CCJ0215

FEBRUARY 2015

ELD INEVITABILITY Consider all options before rule arrives page 56

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FeBrUAry 2015 | vOl 172 | NO. 2

Career Leadership award:

Doug White

46

As a kid in New Jersey, Doug White never envisioned a future beyond turning wrenches. Today he oversees one of the highestsecurity fleets in the country and is recognized nationally as a trucking industry leader. White, the recipient of CCJ’s 2015 Career Leadership Award, credits the timely appearance of mentors who set him on new paths, broadened his horizons and spurred him to take on more responsibilities.

Cover design by David Watson

journal leADINg NeWS, TrUCkINg MArkeT CONDITIONS AND INDUSTry ANAlySIS

11 News Mexican carriers can apply for U.S. operating authority …

features

34-hour restart study underway … FMCSA: Weighting crash fault in CSA would be inconsequential, cumbersome … States getting $30 million for safety tech advancements …

Safety fitness, speed

64

limiter rules set to see

Breaking down the cost

action soon … Feds

Electronic logging devices soon will become the new standard for all commercial drivers required by law to keep a record-of-duty status. Since any electronic logging device purchased today likely will be updated to meet the new ELD standard, does it really matter which product to use? If compliance is the only consideration, perhaps not. But if the goal is to maximize return on investment, then the differences matter.

43

assisting in labor talks at West Coast ports …

Penske asks Supreme Court to hear driver break case … NTSB’s safety wish list: More

Innovators: A. Duie Pyle

oversight and tougher

The West Chester, Pa.-based company opens a one-of-a-kind logistics center that supports all of its services, including its less-than truckload, truckload, warehousing and distribution, custom dedicated and brokerage solutions.

laws … Brake inspec-

medical, phone, DUI tion OOS rate up from 2013

14 InBrief

commercial carrier journal

| february 2015 3

DEPARTMENTS

ccjdigital.com

technology

facebook.com/CCJMagazine @CCJnow linkedin.com/ccjmagazine

Editorial

Editor: Jeff Crissey Executive Editor, Trucking: Jack Roberts Senior Editor: Aaron Huff Managing Editor: Dean Smallwood Trucking News Editor: James Jaillet Contributing Editor: Carolyn Magner Mason editorial@ccjdigital.com

22

Owner-operators could help relieve driver shortage

23 InBrief 24 Eaton expands UltraShift 26 26 28 28

34 35

Plus functionality for 2-speed axles

35

Volvo donates truck to ATA image advocacy team

36

Saddle Creek stays the course on natural gas strategy Kenworth delivers one millionth truck Rush Truck Centers crowns top technician

30 InFocus:

BYOD model helps fleets convert owner-operators to e-logs PeopleNet creates four new business divisions Pegasus TransTech delivers custom workflow to app

36 InBrief 38 Restaurant Technologies uses telemetry, equipment design for delivery advantage

6

Upfront

84

Preventable or Not?

Products

LEDs, wide-based retreads, brake drums, more

COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL

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Vice President of Sales, Trucking Media: Brad Holthaus

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Chairman/CEO: Mike Reilly President: Brent Reilly Chief Process Officer: Shane Elmore Chief Administration Officer: David Wright Senior Vice President, Sales: Scott Miller Senior Vice President, Editorial and Research: Linda Longton Senior Vice President, Acquisitions & Business Development: Robert Lake Vice President, Events: Stacy McCants Vice President, Audience Development: Prescott Shibles Vice President, Digital Services: Nick Reid Vice President, Marketing: Julie Arsenault

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Art Director: David Watson Graphic Designer: Kenneth Stubbs Quality Assurance: Timothy Smith Advertising Production Manager: Anne Marie Horton

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SmartDrive Systems doubles growth in 2014

40 InFocus:

Fuel-efficient tires

59

Design & Production

| FEBRUARY 2015

83

2015 by the numbers

John Doe was making a wide left turn from the right lane when a bus driver in the adjacent turn lane didn’t turn left sharply enough and sideswiped Doe’s tractor. Was this a preventable accident?

Ad Index

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Mexican carriers can apply for U.S. operating authority

M

exican motor carriers soon will be able to apply for authority to operate beyond the U.S.-Mexico commercial border zone, bringing the United States into more complete compliance with North American Free Trade Agreement requirements, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced Jan. 9.

