Scania : ‘guardian angel’ app can save lives

The Scania Angel Call app is a unique human interface for a transport monitoring system. Released by Scania-Rus, Angel Call stops the driver from falling asleep at the wheel by alerting his nearest and dearest.

The app, developed by Scania Russia together with the international creative agency Geometry Global, combines Scania technology and services with compassion from the driver's relatives and loved ones to increase road safety and save lives.

The Angel Call app is free to download and can be installed on the driver and his relatives' mobile phones. The service is connected to Scania´s Fleet Management System (FMS), and monitors how alert or fatigued the driver is on the road. The app uses the most powerful means of saving a driver from falling asleep: the driver's nearest and dearest, who act as his or her guardian angels.

Alerts the angel

Should the system detect that a driver has exceeded the set time limit for driving, it alerts the nominated angel who then calls the driver and convinces him or her to stop and have some rest.

The idea of the Angel Call app was to make FMS more personalised for drivers, and to promote it to haulage company owners and management. Transforming mechanical, impersonal and sometimes irritating automated messages into a real person who cares was central to the success of the project.

The challenge

'We believe Angel Call is an unusual and very interesting way to promote our Fleet Management System,' says Varvara Astakhova, Head of Marketing section/Business Support Department at Scania-Rus.

'Here in Russia drivers often perceive FMS as something hostile, used by their employer to control them. So our challenge was to convince them to the contrary - that Scania and the Fleet Management System can help to take care of them,' she continues.

'Peace of mind'

Many Angel Call users have reported that the service has a powerful effect.

'I wake up in the morning, check the Angel Call app while preparing the kids for daycare, and can leave home with peace of mind,' Elena Otvagina, wife and guardian angel to Sergey Otvagin, says.

And Julia Nosova, wife and guardian angel to Alexey Nosov, might have saved her husband's life: 'Suddenly the app alarm went off. I called him back and said: 'You stop and rest now!'' she says.

Karel Geirnaert, Business Support Director for Scania Russia, believes Angel Call is a brilliant idea. 'We are actually using love and compassion to save lives,' he says.

See a video about the project and app here: