Road safety

Getting road safety right has long been a priority for us, and a serious challenge. We have the largest network of service stations in our industry. We continue to take responsibility ourselves for the delivery of the oil and chemical products we refine in many countries, using a network of more than 18,000 contractor drivers. In 2008, Shell staff and contractors in our downstream business alone drove over 1.6 billion kilometres, more than 100 times around the globe every day.

Many of the road safety programmes introduced over the last few years are starting to show results (see below). In Nigeria, for example, over 3,500 vehicles were fitted with onboard monitoring systems by the end of 2008. The system lets us track behaviour directly and gives drivers detailed feedback on ways to improve their driving habits. We have already seen compliance with our road safety standards improve as a result.

A number of our big construction projects have successfully reduced the amount of travel needed. One way is to provide accommodation on the project site, as we have done during construction at the Singapore chemical complex expansion (see Singapore). Bussing in workers to reduce car journeys, as our oil sands project does, is another way. Using water or rail to get trucks off the road is a third way.

We are learning from these successes and spreading their use more widely across Shell. To help do that, we created a dedicated centre of road safety expertise in 2008. It is headed by a company-wide road safety manager. He is charged with implementing a standardised Shell-wide road safety programme, based on what we have seen work well in our successful local programmes.

We also continue to support local and national road safety programmes in many of the countries where we operate. In Brunei, for example, the “Tell A Friend” campaign to increase seat-belt wearing had reached nearly a fifth of the population within nine months of its launch in 2008.

TRUCK ROLLOVERS

Our supply and distribution business delivers products like petrol and diesel to customers and service stations in some 70 countries. Much of this work is done by contractors driving heavy trucks carrying up to 36,000 litres of highly flammable fuel. Serious rollover incidents, where one of these trucks turns over on its side or roof, can result in fuel spills, injuries and deaths. Rollovers are usually preventable. They are most often caused by drivers turning too sharply or driving too fast. Since 2007 we have trained nearly 12,000 drivers to improve their driving skills and prevent rollovers. Posters and flyers at truck stop parking lots remind drivers to apply what they have learned. These efforts have started to show results. The number of rollover incidents has fallen steadily. In 2008, there were more than a third fewer rollovers compared with 2006.