The agency’s move comes less than three months after the end FMCSA’s move follows the end of a three-year crossof a three-year cross-border pilot border pilot program with Mexico. program with Mexico, which was to ensure they manage hours-of-service implemented in 2011 to gather data on the operational safety of Mexican carriers compliance and adhere to U.S. drug testing laws, FMCSA said. participating in the program and to test Drivers will be required to have a U.S. the feasibility of opening the border to commercial driver’s license or a Mexican Mexican trucking companies.

Licencia Federal de Conductor and also Despite a report by the U.S. must meet English language proficiency Department of Transportation’s Office requirements. of Inspector General and FMCSA’s FMCSA said the vehicles of carriers own Motor Carrier Safety Advisory admitted to the program will be required Committee noting that low participato undergo standard Level 1 inspections tion in the pilot program made its data every 90 days for at least four years. invalid, the agency pointed out that the DOT said the policy will end about $2 15 participating carriers had no higher rate of safety violations than U.S. carriers billion in tariffs imposed on U.S. goods

by Mexico as a retaliatory measure for and drivers; in fact, their numbers were the United States not meeting its NAFTA slightly better. obligations.

All Mexican carriers that apply for The tariffs have been in place since DOT operating authority will have to 2001 when a NAFTA panel determined pass a Pre-Authorization Safety Audit the United States was not complying with NAFTA Scan the QR code with your smartphone or visit ccjdigital.com/news/subscribe-to-newscross-border trucking letters to sign up for the CCJ Daily Report, a provisions. daily e-mail newsletter filled with news, analyFMCSA said the numsis, blogs and market condition articles.

Continued on page 20

34-hour restart study underway

T

he Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last

month began its congressionally required study on whether truck drivers are more fatigued and less safe under the 2013 hours-ofservice restart provisions or under pre-2013 rules.

The agency now has the study listed under its Research and Analysis section, where it gives brief information on its back-

ground – the 2015 appropriations act signed by President Obama in December – and a summary of how it is being conducted.

The study will be comprised of two groups of drivers – one that abides by pre-2013 rules and another by post-2013 rules.

FMCSA must study the groups for five months and assess crashes and near crashes, as well as operator fatigue, alertness and health. The agency will use items such as electronic logging devices, psychomotor vigilance tests, actigraph watches, onboard cameras and sleepiness scales to make its conclusions about operator fatigue and alertness.

The study will be reviewed by a panel made up of people with “medical and scientific expertise,” notes FMCSA’s summary.

The agency’s conclusions then must be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General.

commercial carrier journal

Continued on page 20

| february 2015 11

journal news

FMCSA: Weighting crash fault in CSA would be inconsequential, cumbersome

I

BASIC rankings improve, FMCSA’s study found. Fatal ncorporating crash accountability into the Compliance crashes, however, only account for 3 percent of all crashes in Safety Accountability program would not improve the U.S. the agency’s Motor Carrier Management Information System.

Department of Transportation’s ability to target carriers most And because the process for determining crash weightat risk for crashes, nor would it be easy to implement or costing – receiving accident reports from police, analyzing and effective, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration making crash fault determination, weighting the crash approconcluded last month. priately and then going through an appeals process – would Crash accountability, or lack thereof, has been one of the be lengthy, incorporating crash fault into SMS rankings may more frustrating issues for carriers since the late 2010 onset of be a moot point, the agency CSA. Industry stakeholders say the agency does motor said, as SMS rankings only use crashes from the preceding carriers and the motoring two-year period. public a disservice by not accounting for crash fault in Simply gathering the appropriate data from enforcers the crashes listed in CSA’s to make a crash fault deterSafety Measurement System.

With visibility given to all mination would be difficult, FMCSA’s study concluded, as crashes regardless of fault, the “results suggest [enforccarriers see business decisions ers] may not provide suffibased on such information, cient information to support from decisions on insurance crash weighting determinapremiums to hiring. tions.”

The crash accountability Crash accountability in CSA, or lack thereof, has been one of the more The agency’s report also said study has been in the works frustrating issues for carriers since the late 2010 onset of CSA. incorporating crash accountfor some time and was comability into CSA would cost between $3.9 million and $11.1 missioned to evaluate both the impact on the CSA program of implementing crash fault weighting and the agency’s ability million each year, depending on how many accidents are reviewed, the appeals brought and the agency’s final process to implement such weighting while relying on state and local for determining crash weighting. resources for information when crashes occur.

For the study, FMCSA said it used accident reports from In short, the agency concluded from its study that little benefit would be found by modifying the Crash Indicator BASIC in 10,982 crashes. Of those, 91 percent (9,884) met the criteria to be reviewed, and 9 percent (1,008) did not.

