Carriers May Save Billions of Dollars With Better Technology, Study Says
By Dan Leone, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the March 16 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Motor carriers incur tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity because of inefficiencies that could be mitigated by wider use of wireless information technology, according to a new federal report.
The study, released in late February, breaks out and quantifies carrier inefficiencies into seven different categories, including delays at receivers’ docks and maritime ports, fuel wasted at excessive speeds, and cargo theft.
However, a representative of American Trucking Associations said that the report overemphasized the need for carriers to adopt more information systems while downplaying the potentially greater effects of policy changes.
“The report places a great deal of focus on motor carrier adoption of specific systems,” said Clayton Boyce, an ATA spokesman. “It does not focus enough attention on governmental policies that produce inefficiencies, nor does it provide enough information on the direct involvement of governmental bodies to universally deploy systems that complement and supplement motor carrier initiatives.”
The report details the first phase of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Motor Carrier Efficiency Study — a project that seeks to plug revenue holes in carrier operations with new and existing application of wireless technology.
The Motor Carrier Efficiency Study is in its second phase, FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne told Transport Topics. The study collected comments from about 150 trucking companies, and the agency is now requesting proposals for pilot projects to be conducted under Phase II later this year.
The pilot projects will evaluate some of the recommendations proposed in Phase I, DeBruyne said.
For each operating inefficiency identified in the study, the FMCSA study group proposed a solution in the form of a new or existing application of wireless technology.
The study group’s recommendations range from tried-and-true wireless systems, such as untethered trailer tracking, to new applications such as “virtual queuing,” which the study group described as tracking and control systems for trucks inbound to shippers’ or receivers’ yards.
Carriers contributing to the study singled out idle time at loading docks as the most costly inefficiency they face. Delays related to the unloading or loading of cargo sap about $3.1 billion from their operations every year, the carriers said.
Delays at ports, mostly time spent waiting to pick up loads, were identified by study participants as the second-costliest inefficiency, draining about $900 million a year from carriers.
To mitigate the inefficiencies associated with unloading cargo, FMCSA proposed testing “virtual queuing” — a system that the agency said could work like air-traffic control for trucks but “with less complexity, and theoretically at a lower cost.”
Virtual queuing would combine existing location-based technology, such as GPS, with software that creates a schedule of inbound trucks due at a shipper’s yard, a receiver’s dock or an LTL freight terminal.
If a truck is delayed picking up a load or stuck in traffic, data from the location-based system could be tapped to automatically update the queue of inbound trucks.
The system would allow shippers and receivers to allocate dock personnel as needed so that inbound trucks spend less time waiting to be loaded or unloaded.
The components for virtual queuing would require an initial carrier investment of about $16,500, the study group estimated. A fleet of six trucks could recover that cost in about three years, the report said.
FMCSA is testing a virtual queuing and load notification system for drayage carriers.
Another new application of wireless technology touted in the report is remotely adjustable speed limiters. These devices would allow personnel at carrier’s home office or terminal to govern the top speed of truck on the road.
Variable speed limiters could be combined with geofencing and an electronic database of posted speed limits to adjust a truck’s maximum speed based on its location, FMCSA said.
In the agency’s report, a 150-truck carrier loses about $1.6 million a year because of fuel wasted at excessive speeds.
The FMCSA study group also said that remotely controlled variable- speed limiters offer potentially robust returns.
Researchers estimated the upfront cost of such a system at about $29,000 and pegged the potential rate of return for carriers at 54%.
