Inside the Mind of a Cabbie report to download

As part of the Shell Smarter Cab Drivers challenge – aimed at helping British drivers become more fuel efficient and save money by making simple changes to the way they drive – the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) has been working with our cab drivers to better understand the factors that influence their everyday lives and which prevent them from making meaningful, sustained changes to their driving behaviour.

Following a series of workshops with the drivers, RSA has produced an interim study report ‘Inside the Mind of the Cabbie’ which explores the day-to-day issues they face in great detail and provides a series of initial recommendations and suggests as to how they can be influenced to drive more fuel-efficiently.

You can take a look at the RSA’s report by visiting the RSA’s website, or you can download the report directly from here.

Download the RSA's 'Inside the Mind of a Cabbie' report, commissioned by Shell

Our cabbies deliver fuel savings in just a fortnight

We’re very happy to say that our Smarter Cab Drivers fuel efficiency challenge has already delivered significant improvements for competing cab drivers across GB, saving them fuel and money and demonstrating the immediate impact of using our fuel efficiency tips and techniques.

By the halfway point of our challenge, our cab drivers had already delivered a 12 per cent average fuel efficiency improvement. If continued over the course of a year, this would mean they save around 600 pounds each on their fuel bills, based on their current fuel costs.*

The drivers are now split into two groups. Ten are continuing their efforts as normal, while the other ten are receiving special ‘interventions’ from the RSA designed to reinforce and refocus their efforts on applying the smarter driving tips. These interventions include a purpose-build ‘spring-o-meter’ – a dashboard mounted device that wobbles, and, if the cab in question is driven too harshly, sounds a beep – as well as in-cab guestbooks allowing passengers to provide feedback on how smooth their journey is. Have a look at a guestbook below:

The RSA has created special 'interventions' - in this case an in-cab guestbook - to help remind our drivers to stay fuel-efficient

*Based on 30.8 baseline mpg of all drivers before trial. Current 35.1 mg average of competing drivers at 500 miles per week average. Equates to 9 litres saving per week. At 1 pound 40 pence per litre equals annual potential saving of 652 pounds

Follow Smarter Cab Drivers on your website

To help you keep track of the latest updates from the Smarter Cab Drivers challenge, we’ve created a handy new widget to sit on your website or blog. The widget will update automatically with all of the breaking news, views and insights from our cabbies and challenge partners such as the RSA, the AA and the Energy Savings Trust, amongst others, allowing you to stay in touch with everything that’s happening in the challenge.

Displaying the widget is easy – simply click on the image below to get the widget code, then copy and paste the code into the sidebar of your website or blog.

View from Norwich: are flat shoes the key to smarter driving?

Our latest cabbies update comes from Team Norwich, currently leading the way in the team championship. Our drivers Rob Elliott and Bernie Searle (the leading cabbie so far) reveal why they think they’ve achieved such a strong start to the challenge.

Bernie Searle:
“I have enjoyed implementing the fuel efficiency tips, and have focused particularly on implementing the tip of looking further ahead whilst driving, giving me more time to slow down and avoid any harsh braking. It might sound funny but I think that the simple habit of wearing flat shoes, which allow more feeling and control on the acceleration, could perhaps be the secret to my success!

“I’m thrilled to report that through following the driving tips, my cab is now averaging 37mpg. I’m looking forward to an approximate saving of £150 at the end of the month.”

Rob Elliott:
“I have been testing the theory that switching off my air con when it’s unnecessary will save on fuel by approximately 8%, as well as ensuring that my cab is not carrying any excess weight – which I know will increase the drag and ultimately cost me more in fuel.

“Although it wasn’t a requirement of the challenge, I also decided to experiment with switching the fuel I use, a change which has subsequently delivered more diesel per mile for my money. I’m really happy about this and it goes to show that it’s worth investigating these matters rather than just sticking with what you know or going for the fuel that appears to be the cheapest.”

View from Nottingham

The first week of the Smarter Cab Drivers challenge proved to be quite a tricky one for our Nottingham drivers due to circumstances beyond their control – however they were still able to enjoy the rewards of more fuel efficient driving.

Amer Alam:
“Week one was quite a challenge in Nottingham due to an ongoing dispute about the limited number of cab rank spaces in the city centre – there’s been a lot of congestion as a result of drivers being unable to park in certain places. The good news is that I’ve still been able to improve on my driving, and over the week I did notice a reduction in the amount of fuel I used.

“Hopefully the parking situation will be quickly resolved, which may help me improve my competition ranking. It’s great to know that at this early stage, the fuel efficiency advice is already paying off and helping to save money.”

Amar Altaf:
“The local dispute has definitely made fuel efficient driving more difficult in Nottingham over the past week. I feel I’ve done pretty well under the circumstances and hope to get more of an opportunity to improve my score as the challenge progresses. So far I’ve found the application of fuel efficiency tips such as switching off my engine when in traffic, as well as maintaining a constant speed really beneficial. It’ll be interesting to see how much I’ve saved as a result of these tips come the end of the month.”