CSA’s SMS to weight crashes based on fault or circumstances.

– James Jaillet Only when fatal crashes are weighted do the Crash Indicator

States getting $30 million for safety tech investments

T

he Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is granting states $30 million to invest in infrastructure for technology that collects and sends real-time safety data to inspectors and enforcers.

The money was made available through two programs: Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks, and Performance Registration Information Systems Management.

CVISN will award $25 million for deploying technology that focuses on high-risk operators, electronically screens

12

commercial carrier journal

| february 2015

commercial vehicles and allows for online application and issuance of registration and fuel tax credentials.

Through PRISM, $5 million will go toward integrating state registration and licensing systems. It will determine the eligibility of a carrier or registrant at the time of licensing or registration of the vehicles and automatically suspend or withhold ineligible registration from one state to the other.

States should begin receiving the grant money this spring.

– James Jaillet

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JOURNAL NEWS

INBRIEF 2/15 • Class 8 orders in December topped 40,000 for the third consecutive month, pushing 2014’s order number to its highest annual total since 2004 and the second highest ever. FTR reported December Class 8 orders totaled 43,620 and 2014 orders hit 375,000, with positive trends likely to continue in 2015. ACT Research pegged December’s number at 43,900 and 2014 totals at 380,000 and said that better economic conditions for carriers spurred the year’s strong growth.

• Missouri is considering legislation that would boost the state’s maximum speed limit from 70 to 75 miles. H.B. 295 was introduced by Rep. Mike Kelley in the Missouri state house.

• The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is seeking commercial drivers with a valid Class A or B CDL to participate in studies at VTTI in Blacksburg, Va. Most

participants will be compensated at a rate of $40 per hour. Go to vtti.vt.edu, email CDLdrivers@vtti.vt.edu or call 540-231-1277.

• Con-way workers at the company’s facility in Bakersfield, Calif., voted last month against joining the Teamsters Union, the fourth of the company’s facilities to reject Teamsters affiliation, while three others have voted to join. The union last year took aim at both Con-way (CCJ Top 250, No. 5) and Fed-Ex Freight (No. 2).

• A U.S. District Court sentenced Elizabeth “Betsy” Pope to eight months of house arrest, four years of probation and $109,000 in restitution for falsifying drug test results of truck drivers. Pope would sign the drug tests with the name of a medical review officer who had not worked at her company, Eastgate Laboratory Testing, for many years.

• Dragan Simovski, operator of Illinois-based Freedom Transportation Inc., pleaded guilty

to fraud charges in a double-brokering scheme in which he, along with other coconspirators, would negotiate contracts with companies and promise Freedom would transport the freight. Freedom had no trucks, however, and would give the loads to a broker who would find companies to transport the goods; Freedom then billed the customers as if it had performed the job.

• Theresa Vincent, owner-operator of livestock transport company Terri’s Farm in Murfreesboro, was sentenced in Nashville’s federal court for violating an imminent hazard out-of-service order. In June 2012, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued an IHO to Dorian Ayache, owneroperator of Lebanon’s Three Angels Farms, for unacceptable safety practices following two accidents that resulted in the deaths of four horses. Two months later, the agency issued an IHO against Vincent and Terri’s Farm after determining the company was a reincarnation of Three Angels Farms.

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COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL

| FEBRUARY 2015

journal news

Safety fitness, speed limiter rules set to see action soon

T

he U.S. Department of Transportation stuck with its projected June 17 publication date of a safety fitness determination rule proposal in its latest rulemakings update, and it still expected to send a speed limiter mandate proposal to the White House for approval early this month.

The safety fitness rule, once final, will allow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to produce absolute scores for carriers – rather than percentile rankings like those used in CSA’s Safety Measurement System – using data similar to the set used to produce SMS rankings.

The rule has been in the works since 2007, but its projected publication date has been delayed repeatedly. In December, DOT pushed back the projected publication date by three months.

Meanwhile, the speed limiter mandate, a joint rule between FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was scheduled to see action Feb. 2 when the agency was projected to send the rule to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. OMB is expected to clear the rule in May, and FMCSA is projected to publish it the same month.

The proposed rule would require installation and use of speed limiters on heavy trucks. FMCSA has not indicated a proposed limited speed.

