verylittlehelps

Hey Guys

I noticed someone put a note in the dot.com department saying that the vans are going to be fitted with a new device called a Lightfoot. Big brother is watching?! We haven't any meetings about this or what it does. Looking at the Lightfoot website... It looks like it a live GPS that tracks your van.

Any thoughts?

My brother in law works for wrens he is an hgv driver they have cameras in their cabs which watch them doing what they do in the cab if they take one hand off the steering wheel they get fined.

Said light foot device will be utterly destroyed by my heavy foot! Muhahahaha!

https://www.lightfoot.co.uk/

Being fitted into our vans this week but according to MM not going live “For a while”, they’re guessing until the whole fleet is equipped.
Very strong rumours that a driver facing camera is not far behind and some stores will be trailing it in the next few months.

Rest break, toilet break, traffic congestion, RTA, other drivers (bad or stupid), careless pedestrians (young and old).

  ???  :question:

These got fitted to our vans before coronavirus started and some went live on Sunday while management said they were supposed to go live yesterday.

Went live yesterday at our store.  First impression is that it is totally focused on acceleration and anything other than a Marge Simpson gives it an attack of the vapours.  Could not induce any reaction from harder than normal braking (*) or taking a corner at more than usual speed.  My view is that as long as the needle is within the green band on the rev counter then who is Lightfoot to argue with the automatic gearbox that is already locked in gentle ECO mode?

(*) The old tracking system always flagged me up as a "harsh" braker.

Lightfoot does track harsh incidents (braking, speeding, etc) but we don’t have access to that and the lights are just for acceleration. Harsh incidents won’t affect our Lightfoot score either, it’s just acceleration.

It don’t think it goes off of the rev counter either, you can sometimes have the revs low but still be in amber/red and other times be in the green with higher revs. I’m guessing it’s throttle percentage.

Lightfoot expects you to switch off the engine every time that you make a delivery, presumably to save diesel.  If you don't switch off, you get penalty points.  However, if you do switch off, particularly in the warm or hot weather, the temperature within the freezer and chiller units drops like a stone.  The end result should be quite apparent.

The onboard refrigeration compressor when parked up with the engine running on idle and no moving air pass through is not very effective at keeping / dropping the temps.  What I do in hot weather is keep on the move even if there is a gap before the next delivery.  There is usually a stretch of main road between two roundabouts to troll up and down between.

1921
You must be delivering to some remote areas, if I left the van running when doing a delivery it’d be gone before I’d had a chance to open the shutter  :D

Quite a few new reviews been added. Can guess who the posters work for 🤣

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.lightfoot.co.uk

I think they should rebrand it as Featherfoot.

Lightfoot is a terrible idea. Aside from being a distraction, with its judgemental green/amber/red lights drawing your attention from the road, it penalises safe driving. What I mean by that is, when you're joining fast-flowing traffic from a slip road onto a dual carriageway or motorway (which we have to do quite often at my store) you need to be able to match the speed of the traffic flow in order to join safely. Unless the slip road is ridiculously long, the only way to do this is to use a lot of accelerator, which then gets you a nag (at best) or a penalty (at worst) from Lightfoot. But if it's a choice between a penalty, or pulling onto the main carriageway in front of a vehicle doing 10-15mph more than you could ever hope to reach by staying in the green on Lightfoot, then I know which one I'm going to do!

I've spent the last couple of weeks seeing how high I can get my score - but having realised now that in order to get any sort of decent percentage you have to drive like Mother Theresa, I think that from now on I won't be bothering and I'll just be driving in a way which my 30 years of experience behind the wheel suggests is appropriate. If that gets me Lightfoot penalties, and a rebuke from management, then I'll be asking them to put in writing that I'm being specifically instructed to drive in a manner which is unsafe.

Just had this thing fitted last week...first observation...looking at the green  lights more than the road..downloaded the app.98%..though it was.nt my van.??.found the van I was on..gives you a list of all your delivery s...and the time you were er parked..don.t like it..very hard to not put foot down when joining a motorway/ junction..

