Established in 2012, Oxford Direct Services (ODS) delivers cost-effective public and commercial services to the community.

The list of managed services offered by the provider includes vehicle repair, waste collection and recycling, park and street maintenance and property and highways construction.

The company is a long-standing customer of Vision Techniques; being an early adopter of the original VT Live camera system for their fleet of waste collection vehicles and over the years, introducing additional safety and security systems to their growing mixed fleet.

Transport Manager, Owain Pearce has been involved in the ODS fleet for over 7 years. He explains that “in recent years, the company has committed to its investment in vehicle technology, which has included onboard cameras, cycle safety systems and anti-rollaway systems.”

The ODS fleet is now equipped with the latest Vision Techniques mobile DVR 4G with Live streaming cameras. The footage captured can be streamed live to the operations team and Owain explains that “the system is very user friendly”.

The cameras are used to manage reported incidents, and Owain explains that by “reviewing the footage, we can respond to enquiries quickly, resolve disputes efficiently, and investigate claims of damage or missed collections – often saving us time and money.”

ODS has introduced safety monitoring audits across their operation, so the live camera functionality enables the team to randomly select a vehicle, watch the activity in real time and identify any safety or compliance concerns that need addressing.

Vision Techniques’ anti roll-away system, BrakeSafe, has been fitted to 40 of ODS’ 12T and above vehicles to prevent vehicle rollaways. According to research published by the Health and Safety Executive, 48 percent of drivers who were surveyed nationally indicated that they had personally experienced a vehicle rollaway. Failure to apply the handbrake and/or trailer parking brake was identified as the primary reason contributing to runaway incidents involving HGVs, so the introduction of BrakeSafe reduces risk and ensures the safety of the drivers and other road users from potentially catastrophic rollaway incidents.

The installation of the Vision Techniques Brakesafe System to the Oxford Fleet provides reassurance to Drivers and Fleet Managers that with the Automatic Activation this will not be a problem and provides additional safety to the operators and general public.

Vision Techniques cycle safety systems are fitted to most vehicles in the ODS fleet. Oxford city has a high population of cyclists and cycle traffic is notoriously heavy. Turn alarms and turn signs are fitted to the vehicles and the drivers have split screen functionality in cab, allowing them to identify cyclists in their blind spots.

More recently, Owain explains that “the HGV fleet has also been fitted with VT Telematics, which brings together vehicle tracking, driver behaviour and camera footage in one dashboard.” ODS were early adopters of this platform and collaborated with Vision Techniques during the development phase.

Commenting on the systems provided by Vision Techniques, Owain says that “the systems have been excellent over the years. Vision Techniques is the best in the market for safety. We can maintain the systems ourselves and everything is very user-friendly.”