RSA insight: The Week in Tweets

Jamie Young, Senior Research at The RSA:
The tweets from the drivers in the Smarter Cab Drivers Challenge reveal some of the stories behind the shifting leaderboard.

Before the challenge launched we had preparation, as Bernie checked his tyres, wound his windows up and took his golf clubs out of the boot. It was a strategy that seemed to pay off later on with unprecented fuel economy and a place at the top of the table. Bernie wasn’t the only happy one, with Arshad catching a lucrative job from Birmingham to Thorpe Park and one of Amar’s colleagues getting a fare from Nottingham to Blackpool – and Amar himself had a minor celebrity incident when he gave a lift to the Sri Lanka cricket coach.

One of the more unexpected events was the taxi driver protest in Nottingham. The drivers were protesting that they were no longer being allowed to wait on yellow lines when the rank around the station was full, asked instead to drive around continually or face an on-the-spot fine. The city’s cabbies took the change at face value, descending on the station and resulting in widespread congestion – a turn of events that cost Amar and Amer dear, resulting in some unhappiness until Amar managed to pull himself off the bottom of the table with an early rise and clear drive.

However, while the bottom of the leaderboard moved around, nothing was able to rearrange the top of the table, and the second week starts with Bernie still riding high.

Fuel efficient drivers make safer drivers

Edmund King, President of the AA:
Our latest AA/Populus poll of more than 16,000 drivers shows that three quarters of them are cutting back on journeys, cutting back on other expenditure, or cutting back on both, due to the high cost of fuel. However, there is another way to counter the fuel prices – drive more efficiently.

We’ve always taken a keen interest in ways to increase fuel efficiency in the UK. But as well as helping drivers to save money – not to mention protecting the environment – there are many ways in which fuel efficiency is also linked to safer driving.

We try to engage with drivers on the subject of fuel efficiency by giving them handy hints and tips which are practical and easy to adopt. We deliver these both via our website and through our Drive Smart lessons, a number of which we’re adapting to apply the Shell smartercabdrivers tips and offering as prizes to Twitter followers of the Shell Smarter Cab Drivers project. Amongst these tips, drivers will find that sticking to a sensible speed limit, driving smoothly and accelerating gently will mean you use less fuel as well as becoming a safer, steadier and more reliable driver in the process.

We have recently formed the AA Charitable Trust for Road Safety and the Environment to offer training to newly qualified drivers to help them improve on their driving skills as well as their safety. The uptake for this type of training is always high as the benefits are so obvious – ensuring the safety of yourself and those around you, while managing to save money on fuel at the same time.

We’d encourage everyone to take a look at the fuel efficient driving tips on www.smartercabdrivers.com.

View from Manchester

Four days into the Smarter Cab Drivers challenge, and we’ve sought out the views of our Manchester drivers to see how they feel the challenge is going for them.

Paul McCormick:
“I’m off to a good start I think and am making every effort, where possible, to apply the Shell driving tips. It’s great on longer journeys to be able to put them into practice, however I must admit it’s difficult in certain situations, for example on motorways when being overtaken.

“It’s been a relatively normal week’s work in Manchester, though I did pick-up Paul Burrell earlier in the week, which was interesting. I’m checking the site each day to see how I’ve performed, and I’m keen to improve my current position (6th) – there’s a long way to go yet!”

John Lydon:
“I’ve been interested to check out how Paul and I are faring in the competition. It’s been good fun so far – particularly the last Shell/RSA event in London which I was very impressed by. I’m applying the tips where I can – in quieter times, I’m concentrating on implementing the gear and acceleration tips in particular.

“Overall, I’m really enjoying the experience, and although we’re on the same team, I’d quite like to finish ahead of Paul, who has managed to sneak in front at this early stage!”

Smarter Cabbies on Twitter

We’re now three days into the Smarter Cab Drivers Challenge and the competition is heating up!

As well as checking out the championship table on our home page you can follow us on twitter where we will be keeping you up to date with all the news and giving away a whole load of prizes throughout the next four weeks.

All our cabbies are also tweeting their way through the challenge. Follow them using by clicking on the names below.

@bob_Squires
@MarkWeston5
@Alistair_Kent
@Ansar_Mahmood1
@Abdi_Muse
@Pete_Tyler
@Adrian_Higgins1
@John_Hurley1
@Phillip_Caston
@John_Lydon1
@Paul_McCormick1
@taxi4ian
@Amar_Altaf
@Amir_Alam1
@Robert_Berry2
@Arshad_Ali1
@Bernie_Searle
@Jason_Broadley

Smarter Cab Drivers is live

The Shell Smarter Cab Drivers challenge is now underway. Check out the championship tables on our homepage to see how our cab drivers are getting on!