Correct gaz...sometimes you need the foot down to keep up with traffic..ie joining  a motorway in front of a attic.. at the speed which  lightfoot seems safe?? No chance...in the red 

Well I'm driving strictly to Lightfoot no matter if it holds up other traffic. And when the complaints start coming in I will just state I'm driving how the company wishes me to drive keeping it in the green. If enough drivers do it they might get the hint.

The days of Caravans and Tractors holding up traffic on roads are now over.

I have now found myself doing extra miles, to avoid dual carriageways / motorways, all to avoid going into the red and getting a bad mark.

It's easy for management to tell you to ignore certain things about lightfoot, but when they have previously been quick enough to speak to you like a naughty schoolboy after excessive cornering and acceleration issues with the old system, trust is an issue.

I've also tried to explain to management that some vans differ. One van I drive on a regular basis, you only have to think about putting your foot on the accelerator for the green bars to shoot up, but some other vans the green bars hardly move when you accelerate slowly. 

Will get use to it at some point, just like all other changes we have to face in life.

 

Started using an old sports wristband to cover the display while driving.  The lights are a distraction.  Having them flashing up and down while driving normally goes against all recognised norms for effective warning systems.  Having the the main light go from green to amber to red without any clue why (acceleration, cornering, braking, what?) is useless as feedback to change driving style.

Quote from: chunkymufc on 21-07-20, 08:14AMI have now found myself doing extra miles, to avoid dual carriageways / motorways, all to avoid going into the red and getting a bad mark.

Same here. I find myself taking routes which are longer than the ones the satnav suggests because I know they'll be "kinder" as far as Lightfoot is concerned.

QuoteI've also tried to explain to management that some vans differ. One van I drive on a regular basis, you only have to think about putting your foot on the accelerator for the green bars to shoot up, but some other vans the green bars hardly move when you accelerate slowly.

Absolutely. I've noticed a not-insignificant difference between vans - some of them are more forgiving, others far less so. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of calibration process which should've been done when the units were installed, but which was skipped.

gaz123 you are right, there should be calibration but that is charged as extra. Also, considering it's plugged into the van system since we have used it my van has never shown I have been driving economically while the lights have stayed in the green.

Lightfoot is a total distraction and inherently dangerous

Quote from: helpme on 16-07-20, 11:15PM
Well I'm driving strictly to Lightfoot no matter if it holds up other traffic. And when the complaints start coming in I will just state I'm driving how the company wishes me to drive keeping it in the green. If enough drivers do it they might get the hint.

there are 500 drivers in our cfc,  I am always about 450, never spoken to me about it and I have been there 8 and half years. Take no notice, I have flashed up speeding a few times, I don't really care though.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.lightfoot.co.uk

Can I ask if any of you have 5 minutes to spare to add a review on the above please. Quite a few I work with have already done so. Lightfoot have started to reply to bad reviews and have also by pure coincidence started to receive ‘good’ reviews to mark there score up!
Let’s voice our opinions like many already have 👍🏻

I quite enjoy being spoken down to by lightfoot. My 25 years experience of driving Is worthless. I feel that I am worthless too. Could you class this as modern bullying. Usually I go home and kick my dog after my shift with light foot.

It would be bullying if they were proper managers, they're only pseudo-managers in a Mickey Mouse company that pays them below market rates for the position. Retail managers in general aren't really managers, they generally lack the education, but Tesco is as bad as it gets.

Why is large format so bloated in terms of hierarchy? A flat structure like it is in convenience would surely help with some of these issues?

[admin]Topic is Lightfoot, a driving 'aid' ( :D ) in dot com vans.[/admin]

Hey, been trying to figure out how to start a new thread, and finally realised I needed to pay for it. 😆

Anyhoo, it's a Lightfoot question, so I'll just post here.

A few drivers in our store are somehow scoring 100%, reliably, every week.
How is this possible?
Has someone figured out a trick to fool it?

Drive like a Sunday driver.

I suspect all those 99/100 percenters are the Click & Clock drivers who trundle the picks over from dot.com across the car park to the pod.

