Federal Safety Regulations to Boost Sales of Onboard Recorders, Tech Vendor Says
This story appears in the May 3 print edition of Transport Topics.
PRINCETON, N.J. — New federal safety regulations soon will drive a wave of purchases by U.S. trucking companies that have not yet adopted electronic onboard recorders and mobile communication systems that closely monitor driver performance, a technology vendor here said.
The combination of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s latest rule about electronic onboard recorders and the agency’s Comprehensive Safety Analysis enforcement program essentially has created “a soft mandate” for technology adoption, said Matt Voda, vice president of product management for PeopleNet, Minnetonka, Minn.
“We think the combination of these two will really drive some technology change among fleets,” said Voda. “The board is tilted so heavily against HOS violations” that fleets will move to influence drive behavior with more in-cab tools to avoid costly and disruptive federal intervention, he added.
Voda spoke April 28 during ALK Technologies’ annual conference.
FMCSA’s latest EOBR rule, which went on the books last month, does not require all trucks to use EOBRs but does significantly increase the number of carriers that could be required to equip the devices for safety violations (4-12, p. 1; click here for story).
CSA 2010, FMCSA’s new safety rating system, is slated for national rollout next year. CSA 2010 will be more complex than the current SafeStat system, and under the new system, carriers will be evaluated more often.
Trucking companies that attended the ALK summit said they are paying close attention to the new federal rules, but they gave no indication that a technology shopping spree was imminent for the industry.
Motor Carrier Service of Northwood, Ohio, for example, is in the process of upgrading its mobile communications systems. While the timing of the upgrade coincides with the rollout of some of the most extensive truck safety regulations in years, the carrier said it decided to invest in the technology without prompting from federal regulators.
“We’re converting our entire fleet from [Qualcomm Inc.’s] OmniTracs to OmniVision,” said John Fritzius, Motor Carrier Service’s general manager.
Asked whether the technology upgrades were reactions to the EOBR rule and CSA 2010, Fritzius said, “No; we ordered the OmniVision units before the regulations came down.”
However, Fritzius told Transport Topics that his company “made a gamble at the right time” because the new devices will provide greater insight into driver behavior than the old text-only OmniTracs units.
OmniTracs still is the most widely deployed Qualcomm system in the country, the San Diego-based company has said. OmniTracs units are considered “automatic onboard recording devices” under the old FMCSA standard, known in the trucking industry as 395.15. However, the OmniTracs system does not meet the definition of an EOBR as spelled out in 395.16, the new rule.
Under the latest regulation, if FMCSA determines that a carrier must install EOBRs, the carrier can use devices that meet the old definition in any truck made before June 4, 2012. Trucks manufactured after that date must be fitted with more advanced devices.
Meanwhile, truckload carrier Celadon Group, Indianapolis, said last week that it has lately drawn on human resources, rather than on technology, to bolster the company’s safety and compliance strategies.
“We’ve taken someone out of our safety department and allocated them specifically to CSA 2010,” said Paul Will, Celadon’s chief financial officer. “We’re starting to look at our drivers and what they’ve done on the road — tickets, overweight violations” and other safety-related incidents.
Celadon uses late-model Qualcomm units in its cabs and wouldn’t comment on what upgrades and additions, if any, it would make to those systems ahead of CSA 2010.
Will said that not every driver views more in-cab technology as a panacea for safety compliance.
“The other day,” Will said, “a driver came to us and said, ‘I can barely work this Qualcomm thing you guys got in the truck. And CSA 2010? I don’t even know what that means. I’m just done with it.’ ”
The biggest U.S. trucking fleets are longtime users of EOBRs and other in-cab technologies. However, one research group said that the U.S. trucking industry, as a whole, is technologically underserved.
ABI Research, Oyster Bay, N.Y., predicts that by 2015, only about 27% of the for-hire U.S. fleet will have some form of fleet management technology installed.
