How the Traffic Commissioner's email service influences business behaviours to keep roads safe

Overview

Great Britain’s traffic commissioners regulate more than 80,000 truck, bus and coach operators, as well as professional drivers.

They scrutinise businesses’ applications who want to run commercial vehicles and take action if operators fail to meet vehicle, driver and licensing standards. The commissioners also deal with driver conduct issues.

They are independent regulators sponsored by the Department for Transport, on a mission to make the roads safer.

Learn how a new email service helps influence business behaviours to keep roads safe.

SITUATION

Regionally led communications were difficult to control and offered no way to evaluate “success”

As part of the commissioners’ 2016-2019 strategy, they must maximise the effectiveness of their decisions by communicating common road safety messages to drivers and industry. They needed a way to engage this audience directly, and show what action has been taken as a result of the commissioners’ communications.

The commissioners had previously relied on intermediaries to “get their word out”, including the trade press. They wanted to own and evaluate their communications, and be able to monitor the effectiveness of their messages on vehicle operators’ and drivers’ behaviours.

SOLUTION

Dependable email service developed with audience insight to maximise engagement

To achieve these goals, they sought a digital channel they could control, with built-in evaluation and reporting capabilities. They also wanted to build a subscriber base quickly, capitalising on the audience reach of other industry regulators and enforcement bodies. This meant there was only one platform fit for the job.

They selected govDelivery by Granicus – a digital communications platform – which gave the commissioners a unique opportunity to grow their audience quickly, through the “network” of public sector organisations already using the platform.

The commissioners launched a direct news service for vehicle operators and drivers, delivered by regular email bulletin. The service would be the main point of connection between the industry and commissioners.

Led by research and evaluation, the commissioners’ communications team designed the email news service very carefully. They built a highly engaged subscriber base, supported by Government Communication Service (GCS) audience insight into SMEs. This understanding of businesses’ attitudes and motivations supported their messaging and content plan.

With govDelivery reports and Google Analytics data, they discovered the best days and times to send email bulletins to maximise email engagement rates. Surveying their audience to capture qualitative feedback also helped the team establish the right tone of voice.

RESULTS SO FAR:

Outcome 1: Email bulletins meet audience’s needs and are top referrer of web traffic

In 12 months the commissioners’ email news service has grown organically to over 11,000 subscribers. Emails achieve an average open rate of 42%, 7% click rate for calls to action, and 77% overall engagement rate.

The emails are the top referrer of new users to the traffic commissioners’ pages on GOV.UK.

Evaluation by the commissioners’ user research team reveals that smaller and newer vehicle operators say the email bulletins help them to keep up to date with industry news and regulations.

Larger operators say they use the emails in their staff communications and team meetings, which is especially important for engaging transport managers and reinforcing the significance of their responsibilities. These are key outcomes for the commissioners and correlate with their strategic objective.

Outcome 2: Audience confirms emails influence behaviour and road safety compliance

The email service has also supported a key road safety campaign which was launched following an incident in Bath where a truck’s brakes failed, leading to the deaths of four people.

The campaign aimed to get vehicle operators to review their brake testing procedures and view brake testing as fundamental to their licence responsibilities.

A post-campaign survey indicates that the messaging is effective and helping to achieve these objectives.

During the next phase of the campaign, the team will target non-compliant operators and experiment with A/B testing to optimise email engagement rates.