I thought it wasn't possible to score 100% on Lightfoot? 99% is the maximum? Even to score a solid 99% across a week, you'd have to be driving dangerously - pulling out of slip roads and onto roundabouts at barely more than walking pace and accelerating dangerously slowly. To anyone who knows how the system works and how bad it is, scoring 99% across a week doesn't show that you're a good driver - it shows that your focus is on driving 'in the green' at all times at the expense of the road/traffic conditions around you - dangerous.

I have noticed that any journey that takes me on an NSL dual-carriageway running parallel to the village it is bypassing always gets marked down.  But only on the carriageway nearest the village.  Which suggests its GPS is out of whack.

I've just started as a CDD about a month now but I just think its very dangerous keeping a constant eye on the lightfoot lights and the speed limits and other road users and following directions as I'm not familiar with the area.  It's just one thing to many if you ask me. >:(

Many drivers just cover it up.

[admin]Please do not quote immediately prior post(s).[/admin]
I need to check with the other drivers as to how much notice they take of it...I don’t want to be called in for a chat!

If you download their app or go to their website you can keep an eye on your overall score and whereabouts you are in the company league tables.

currently waiting for lightfoot to send me an activation code....perhaps I'm driving like Miss Daisy and I don't have to worry!  ;D

Quote from: gaz123 on 26-10-20, 11:26AM
I thought it wasn't possible to score 100% on Lightfoot? 99% is the maximum? Even to score a solid 99% across a week, you'd have to be driving dangerously - pulling out of slip roads and onto roundabouts at barely more than walking pace and accelerating dangerously slowly. To anyone who knows how the system works and how bad it is, scoring 99% across a week doesn't show that you're a good driver - it shows that your focus is on driving 'in the green' at all times at the expense of the road/traffic conditions around you - dangerous.

Quote from: gomezz on 25-10-20, 09:06AM
I suspect all those 99/100 percenters are the Click & Clock drivers who trundle the picks over from dot.com across the car park to the pod.

We've got 5 drivers above 99%, and 2 at 100%. None of them are C&C. 

No idea how they're doing it. 🤷‍â™,️

I mostly aim for 80+%, to avoid being told off. Lol

Although I got a penalty the other day for doing a wheel spin in reverse, when I was stuck in some mud. Doing a brisk 0mph. 😆

I scored a bit higher last week over the week before.  The difference was that last week I was not driving one particular van at all compared to driving it a lot before.

[mod]Please do not quote immediately prior post(s).[/mod]
Lightfoot have admitted that the system needs calibrating to a vehicle when it's installed, and that this isn't done with Tesco vans. Renders the whole thing meaningless.

Out of interest, is this published somewhere (LF requiring calibration)? I've found the lightfoots in the older Iveco vans at our store behave much more as you would expect them to, in comparison to the newer mercs, so have often wondered about this!

One of the many reviews on Trustpilot which gives them an absolute slating mentioned calibration of the units after installation - they said in their reply that this should be done. The discrepancies between units in supposedly identical vehicles in a store makes it clear that it hasn't been.

Infuriating little machine. Anything beyond moderate acceleration will trigger the thing off! It doesn't take into regard the realities of driving in a big city. Secondly, these vans are not designed to crawl around at 20mph which is most of the roads in London now!

Last week I spent one day allowing the new Merc vans cruise control system to handle travelling along NSL A roads.  Lightfoot scored those journeys 10 / 15% lower than what I manage without really trying.   

It's quite easy to achieve 99%... At least it is in our vans. (Maybe because they're green :D)
I used to get 70-80% at first until I sussed it out but you have to use the paddle shift gears/ tiptronic.
Leaving it in fully auto you have no control over when the van changes gear.
It's pretty stupid really considering its been installed to save fuel but when I drop down to a lower gear going up a hill at 4000 revs it's on 2 green lights and when I the van shifts automatically to a higher gear I get an amber at 2k revs.
Other than that you have to drive like a granny and plan ahead so that you cut your complete stops to a minimum.

http://www.transportengineer.org.uk/transport-engineer-news/tesco-delivery-fleet-saves-fuel-with-help-from-lightfoot/236762/ (http://www.transportengineer.org.uk/transport-engineer-news/tesco-delivery-fleet-saves-fuel-with-help-from-lightfoot/236762/)

QuoteThis technology has taken Tesco Grocery Home Shopping's driver efficiency and safety programme, which includes in-vehicle cameras and driver trainers, to the next level.

