Field Services

Renew Holdings plc pioneers predictive fleet risk management, cutting large losses by 63% while reducing incident frequency, severity and cost with Samsara

Powered by the Samsara Connected Operations Platform

Meet Renew Holdings plc

5,000+ EMPLOYEES

10 SUBSIDIARIES COMPANIES

1,747 SAMSARA-ENABLED VEHICLES

The Challenge

Rising collisions and limited options

Renew Holdings plc maintains and renews the critical infrastructure that keeps the UK running—from railways and highways to telecoms, energy networks, and water and wastewater services. Across ten independently branded subsidiaries, approximately 2,500 engineers and tradespeople take to the road each day; for most, driving is a means to an end, not the job itself.

A couple of years ago a significant issue developed. Across the group, Renew was suffering a significant rise in rear-end collisions alongside some severe accidents. The major concern for their leadership team was the potential for injuries to team members and other road users, but this was also set on a backdrop of insurance industry inflation and the incumbent insurer’s concerns around an increasing loss ratio. With subsidiaries each operating autonomously, the challenge was reaching a unified view of what was happening, why, and how to reverse the trend.

Renew Holdings had already been building a successful behavioural science approach to on-site risk management. Based on the principle that lasting change comes through leadership, management and supervision redesigning the work environment to support ‘reduced risk behaviour’ — rather than blaming front-line personnel when incidents occur. But they needed vehicle technology that matched that philosophy, and a way to bring the operations of ten separate subsidiaries into one coherent picture.

The step change from Samsara is being able to show that our reduction in incidents and incurred losses is a direct result of captured and coached behaviours. We've moved from a position of having limited ways to support driver safety to being clear what we can do, and seeing the intentional improvement in real time.

Lawrence Ling

Group SHEQ Director

The Solution

A single platform to unite ten independent operations

Renew Holdings piloted Samsara AI Dash Cams across a small number of subsidiaries before rolling out group wide. That journey started at Cappagh Browne Utilities Limited, where Head of Plant & Transport Matt Reid had championed Samsara early enough that the rest of the group could learn from a proven deployment, rather than a standing start. His advocacy and the results behind it made the case that group wide adoption was worth the effort.

Built on that foundation, four connected solutions now give Renew Holdings something they'd never had before: a single, evidence-based view of fleet operations across the entire group.

Video-based safety

Catching the behaviours behind collisions

The problem across Renew’s subsidiaries was specific. Rear-end collisions were rising, and the causes — tailgating, phone use, inattention — were behaviours their previous system couldn't reliably detect. Samsara AI Dash Cams flagged mobile phone use, seatbelt violations, and following distance events in real time, so fleet managers could act on what was actually happening rather than waiting for an incident to prompt a review.

Across the subsidiaries, key risk behaviours fell between 30% and 70% including inattentive driving, mobile phone usage, and no seatbelts. One of the subsidiaries Head of Fleet commented: "You just imagine everyone gets in and puts their seatbelt on, we never realised that was an issue until we got Samsara.”

An Amco Giffen van parked beside a blue steel footbridge with yellow handrails at a railway station construction site.

API integrations

Creating an industry-first live risk management tool

In partnership with insurance broker Marsh and insurer QBE, Renew supported the development of a bespoke Power BI dashboard, custom-engineered by Marsh’s Digital Risk Consulting practice, that pulls all Samsara telematics data from its subsidiaries. This is achieved via API integration which also overlays the dashboard with QBE claims history data, including claim frequency and cost per claim. All subsidiaries are now accessible in one interrogatable view, with leading and lagging indicators on the same screen for the first time.

Renew Holdings can see which combinations of driving behaviour consistently precede rear-end collision claims, where those behaviours cluster by location and time of day, and whether specific coaching interventions are actually improving the numbers. "We've switched from explaining what had happened to understanding why it happened," said Sam Libberton, Digital Risk Consulting Leader at Marsh. "And ultimately, that's where prevention sits."

Renew made a significant investment by introducing Samsara across the group. However, the implementation enabled insurance savings in the first year which exceeded the initial investment.

Total incurred losses fell 54% — a 65% reduction from their peak — and large claims dropped 63%. Meanwhile, the average cost per claim came down 30%, from £5,107 down to £3,503. Those results gave Renew the confidence to opt for a higher insurance retention and benefit from lower insurance and premium tax costs.

Two Amco Giffen workers in hi-vis gear review documents on an airport runway, flanked by branded white vehicles.

Vehicle Telematics

Right-sizing the fleet and reducing road exposure

Samsara Vehicle Telematics has changed how Renew thinks about fleet size itself. AmcoGiffen, a Renew subsidiary, used fleet utilisation data to examine which vehicles were genuinely needed based on how far each was actually travelling, which routes overlapped, and whether allocation matched operational reality. It turned out there was more redundancy than expected.

As a result, AmcoGiffen cut its LCV fleet from 392 to 348 vehicles — a 12% reduction — without losing operational output. Across the group, total fleet size fell 26% and vehicle mileage dropped 31% over 17 months. Fewer vehicles on the road means fewer accident exposures, alongside the direct cost savings associated with leasing, fuel and maintenance.

A fleet of teal Excalon-branded Ford Transit vans lined up outside an industrial building, with black vehicles behind them.

Fleet electrification

Planning a practical path to Net Zero

Renew has committed to Net Zero by 2040, a decade ahead of the UK's statutory target. Transitioning a mixed-use fleet of over 2,000 vehicles across ten subsidiaries, many of which operate in remote locations, makes that commitment harder to deliver than it sounds. Samsara’s advanced tools and reporting inform the Group subsidiaries in their decision-making supporting pragmatic, data-based progress towards Net Zero.

At Browne Group, vehicle utilisation data identified 5% of the fleet as ‘excellent’ and 88% as ‘good’ in terms of EV transition readiness — work that would have taken considerably longer to establish without daily range, payload, and route metrics already in hand. At QTS Group, the EV van count has grown from 10 to 25, with idling down 25% across the subsidiary. While Clarke Telecom reduced its CO2e from 673,299kg to 420,717kg, driven by a combination of EV adoption, switching some vehicles from Diesel to HVO, and the behavioural efficiency gains that flow from drivers knowing their data is being tracked.

A Full Circle branded white van parked beside a wind turbine on open moorland under a clear blue sky.

The Road Ahead with Samsara

Designing risk out of future operations

The results so far have given Renew something more valuable than metrics: the confidence to go further.

The next phase is focused on taking coaching to the frontline. A programme of Applied Telematics Coaching courses is rolling out across the group, equipping line managers with the skills to use Samsara data and have productive, evidence-based conversations with drivers. Rather than coaching flowing down from the top, it will happen at the point of closest contact.

Alongside that, the Samsara Driver App is launching across subsidiaries to put telematics data directly in drivers' hands. The aim is to shift the dynamic from monitoring to self-coaching, and using gamification to make sustained behavioural improvement something drivers are actively invested in.

The biggest ambition, however, is to become predictive. Renew is now working towards using clusters of at-risk behaviour data to identify when a driver is likely to be under stress or fatigue, and intervening with wellbeing support before anything untoward happens on the road.

Commercially, the impact is already visible. Renew now includes Samsara behavioural and ESG metrics in tender bids for government contracts to give bid teams a meaningful differentiator. In the past, the business had challenges in understanding the causes and solutions for road incidents across its ten subsidiaries. Now, Renew has built proof of competency entirely on data it owns and puts to work for the good of all stakeholders.

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