Save Traffic Nederland designs and manages temporary traffic control measures: the yellow signage and detour boards you see along the road during roadworks. The company also supports events, though that's not its core business. It's a fast-growing organization, having gone from around 90 employees to 150, spread across four locations.

Remco Pit is responsible for safety at Save Traffic Nederland, a role he's held for two and a half years. He was also the one who first proposed bringing SafetyFirst into the organization.

The challenge: reports that never got made

Before SafetyFirst, everything ran on paper. Inspections and incident reports were filled in by hand. A system that worked, up to a point, but had one clear weakness.

"A downside is that a report would often just get forgotten," Remco explains. "There's not really an appetite to fill out another piece of paper. It's just a bit too much effort, or people simply don't see the point." As the company grew and added more people, that threshold became harder to ignore: the more employees you have, the more it matters that reports actually come in.

On top of that, until recently there was no one dedicated to safety. "A colleague used to handle it on the side," Remco says. As the company scaled up, so did the need to organize things differently, partly to keep pace with the certifications that come with that size.

The solution: SafetyFirst as part of the daily routine

Remco heard about SafetyFirst through a former colleague, gathered information, and set up a session with the leadership team. "The three of us were pretty much unanimous that this could make a real contribution to bringing safety within our organization to a higher level."

The team ran a pilot with a small group of colleagues in late 2024, and rolled it out company-wide in March 2025, announcing it at a quarterly all-hands meeting. Adoption went smoothly. "Nobody needed extra convincing," Remco says. New employees now get a standard onboarding conversation with Remco as the safety contact, including a walkthrough of the app.

Even colleagues used to the old, paper-based way adapted without major issues. "There are always people who find it harder to work with an app. But you barely hear about that anymore. You help them a couple of times and then it's done." He saw little difference between the four locations: once people understand why the system is in place, they get on board.

Together with the fleet department, the team also set up a dedicated tile for damage reports. All damage now comes in automatically to both fleet management and Remco.

Results: more visibility, a lower barrier to reporting

The biggest impact, according to Remco, is simply that reporting has become easier. The numbers are now shared as a matter of course at quarterly meetings: how many damage reports came in, broken down by location, along with the associated costs.

SafetyFirst also plays a direct role in Save Traffic Nederland's certification programs. The company holds both SCL and VCA certification. "SCL is mainly about behavior and culture," Remco explains. "Having someone permanently in this role has made safety much more visible across the organization. It's really been a turning point."

Just as important is the culture around it. Save Traffic Nederland is a flat, open organization — the two directors started the company together 14 years ago, and several colleagues from those early days are still with the company. That openness, Remco says, translates directly into safety behavior: "It's not a snitch culture. You don't feel like you're betraying anyone by filing a report." Colleagues call each other out on unsafe behavior without it landing badly, and reports only get filed when something actually warrants it — not to hit a quota.

Looking ahead

Save Traffic Nederland is now working toward SCL level 4. Recertification is due at the end of the year, and Remco is already using it to gather concrete improvement points ahead of the real audit next year.

"For organizations considering this, I think it can be a really valuable addition to bringing safety to a higher level," Remco concludes. "It makes life easier for the safety coordinator, and ultimately for the whole organization. The barrier to filing a report is much lower than it was on paper — and that's really the point."

‍