Other rules in DOT’s update include a rule to prohibit coercion of drivers, scheduled to be published as a Final Rule Sept. 10; a Final Rule mandating the use of electronic logging devices, scheduled to be published Sept. 30; and a commercial driver’s license drug

and alcohol clearinghouse rule, scheduled to be published as a Final 1 Rule Oct.HowesCCJW14_HalfPageIsland.pdf 30.

– James Jaillet

An FMCSA rule to require speed limiters in 8/7/14 9:45 AM trucks was expected to be sent to the White House for approval this month.

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commercial carrier journal Untitled-9 1

| february 2015 15 8/11/14 4:04 PM

journal news

Feds assisting in labor talks at West Coast ports

T

he International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Pacific Maritime Association are receiving federal assistance in contract negotiations after both requested help.

The U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said it agreed to help after receiving the joint request.

Unrest over labor negotiations has made the already overly jammed ports even more inefficient in the last year and a half, and analysts have said the slowdowns at the ports contribute to inefficiencies in freight flow nationwide.

PMA, which represents West Coast port employers, began negotiations in May with the dock and clerical workers union. The union agreed to a temporary contract extension after their contract expired July 1 but refused another extension late last fall.

Many business organizations have requested federal help in resolving the issue.

PMA said the union began withholding critically skilled workers from their shifts in November. It estimated that qualified crane operator shifts have decreased from more than 110 per day to less than 35 per day and that productivity at Pacific Northwest ports has declined as

much as 60 percent.

ILWU said that key PMA members needed to participate in negotiations.

Meanwhile, truckers for Shippers Transport Express began collective bargaining negotiations after 88 of its 111 drivers signed union authorization cards with the Teamsters.

The trucking and logistics company announced Nov. 24 it would transition its business model from independent contractor to employee on Jan. 1. Drivers who had leased the Carsonbased company’s trucks had until

Productivity at some ports has declined as much as 60 percent due to ongoing laborrelated slowdowns, the Pacific Maritime Association said.

Penske asks Supreme Court to hear driver break case

P

enske Logistics on Jan. 6 filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a federal appeals court decision requiring carriers to grant truck drivers in California paid meal and

16

commercial carrier journal

Dec. 8 to apply for employee jobs.

STE general manager Kevin Baddeley said an employee-based business model is a “crucial step” toward becoming more efficient and reducing port congestion. The company had remained neutral on unionization, but its leadership anticipates greater operational efficiency and a more stable workforce following “productive dialogue” with the Teamsters, Baddeley said.

STE agreed to not interfere in unionization, while the Teamsters agreed to not disparage the company or disrupt the workplace with strikes, picketing or work actions.

– James Jaillet and Jill Dunn

rest breaks.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July to overturn a lower court ruling that had exempted carriers from the California law that requires

| february 2015

employers to grant employees paid 30-minute meal breaks every five hours and paid 10-minute breaks every four hours.

The legal question is whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act preempts state law. Lower courts had ruled it does, but the Ninth Circuit appellate court ruled the California law was

journal news unrelated to prices, routes and services – three market elements the 1994 act intended to protect from interference by state laws, Penske argues.

“This case is about federal law preempting state laws that relate to rates, routes and services offered by trucking companies,” said Michael Duff, Penske senior vice president and general counsel. “We’re asking the Supreme Court to resolve this issue for our company and the trucking industry. The Ninth Circuit’s decision significantly impacts the entire transportation industry as well as the flow of commerce and ultimately impacts consumers.”

The American Trucking Association agrees. “The odd thing is something like a dozen district courts have looked at this, and almost all said the federal law preempts in this instance, and that’s what everybody was operating under,” said Richard Pianka, ATA’s deputy general counsel, in a July interview.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision, if left in place, could have ramifications nationally, Pianka said, as other states with similar break requirements could argue their laws also preempt federal law.

Three Penske drivers brought the case in 2008, arguing the company legally is required to ensure drivers could take their breaks. The driver plaintiffs argued Penske had created “an environment that discourages employees from taking their meal and rest breaks,” according to lawsuit documents.

Penske spokesperson Randy Ryerson said the Supreme Court likely will decide within two to three months whether to hear the case.

– James Jaillet

Three Penske drivers brought the case in 2008, arguing the company legally is required to ensure drivers could take their breaks.

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| february 2015 17

journal news

NTSB’s safety wish list: More oversight and tougher medical, phone, DUI laws

T

patients from operating commercial equipment, NTSB said. he National Transportation Safety Board last month Ban on using phones while driving: The safety board asked released its 2015 Most Wanted List of safety regulations, for a nationwide ban on the use of personal electronic devices and its list of 10 items included four related to trucking and while driving. Currently, only 14 states and Washington, D.C., truck operators. ban the use of handheld devices while driving.

