How to Manage the Risks of the Last Mile

UK last-mile deliveries are among the most complex in the world. But they’re made harder by avoidable risks that fleet managers don’t even know about.

According to the recent Samsara Safety Report, commercial drivers in Western Europe record harsh events at a rate 65% above the global baseline. That’s not necessarily because Europeans are worse drivers—this same data set shows they speed 61% less than the global rate. It’s simply an unavoidable reality of driving on Europe's unusually traffic-dense, highly urbanised environments and complex road networks.

A far cry from the predictability of the motorway, last-mile drivers in the UK must navigate irregular urban streetscapes, thronged with pedestrians and cyclists. Roads can close suddenly, heaping on time pressures that raise the chances of an accident. By the time the back office finds out that something’s gone wrong, it’s already too late. 

These are the structural risks that any high-frequency last-mile deliverer must accept. So why take on any further? In reality, too many operators leave much more to chance than they need to, because they aren’t equipped with the right tools for the environment.  

The invisibility problem

Vp Brandon Hire Station used to think they didn’t have a problem with their last-mile operation. As it turned out, in the words of HSEQ Director Antony Draper, “That couldn’t have been further from the truth”. 

Even though distracted driving behaviours are a major source of accidents in urban areas, Brandon Hire’s safety system was only set up to capture safety incidents above a certain G-force. The head office was simply unaware of the dozens of near-misses their drivers were getting into on urban roads, whether through distracted driving, tailgating, mobile phone usage or not wearing a seatbelt.   

Even if a dicey moment doesn’t spin out of control, it will have root causes which must be addressed. Brandon Hire used AI Dash Cams to understand what really happens on the roads. Initial safety data unearthed an unexpectedly high rate of unsafe driving behaviours, even on the most critical, last-mile stretches.

They were only able to get the problem under control by turning on automated in-cab alerts, and using footage and incident data to coach repeat offenders. 

The routing gap

But there’s another problem plaguing UK last-mile operators, and it has nothing to do with how they drive.

Most van and lorry drivers are sent out onto the roads to navigate last-mile deliveries with Google Maps or Waze—routing apps designed only for non-commercial car users. These tools have no concept of vehicle weight, bridge clearances, low-emission zones, or where goods-in entrances actually are. 

Drivers have to fill in those gaps in real time, under pressure. When Google Maps sends an HGV driver down the wrong road, they might end up in one of the bridge strikes that occur every five hours on Britain’s roads. If that happens, operators face heavy fines, damage claims and even the loss of their O-licence. Relying on free consumer apps to guide commercial drivers is a false economy. 

Why all these last-mile risks are connected

Neither problem exists in isolation. Poor routing puts vehicles into unsuitable environments. Unsuitable environments and time pressure produce incidents. Incidents without evidentiary footage produce insurance costs that compound the original event several times over.

"For anyone who drives for a living, a crash can unfold in seconds" said Susan Moore, Brandon Hire’s Road Risk Manager. "Unless the details are captured, the truth disappears just as fast.” 

To avoid being unfairly penalised by he-said-she-said claims, drivers need footage that closes down all ambiguity. 

The last-mile is the toughest stretch. But the bulk of its problems can be solved with a joined-up approach. 

Built for the last mile

Samsara has built two products that, together, keep drivers safe during the riskiest stretches of their journeys. 

Commercial Navigation provides turn-by-turn directions tailored to the vehicle’s real restrictions—height, weight, length, road access. Drivers leave the depot with the right route, the right arrival point, and preferred fuel locations already mapped. No more split-second decisions made in the cab; everything is sorted before anyone sets off.

At the delivery point, Samsara AI Multicam addresses the second gap. 360-degree camera coverage in loading bays, alleys, and tight urban drop zones gives drivers visibility they can't get from the cab window. AI alerts flag pedestrian proximity and blind spot risks in real time. If an incident does occur, high-definition footage closes disputes quickly.

For Vp Brandon Hire Station—the operation that discovered it had a far bigger problem than it knew—deploying Samsara's camera and AI safety technology reduced accident costs by 40%, saving £192,000 in a year.

These safety benefits hold up even in the world’s most frantic urban environments. Since they started using AI Multicam to route 20-tonne vehicles around the streets of New York City and Washington D.C., Coach USA have seen preventable incidents involving cyclists and pedestrians tumble by 92%. 

The challenges of last-mile logistics aren’t getting any easier. Fleets have to stop treating routing and incident management as separate problems, and build a data-producing system that tackles risks at the source. 

Join us on 25 June for Winning the Last Mile: From Departure to Dock to see how Commercial Navigation and AI Multicam work together in practice.

Register here.