Fleet Manager, Canal & River Trust

The implementation was designed around a simple objective: improve safety through coaching rather than surveillance. Canal & River Trust wanted a solution that would help drivers identify and correct risky behaviours while providing managers with the data needed to support safer driving practices across the fleet.

Unlike traditional telematics platforms that focus primarily on events or exceptions, Netradyne analyses 100% of drive time, providing continuous visibility into driver behaviour throughout every journey. This enabled fleet managers to move beyond isolated incidents and gain a more complete understanding of risk patterns, coaching opportunities and overall fleet performance.

The platform also introduced real-time in-cab coaching, providing immediate alerts for behaviours such as speeding, harsh braking, harsh cornering and unsafe following distance. By delivering feedback in the moment, drivers could make corrections while driving rather than relying solely on retrospective coaching conversations.

In addition, AI-powered video intelligence provided fleet managers objective evidence to better understand incidents and near misses, support driver coaching, and strengthen incident investigations when required.

To reinforce positive driving habits, Canal & River Trust adopted GreenZone Score as a core coaching and performance metric. By combining visibility across 100% of drive time with positive reinforcement and targeted coaching, the organisation established a more proactive approach to both driver safety and fleet safety.

Results

Stronger Driver Performance Across the Fleet

Key Outcomes (Apr-Dec 2025)

• GreenZone Score: 737 → 783 (+46 points)

• Speeding Events: ↓ 28.6%

• Severe Alerts: ↓ 23.1%

• Overall Alerts: ↓ 13.8%

• Green Minutes: 55.24% → 58.34%

One of the earliest priorities for Canal & River Trust was addressing speeding across the fleet. Using Driver•i's real-time alerts and coaching capabilities, the organisation was able to reduce speeding events significantly while giving drivers immediate feedback at the moment when unsafe behaviour occurred. According to Steve, speeding became one of the most visible examples of how real-time coaching could influence behaviour and strengthen fleet safety culture.

Rather than focusing solely on violations, Canal & River Trust used GreenZone Score as a consistent framework to measure performance, coach drivers and recognise safe driving behaviours. Together with real-time feedback and DriverStars recognition, the programme helped create sustained behaviour change across the fleet. GreenZone improvement correlates to a 13–17% reduction in accidents per million miles (APMM).  

Greater Visibility into Incidents and Near Misses

The value of Driver•i extended beyond coaching and risk reduction. By providing continuous video visibility, Canal & River Trust gained greater insight into incidents, near misses and roadway risks that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.

In one incident, a third-party driver claimed a Canal & River Trust vehicle had crossed into the wrong lane during a head-on collision. Video footage showed the Trust driver was in the correct lane and that the third-party vehicle was responsible, helping establish the facts of the incident.

In another serious incident involving a vehicle rollover, recorded footage showed a third-party vehicle  struck the Trust vehicle before the accident occurred, providing critical evidence during the investigation.

The platform also helped the Trust identify and review near misses, giving fleet managers a clearer understanding of the risks drivers encounter on the road every day. These insights were used to support coaching conversations, reinforce safe driving behaviours and raise awareness of real-world hazards across the fleet.

"One of the things you don't realise until you have camera technology is the number of near misses and serious incidents that happen. Having that information helps us protect our drivers and learn from those events."
Steve Mulvaney, Fleet Manager, Canal & River Trust

This visibility gave the Trust greater confidence during incident investigations, reduced uncertainty around liability and ensured drivers were supported with objective evidence when they were not at fault.

Benchmarking Above the UK Fleet Average

Netradyne's benchmarking data showed Canal & River Trust outperforming  Netradyne’s UK fleet average in several critical safety categories, including:

• Traffic light compliance: 99.97%

• Phone distraction: 99.96%

• Overall distraction: 99.80%

The data also helped identify following distance as an area for continued coaching and improvement.

£235K in Insurance Premium Reductions

The financial impact is clear, consistent, and compounding. C&RT's insurer recognised the improvements in driver behaviour and fleet safety outcomes — translating them into premium reductions across three consecutive years of Netradyne deployment:

• Year - Year 1
  
  • Stage - Implementation Stage — cameras deployed across the fleet
  • Saving - £95K
• Year - Year 2
  
  • Stage - Active Deployment — consistent coaching underway
  • Saving - £90K
• Year - Year 3
  
  • Stage - Full Fleet Running — all units live, steady-state confirmed
  • Saving - £50K
• C&RT has saved more on premiums alone than the annual cost of Netradyne
• Total
  
  • £235K

Year 3 reflects the full-fleet steady-state rate. As driver behaviour matures further with continued coaching, this figure is expected to improve.

The Trust achieved insurance premium reductions across three consecutive years, helping create a stronger insurance profile and demonstrating measurable reductions in fleet risk.

"We've seen reduced premiums because of the work we've done and the data we're able to provide to demonstrate those improvements."
Steve Mulvaney, Fleet Manager, Canal & River Trust

A Self-Funding Safety Programme

C&RT has saved more on insurance premiums alone than the annual cost of Netradyne — making the business case self-funding from year one.

Safety improvements and premium savings compound together: the better the driving, the stronger the claims history, the more leverage C&RT brings to renewal conversations. Netradyne's platform turns that virtuous cycle into a measurable, reportable outcome — one that finance, safety, and fleet leadership can all stand behind.

Building a Safer Driving Culture

The impact of the programme extended beyond fleet-level metrics. Drivers gained greater awareness of their own driving habits and received real-time coaching that helped them make safer decisions on the road.

"With the use of Driver•i, I would say I've become a better and safer driver. I'm more aware of my driving style and my driving habits and trying to iron those bad habits out."
Tim Winnett, Volunteering Team Leader, Canal & River Trust

For Canal & River Trust, improving driver safety was not only about reducing incidents and fleet risk. It was also about helping employees return home safely while carrying out their day-to-day responsibilities across the network.

Conclusion

Canal & River Trust set out to improve driver safety through coaching rather than surveillance. With Netradyne, it did exactly that.

In nine months, the Trust raised its GreenZone Score, cut speeding and severe alerts, and gave drivers the evidence they need when they're not at fault. Along the way, it saved £235K in insurance premiums, more than the annual cost of the platform.

The result is a self-funding safety programme that protects drivers and keeps getting stronger.

Ready to build a safer, smarter fleet?

See how Netradyne can help your organisation reduce risk, coach drivers in real time and lower insurance costs. Book a demo today.

*Greenzone Driver Score is based on Netradyne’s real-time driver performance metric ranging from 1 to 1,000

** Netradyne's DriverStars recognition is an AI-powered positive reinforcement feature that rewards professional drivers for safe, proactive driving habits in real time