Meanwhile on planet earth.

So the GPS chip used by light is, exactly the same one used by the older MU3 microlise units, which have a 16 meter accuracy rating with full sat coverage, falling to 25 meter accuracy with moderate sat coverage, and declining all the way to 40 meters with poor sat coverage.

They're nowhere near as accurate as is claimed, and Tesco know it from being challenged over them at tribunal, unfortunately Tesco settled the claim but be sure they know it.

The accelerator sensor is bunk  a driver in Erith CFC had a red light when covering the brake pedal rolling down a hill  another had a red light while slowly decelerating coming down a steep hill, both drivers were not accelerating at all.
They're a useless distraction which don't do what is claimed they do  They're another waste of money for tesco to justify.

Their also only useful is regularly calibrated and updated, which they aren't.
My old CFC has had 7 drivers disciplined for speeding when the maps are wrong, its a joke.

Sorry to pull up the thread again but it's to do with lightfoot.

One of our vans in store got into a accident with a decent amount of damage to the front end but it came back repaired. When I got in it for a evening shift everything was fine I then came back into work the following afternoon and got pulled into the office for apparently speeding doing 27mph in a 20mph zone and the road I have apparently been speeding on by lightfoot is a 30mph limit apart so I'll be declining any disciplinary proceedings as there wasn't any road signs saying the speed limit had changed. So as Horatiocain has said the GPS chip is not as accurate as is claimed and is a joke of a system.

It also relies on canbus system just like the microfine MC2 unit,which means if they don't update the map then it will pull for speeding.
We had drivers being called for speeding daily for weeks when a speed limit was raised to 50 and they refused to accept it  just kept printing out Google Street View pictures from2 years prior I actually took a van out and recorded the road to prove them wrong.

Try this, switch van on then switch off then on again, do not pause to do this, lightfoot lights will stay on one green and not light up every light. If you have followed instructions and only light one green then hey presto drive a mile or a hundred miles at any acceleration and you will get 100%.

Quote from: lukedotcom on 29-10-20, 04:33PMI've just started as a CDD about a month now but I just think its very dangerous keeping a constant eye on the lightfoot lights and the speed limits and other road users and following directions as I'm not familiar with the area.  It's just one thing to many if you ask me. >:(

I too found myself watching the lights instead of the road however after a time i learned the sound of the engine. Usually get caught out after cruising at a higher speed then accelerating from a junction.

In our store nobody cares about them as they are biggest piece of c**p going been pulled a couple off times told manager the calibration is c**p and only thing they should bother about is speeding now he doesn't bother, most at our store are on d or c for driving

We have some new vans and they are all different calibrations of lightfoot. Some you can accelerate alot before it goes into the yellow others just fly up at a touch of the throttle. How can they be so different.

Cheap chips  ;D

Quote from: madness on 09-08-23, 11:42PMWe have some new vans and they are all different calibrations of lightfoot. Some you can accelerate alot before it goes into the yellow others just fly up at a touch of the throttle. How can they be so different.

And how can the company / Lightfoot not notice the difference between the vans across all the drivers that have driven them in that period and the difference in apparent driver performance depending on which van they have been driving?  Simple statistical analysis would call BS on any challenge to a driver's performance. Alternatively if pulled then ask the team leader / driver assessor to take you out in the van in question and get them to show you how to drive (safely) to get an acceptable score.  Bet they can't manage it.

(unless there is a cheat mode the driver assessor can activate with a secret gadget or key sequence on the app)

Following on from that how about an unknown driver assessor from another part of the county being taken on as a "newby" and buddied up with a "problem" driver to see what's what?