Online Database Could Ease Driver Detention, Experts Say
This story appears in the Aug. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.
The chronic problem of driver detention at shippers’ docks may be solved by allowing customers to grade a company’s business performance and publish it in an electronic database. The database would be similar to popular websites Angie’s List, Yelp and TripAdvisor that offer crowdsourced reviews of local businesses, industry officials said.
“We can all go to TripAdvisor and tell if a hotel is clean, or Yelp to find out if a restaurant is good or Angie’s List to find if a painter is good. Why isn’t there something like that for the shippers?” asked Robert Voltmann, president of the Transportation Intermediaries Association.
Defining the scope of the situation and the economic impact has been problematic.
The FAST Act directs the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to issue regulations covering the collection of data on the issue. The agency began an audit into driver detention in June but would not comment further until the work is complete. A February 2009 U.S. Department of Transportation study found that addressing it could result in a potential gain to carriers of about $4 billion annually.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., which ranks No. 4 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers, published a white paper on the issue last year and estimated that a fleet of 100 trucks could lose more than 3,600 loads per year from detention, based on its analysis of BB&T research.
A survey from DAT Solutions last month found that, on average, 63% of drivers spend at least three hours loading or unloading at a dock. Detention usually is defined as waiting more than two hours to load or unload, according to the majority of the 257 for-hire carriers, owner-operators and private fleets surveyed.
“A problem this historic, with as many dimensions as detention has, is going to take time, commitment and the genuine fear that if this is not solved within the industry, then someone else [i.e., the federal government] will intervene and come up with something that is less than desirable,” said Ken Harper, marketing director at DAT Solutions. “However, many ‘shippers’ don’t regard themselves as ‘shippers.’?” Rather, he said, the transportation and/or logistics function is within a cost center that is looked upon by senior management as just that: a cost.
A rating service, according to Voltmann, would put peer pressure on them to address the problem.
“If the shippers cared, they wouldn’t be abusing the motor carriers. These shippers continue to get truck services, so they continue to get away with their bad behavior. If you don’t discipline children, they don’t learn to behave,” he said.
Jenyce Houg, regional vice president at Celadon Group Inc., doesn’t believe all shippers are cognizant of the problem. Still, she believes the rating system would be one way to raise awareness. Celadon is ranked No. 32 on for-hire TT100.
“It would provide some good pressure because shippers do want to get it right. They don’t want to get an F,” Houg said.
A majority of those surveyed said that drivers are detained between 11% and 50% of the time annually, but only receive detention fees from shippers or brokers in less than 10% of those situations. The respondents consist of 152 for-hire carriers, 87 owner-operators, nine private fleets, seven broker-carriers and two who responded as “other.”
Greg Fulton, president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, calls it a “creative solution,” as long as it’s done correctly.
“You’d have to make sure it protects against drivers who might have an ax to grind. Sometimes you question the motives of someone leaving a Yelp review. So you would need a credible type of verification,” Fulton said.
The database, according to Voltmann, would have to be created by American Trucking Associations or the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association because it needs to be coordinated. But OOIDA opposes the idea and believes the answer is new federal regulation.
“If J.B. Hunt has a major issue with this, do you think anything is going to be impacted by a Yelp rating? I don’t think so,” OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer said. “You might have a company like Wal-Mart that is rated one of the worst places to unload by certain truckers, and by other truckers rated the best. A lot of that has to do with the driver and the relationship to the shipper.”
ATA did not comment.
There also are legal issues that could prevent such a rating system, according to Jarod Bona, antitrust lawyer at Bona Law PC. He said that there are “land mines” that require legal expertise to avoid.
“Information sharing itself is probably not an antitrust violation because of the pro-competitive benefits, but it could lead to a violation. For example, if someone [a shipper or receiver] was excluded from getting business, then it could be a potential antitrust issue,” Bona said.
The National Industrial Transportation League declined to comment.
