Does anybody have any experience of driving with Microlise? Is it too intrusive? Too much like Big Brother? Or doesn’t it bother you?
From experience you cannot get top marks unless you spent the whole shift on a motorway. It will mark you down slowing / accelerating on slip roads.
We were getting marked down doing 40mph in top gear as the revs were below the green band I.e outside the rev range!
Didn’t find it intrusive, made me laugh most days and I was a long way from being the worst ranking driver on site.
We have it, but because I’m teachers pet and always the top or second top for fuel consumption and top five for driving style it doesn’t bother me. You do have to be very disciplined to get good results though, turning engine off when pulling up at gatehouse or picking trailers up etc, manually upshifting when appropriate, coasting up to junctions etc. basically just driving well but exaggerating if you know what I mean.
There are certain cheats you can utilise however; if you’re sat in traffic but not long enough to realistically switch the engine off, you can knock it into neutral (in an auto) and put a hundred revs or so on. It then thinks you’re using a pto and doesn’t bad mark you for idling. On our Mercs you can set the cruise to a low speed and just drive on the throttle pedal and it gives you high marks for use of c/c. I can’t do that with my MAN though because it just knocks the cruise off, and tbh it aint really advisable to drive like that either.
I get scored down slightly for my “green band driving” because I use the exhaust brake a lot and so need a lot of revs on the overrun to make it effective. Microlise doesn’t like that but if it was me paying for brake relines I’d love it.
It’s like any telemetary system though, great if whoever in charge can read it properly, but rubbish if they can’t and are using it as a stick to beat you with.
Interesting stuff. Sounds a bit daft though for getting marked down for using the exhaust brake 
shame it doesnt mark you on reversing blindside off a busy road through a gate thats only 2 foot wider than your trailer… i could never work for a company that runs like that, office staff thinking they know what they are talking about and thinking they know how to drive a truck by looking at a few figures.
We have it and it’s ■■■■. Next question
OVLOV JAY:
We have it and it’s [zb]. Next question
'Nuff said 
i like the fact you get a energy rating , like a washing machine from currys, i never pay attention to it all, its ballshit
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I don’t understand all this, sounds abit degrading to be honest, if a driver gets over 8.5mpg throughout the week where’s the problem, why do they need these systems, because all it does is push away good drivers. There’s more to this job than plodding around trying to keep a computer happy.
You look at all these companies out there that adopt these systems and I bet all those people near the top and those in the office can’t even drive a lorry, havnt got a clue what the job is like yet think this sort of thing is a good idea.
Saaamon:
I don’t understand all this, sounds abit degrading to be honest, if a driver gets over 8.5mpg throughout the week where’s the problem, why do they need these systems, because all it does is push away good drivers. There’s more to this job than plodding around trying to keep a computer happy.You look at all these companies out there that adopt these systems and I bet all those people near the top and those in the office can’t even drive a lorry, havnt got a clue what the job is like yet think this sort of thing is a good idea.
Exactly one of the reasons why I’ve left maritime
We had them fitted about 18 month ago and we had to change our driving style at the time ie using the manual change on our autos a lot more [Daf xf] to get the best out off them but its second nature now dont even think about it but can be a pain trying to stay in the green band,but from the company point of view they love them, on our night runs they are saving about 20 litres of fuel per truck x 10 trucks per shift
FarnboroughBoy11:
shame it doesnt mark you on reversing blindside off a busy road through a gate thats only 2 foot wider than your trailer… i could never work for a company that runs like that, office staff thinking they know what they are talking about and thinking they know how to drive a truck by looking at a few figures.
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Saaamon:
I don’t understand all this, sounds abit degrading to be honest, if a driver gets over 8.5mpg throughout the week where’s the problem, why do they need these systems, because all it does is push away good drivers. There’s more to this job than plodding around trying to keep a computer happy.You look at all these companies out there that adopt these systems and I bet all those people near the top and those in the office can’t even drive a lorry, havnt got a clue what the job is like yet think this sort of thing is a good idea.
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Harsh braking must be sensitive on our wagons as I had a low mark for it last week and don’t recall slamming on the anchors once and lots of our drivers say the same.
I think at the end of the day it’s about saving money. The TM told me last year he had a budget of summat like £4.2million for fuel so any saving would be a good thing. The wagons are Volvo FM13’s with a few MAN 6x2 units along with a few DAF’s. I’ve never used it but if I get this job it will be a main part of working life, on first thought it sounds quite intrusive but if it’s all I’ll know then it shouldn’t be all that bad.
We have a weekly report that gets printed out showing idle time, cruise control, green band driving, harsh braking and excessive throttle or something similier to that, it’s just used as a guide and iv’e not heard anyone getting tugged for any reason.
Green band and cruise control depends on what sort of run you have so you can’t compare that so really it’s just idle time i try to keep down.
Does anyone know how accurate this is?
I am in a disciplinary next week for 3 over speeds none of which registered on the tacho.
Is it linked to the speedo/tacho on the vehicle or is it seperate?
Does it need to be calibrated regularly like a tacho?
61.33mph for 21 seconds
61.64mph for 24 seconds
61.89 mph for 16 seconds
I find myself looking at the speedo and tacho more than the road at the moment.
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Reading stuff like this and seeing disciplinaries over three piddling overspeeds makes me realise how lucky I am in my current job. I fully expect this to be my last driving job, couldn’t hack all that stupid bolloxs