NPSP starts Fleet Safety Trainings

The National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) of WHO-India runs the largest WHO operation in the world. With a fleet of 340 vehicles, they travel approximately 8 million kilometers every year across India to support surveillance activities, conduct case investigations and monitor immunization rounds.

A leading public health program in India supporting the government’s immunization activities, NPSP is now joining the fight against the new Indian epidemic, road traffic accidents (RTA) which claims more than 120,000 lives in the country every year.  NPSP has initiated substantial changes in its fleet and is now partnering with Fleet Forum for greater fleet safety.

“We want our people safe. We are taking all possible measures to prevent RTAs involving our staff”, says Dr Hamid Jafari, Project Manager of NPSP. 

To this end, a massive fleet operations overhaul was undertaken last year. New vehicles have replaced the old and unreliable ones. The new vehicles are fitted with GPS allowing more efficient management of the fleet.  A Fleet Manager has also been recruited and new fleet policy developed. 

“ NPSP Senior Management recognizes that RTAs are avoidable, and with awareness training and reinforcement from management, behavior can be modified towards greater fleet safety”, says Virginia Swezy, the Deputy Project Manager in charge of operations. 

In July 2010, all staff of the NPSP head office in Delhi was invited to participate in the Fleet Forum’s All Staff Awareness Session(s). In a 2-hour session, staff members went through a training in which they got the background of the road safety concerns on a global level, the issue in India, and how at the individual level the tide of the epidemic could be turned by simply changing their behavior. 

The participants were asked how they behaved on the roads, for example, did they always obey traffic rules and what it would mean to them personally if they would become victim of a traffic accident; how would that affect their families?  

The training focused on behavior change and how simple actions could reduce the risk that everyone faces when traveling on Indian roads; always wear a seatbelt or helmet, obey traffic rules and don’t over speed. The session was concluded with describing everyone’s personal action to change their behavior on the roads. 

Following the All Staff Awareness Sessions, the Management Sessions were held. In this session the focus was solely on management responsibility towards staff safety. In a 2-hour interactive training, management (including team leaders) described what they saw as their managerial role to improve road safety.  In this training, management defined what their personal actions would be and how they would contribute to the safety of their staff. 

All in all, 98 staff members of NPSP went through the training sessions and the reactions were positive. One participant mentioned that the training was a real eye-opener and that he never thought about how his own behavior could lead to accidents. 

The next step is to take the Fleet Safety Trainings to the field units of NPSP. A training plan has been  developed and the roll out of the trainings will start soon with expected completion by the end of 2010.