NGO fleet managers honoured in Fleet Forum Awards
Increasing driver safety, contributing to cost savings and reducing CO2 are all common goals for most fleet managers.
Add to that the tasks of managing a mixed fleet that includes armour-plated, off-road trucks, traveling through dangerous terrain, often hundreds of miles between fuel stops, to deliver valuable loads including essential medicines and food to some of the poorest people in the world. One would be correct in thinking - that’s a tough job!
Walter Fallas Bonilla - Red Cross, Costa Rica is Fleet Manager of the Year 2021
It’s a tough job Walter Fallas Bonilla has been doing since 2017 for the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement of Costa Rica. He has been awarded the 2021 Fleet Manager of the Year by Fleet Forum, the non-profit organisation campaigning for safer and cleaner transport around the world.
Bonilla was chosen from several highly talented nominees for the award. The winner was decided by 289 online voters during a virtual award ceremony on December 8th, 2021. The top two candidates presented their projects to the audience who then cast their votes.
Sponsored by the UPS Foundation
The awards, sponsored by the UPS Foundation, has been an annual event since 2020. It recognises all fleet managers who have been navigating through the many challenges of the pandemic and beyond.
Walter was nominated by Karl-Kristian Stuns, Fleet Development Delegate, Global Fleet Unit, IFRC. “Fleet Manager Walter Fallas Bonilla has been showing great example within the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, on how improving fleet management can prevent road traffic deaths, contribute to cost savings and reducing CO2 emissions.”
The benefits reaped from the changes implemented by Bonilla include a 19% decrease in fuel consumption resulting in savings of $113,000, a 15% decrease in the total cost of fleet ownership, 100% decrease in vehicles declared a total loss, a 50% decrease in the crash rate, and most importantly a 100% decrease in driver fatalities.
Runners up
Kennethy Osengo from IOM (International Organization for Migration) Kenya and Alya Tageldin & Blessing Neji from World Food Programme (WFP) Sudan were the two runners up of 2021.
Fleet Forum was delighted to have a dual-nomination: Alya and Blessing from WFP Sudan. Focusing on road safety, they took a close and honest look at the causes of their speeding events and put in place interventions that significantly reduced their road crash exposure.
IN addition, the 2021 Global Driving Championship has been awarded to Folivi Adjanoh from UNICEF Togo and Issa Byamukama from Catholic Reliefi Services (CRS) Uganda.
For the first time ever, the Driver Recognition Programme was opened to all aid and development organisations around the world. Fleet Forum set up this programme in 2015 to acknowledge the critical role drivers play in the delivery of aid and development. We are proud to share that drivers, managers and teams, reached out in record numbers. More than 2,800 drivers from 41 organisations in 66 countries participated.
Image courtesy of Fleet Forum.
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