iTECH: Carriers Undeterred by EOBR Delay

Despite a federal appellate court ruling tossing out a new mandate that would eventually have required all motor carriers to install electronic on-board recorders in their vehicles, several fleets said they would press forward with their plans to add the devices.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August threw out a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rule that eventually would have required most cargo haulers to install EOBRs in truck cabs. The court rejected the rule on grounds that the devices could be used to harass drivers (Transport Topics, 9-5, p. 1).

But Jeff Lester, chief risk officer for Dallas-based Greatwide Logistics Services, which ranks No. 20 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers, said, “The court’s decision on EOBRs has no bearing on our position to invest in this tool. The value proposition of EOBRs extends well beyond [hours-of-service] compliance.” Indeed, while the rule has been vacated — at least temporarily — there’s nothing to stop fleets from voluntarily adopting policies that require drivers to use EOBRs.

Meanwhile, a consortium of technology vendors that has been working with FMCSA on how to implement the rule plans to continue its work under the assumption — which is shared by many fleets — that some form of the rule eventually will take effect.

The rule was to take effect in June 2012, first for about 5,700 carriers with spotty safety records, and later more broadly across the industry. It has been estimated that the process of amending the rejected proposal could take as long as 18 to 24 months.

The delay also doesn’t matter to Phoenix-based Swift Transportation, said Richard Stocking, the company’s president and chief operating officer. That’s because the carrier,

which ranks No. 7 on the TT for-hire list, is discovering how the devices can improve driver performance.

“We were finding some of our drivers would come in when they had a couple [of working hours left] and just do the reset instead of doing a load 50 or 60 miles down the road,” Stocking said, referring to the FMCSA hours-of-service rule that requires drivers to remain off-duty for 10 hours after reaching a maximum of 11 driving hours in a 14-hour period before resetting the HOS workday. “The drivers would figure, ‘If I reset my hours, I’m going to get a 500-mile haul rather than a shorter one.’ ”

John Walton, director of compliance and safety for Averitt Express, Cookeville, Tenn., said the company, which ranks No. 28 on the TT for-hire list, has been including EOBRs in a broader vehicle upgrade strategy.

Walton said Averitt already has about 250 drivers using EOBRs, and, “We are currently in the process of adding new sleeper tractors in all of our business units, and each of those new tractors includes an EOBR device. If or when FMCSA makes the use of EOBRs mandatory, we will make sure we are in compliance. But, hopefully, our schedule of adding new tractors with EOBRs over the next several months will pre-date whatever mandate is established by FMCSA.”

Bob Viso, vice president of safety for U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Chattanooga, Tenn., said EOBRs have been a useful training tool because they facilitate communication with drivers on the road.

“We are very aggressive in doing in-cab training,” Viso said. “The vast majority of our training is done while they’re on the road, so when they’re on breaks and shut down for a period of time, that’s when we ask them to do their training, and we communicate with them for various things.”

That functionality, more than regulatory compliance, motivated U.S. Xpress, No. 15 on the TT for-hire list, to install EOBRs.

“I think we knew that electronic logging would come to the industry,” Viso said. “I don’t know if we knew whether it would be mandated, but we wanted to be at the forefront of the industry.”

Mark Sorine, director of safety for Great-

wide, said that company began an aggressive effort to install EOBR technology from PeopleNet in 2008 and currently has 3,700 of 4,100 vehicles equipped.

“The daily visibility of hours of service is definitely one of the benefits of the system,” Sorine said. “It gives us robust data to be able to identify more strategic efficiencies in our business and also in our customers’ businesses. Plus it also gave us the ability to look at re-engineering some of our routes compared with what the data had told us in the paper logs.”

Prior to the ruling, several technology developers that serve the trucking industry formed an advisory group that is working with FMCSA to craft rules that, the group said, meet the needs of the industry and reflect technological realities. Included in the group are; Qualcomm Inc., San Diego; Xata Corp., Eden Prairie, Minn.; PeopleNet Communications Corp., Minnetonka, Minn.; and DriverTech LLC, Salt Lake City.

Brian McLaughlin, chief operating officer for PeopleNet, said that while the court’s decision has prompted his company to push back its own work on the technology, the industry group’s efforts with the regulators actually is picking up as a result of the ruling.

“The FMCSA is looking for industry feedback to address the broader performance specification gaps within the original rule, and this ‘throwing out’ gives us some additional time to get it right, versus getting it out fast,” McLaughlin said.

Even before the appeals court ruling, many in the group had expected implementation would need to be pushed back, he added.

The advisory group’s challenge is twofold: Steer FMCSA to the most reasonable rulemaking, while effectively bolstering their own products so they provide the greatest added value to trucking firms who are in a mood to buy and install.

The group met in early August to work through recommendations on a variety of issues. McLaughlin said the leading issue — although only one of many — was the manner in which data will be transferred from a vehicle to roadside law enforcement.

“Is that Wi-Fi? Is it USB? Is it through the cloud?” McLaughlin said, listing just a few of the ways data could be pulled from an EOBR. “That’s one of a whole list of action items that we as a group — and the broader [committee] — is going to review for final recommendations.”

Another key priority is to make sure regulators recognize that devices like smart phones can do more than they used to, and to factor that in if and when rules are eventually finalized, technology designers said.

While the court’s rejection of the proposed rule may call that kind of research into question even temporarily, developers say they still are working toward a combination of “black box”-type mechanisms and more commonly available display units.

“The display unit for the wireless interface will come from an off-the-shelf or some other kind of unit,” said Dave Kraft, a director of business development for Qualcomm Enterprise Services, a division of Qualcomm Inc. “Owner-operators and small fleets are probably already using smart phones and maybe even doing text messaging on smart phones. There could be a relatively inexpensive black box that plugs into the vehicle. That really minimizes the incremental expense for many smaller fleets.”

Customer buying decisions between technologies often come down to functionality and added features, so developers are looking to add as much value as possible to the devices. They also are finding that different kinds of carriers have different needs.

“For a private fleet, it’s doing a better job of scheduling and compliance, and maybe in the area of vehicle maintenance — things that can help them effectively manage costs,” said Kraft. “For owner-operators, it’s going to be having some additional functionality that reduces their time and expenses associated with the record-keeping function they need for their business.”

“For your large for-hire fleets, it’s more optimization of logs to their drivers and driver asset utilization, as well as great customer service functions,” Kraft said. “For the larger ones, it’s putting extra features in there for driver retention and improving driver skills and safety capabilities.”

Tom Cuthbertson, director of industry solutions for Xata, said fleets are looking for information about possible service-time issues as far in advance as possible so they can plan ahead and avoid missing a key delivery or upsetting an important customer.

While Cuthbertson recognizes that the court’s ruling could result in new regulations that put more emphasis on avoiding driver harassment, he said he is confident that FMCSA will adjust accordingly, and that tech developers will do the same.

“It’s a very key metric to keeping a contract,” Cuthbertson said. “Customers are very concerned about having the right information concerning driver behavior so they can be fully compliant in the environment right now.”

“The court’s ruling will delay the inevitable EOBR mandate for the entire industry, but it should not be expected to slow carrier adoption of mobile communications and tracking technology for their fleets overall,” said Monica Truelsch, director of marketing for software maker TMW Systems, Beachwood, Ohio. While the company does not produce EOBRs, TMW‘s operations software can integrate with EOBR data to help fleets and drivers maximize drivers’ hours and income potential, she said.

“There is just too much industry data to show how valuable these systems can be to a smart carrier,” Truelsch said.