The City of New York Joins Together For Safer Roads? Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety

The City of New York Joins Together For Safer Roads? Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety

DCAS commits to public/private partnership to improve fleet safety

BROOKLYN, NY ? Oct. 31, 2019 ? Together for Safer Roads (TSR), a coalition of leading private sector companies driven to save lives, today announced that New York City Fleet, under the direction of the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services. (DCAS), has joined as a founding council member of TSR?s Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety (GLCFS). The GLCFS is a new TSR program that uses peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing to help smaller fleet operators create safety cultures and reduce risk.

Geraldine Sweeney, Chief Strategy Advisor, NYC Mayor?s Office of Operations and chair of the City?s multi-agency Vision Zero Task Force with David Braunstein, President, Together For Safer Roads

New York City?s commitment to partnering with TSR and becoming a founding member of the Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety is yet another step in support of Mayor Bill de Blasio?s commitment to a number of safety improvements implemented to reach Vision Zero, a safety initiative focused on eliminating traffic crashes, injuries, and deaths. New York City operates the largest municipal fleet in the country.

While traffic-related deaths in New York City have declined over the last few years, with 2018 seeing a record low of 200, pedestrian deaths account for the largest share of traffic fatalities and continue to increase. Because of their size and mass, large vehicles and trucks pose particularly deadly threats to people walking and biking. Nearly half of the bicyclist deaths in New York City this year have involved large vehicle operators. The Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety will accept the specific mission of helping smaller fleet operators – who often lack access to technology and other resources available to larger fleets – to create and sustain a safety culture in an effort to eliminate traffic deaths caused by trucks.

?DCAS Fleet Management is pleased to join with Together for Safer Roads and other partners in the launch of the Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety. Through Mayor de Blasio?s Vision Zero and our Safe Fleet Transition Plan, NYC Fleet is doing everything it can to outfit our vehicles and trucks for safety including mandating truck side-guards, installing automatic braking, and specifying high vision designs that improve line of sight for fleet operators,? said Keith Kerman, DCAS Deputy Commissioner for Fleet Management and NYC Chief Fleet Officer. ?It is critical that other public and private fleets take these safety steps with us. The Global Leadership Council will help us expand our outreach and advocacy and focus the fleet industry on safety.?

The Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety is focused on supporting under-resourced, small- to midsize fleets with access to peer advisors, training experiences and organizational development to establish a safety culture and create positive change. The Vision Zero-aligned offering created by the Council will have three core pillars: Vehicle Technology Solutions, Professional Development and Organizational Change.

?Traffic deaths continue to be an epidemic and working with partners like the City of New York is a crucial component in our effort to keep  all road users safer,? said David Braunstein, President, Together for Safer Roads. ?DCAS, specifically, is a very analytical-based organization with an extensive set of performance reporting and tracking. That data, combined with their practical experience and insights, will help our smaller fleet operators to gain a deep understanding of how to become safer operators. In turn, New York City?s streets, ideally, become safer and traffic deaths can be reduced. New York City has shown their alignment with our belief that death and serious injury on our streets are not inevitable and can be prevented. They are a positive example to other cities looking to make change a reality.?

?As a Founding Member of TSR, we look forward to furthering our partnership with Together for Safer Roads and the City of New York through the Global Leadership Council for Fleet Safety by helping make our communities safer for all road users, pedestrians, bus riders, bicyclists, and drivers,? said Adam Warrington, Vice President, Better World at Anheuser-Busch. ?We believe that road safety can be significantly improved through collective action to better understand and improve road behaviors. Together, the GLCFS has the opportunity to scale data, learnings and best practices to help change behaviors and make a tangible difference in saving lives.?

ABOUT TOGETHER FOR SAFER ROADS

Together for Safer Roads is a global NGO that builds public-private partnerships around local projects, fleet safety management and technology initiatives to prevent traffic crashes, injuries and deaths. TSR was started in conjunction with the UN’s Decade of Road safety and has partners around the world. TSR?s members include AB InBev, AIG, AT&T, CalAmp, Republic Services, Lyft, Ericsson, GM, iHeartMedia, Octo Telematics, Geotab, PepsiCo, UPS, Walmart, and others. Learn more at www.togetherforsaferroads.org.

ABOUT DCAS

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) provides effective shared services to support the operations of New York City government. Its commitment to equity, effectiveness, and sustainability guides its work with City agencies on recruiting, hiring, and training employees; providing facilities management for 55 public buildings; acquiring, selling, and leasing City property; purchasing more than $1 billion in supplies and equipment each year; and implementing conservation and safety programs throughout the City’s facilities and vehicle fleet.