Greater oversight: The Federal Motor Carrier Safety “Ultimately, a cultural shift will be required, and it must Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety begin with each of us,” NTSB’s report said. “Surveys repeatAdministration should “improve their oversight of operators, edly show that we know that PED distraction is dangerous drivers and vehicles,” NTSB said. while driving, yet we admit to indulging. It’s time to do what Stronger oversight includes, per NTSB, (1) more steps to ensure new entrant carriers we know is right and disconnect from deadly distractions.” address any safety deficiencies Driving under the influand quicker out-of-service placement if deficiencies are ence: NTSB recommended post-accident drug and not improved, (2) implemenalcohol testing or drivers, tation of an electronic logging device mandate and (3) instialong with drivers themselves discussing with their doctors tuting sleep apnea screening any impairment effects that requirements. prescription medication may NTSB’s request also cause. included requirements that all NTSB recommended that FMCSA and NHTSA implement mandates Per NTSB’s report: trucks be equipped with collifor crash avoidance systems and rollover-prevention systems.

“Treatment should not always sion warning technology, tire pressure monitoring systems, rollover stability control systems exclude you from operating a vehicle, but such conditions and medications need to be monitored. If any medication and lane departure warning systems. label warns against operating heavy machinery, that includes More stringent medical requirements: NTSB said truck vehicles.” operators should be subject to more and stricter medical The agency also recommended stronger laws against requirements, including procedures to identify risk of sleep impaired driving, increasing visibility of enforcement and disorders. expanded use of ignition-locking technology via passive alcoQualification of medical examiners should be limited to hol sensors. those who have the ability to prescribe medicine and have – James Jaillet access to information about conditions that could disqualify

Brake inspection OOS rate up from 2013

E

nforcers in the annual Brake Safety Week brake inspection blitz held in September placed 2,162 trucks – 16.2 percent of the vehicles inspected – out of service, according to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

That percentage jumped a few points from 2013’s record low of 13.5 percent, and the percentage comes from a smaller sample size. Inspectors only checked about 65 percent of the number of trucks and buses inspected in 2012 and 2013, years in which more than 20,000 vehicles were inspected, but in 2014’s Brake Safety Week, only 13,305 trucks and buses were inspected.

18

commercial carrier journal

| february 2015

The overall out-of-service rate of 16.2 percent was the highest in the previous four years, topping 2011’s 14.2 percent, 2012’s 15.3 percent and 2013’s 13.5 percent.

Of the trucks inspected, 10.4 percent (1,388) were placed out of service for brake adjustment issues, also a high from recent years. Brake component problems put 9.3 percent (1,244) out of service – a four-year high.

CVSA conducted the inspection spree with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and state and local enforcement agencies.

– James Jaillet

journal news U.S.–Mexico | Continued from page 11 ber of inspections conducted during the October 2011-October 2014 pilot program yielded enough information for the agency to decide to allow all Mexican carriers to apply for U.S. operating authority.

FMCSA spokesperson Marissa

Padilla said the agency gleaned a “robust set of data” from the program, pointing to the more than 5,500 inspections conducted as evidence.

Also in the same three-year timespan, the agency gathered inspection data from 952 Mexican-owned carriers, Padilla said – data also used in the

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commercial carrier journal

The agency also has set up an email address that stakeholders can email for driver_restart_stud@dot.gov.

Full equipment readiness in the coldest climates

20

determination to open DOT’s application process to Mexican-based carriers.

The low number of participants wasn’t an issue, Padilla said, as the number of inspections was the primary goal. FMCSA originally projected it would need 46 carriers participating in the pilot program to produce the 4,100 inspections.

As noted by OIG, however, 80 percent of the inspections conducted during the program were performed on two carriers that accounted for 90 percent of the border crossings.

But Padilla said 351 of the 952 Mexican carriers studied in conjunction with the program received authority during the three-year period – part of the data used by the agency to make its determination but not studied by OIG, Padilla said.

Carrier and owner-driver groups were split on the agency’s decision.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said the lack of participation by Mexican carriers in the pilot program showed that Mexican carriers do not want to abide

by U.S. safety regulations.

– James Jaillet

The stay of enforcement will be in place at least until Sept. 30. For the provisions to go back into effect, FMCSA’s report must conclude that the post-2013 restart rules reduce driver fatigue and increase alertness

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– James Jaillet

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product reviews, oeM & supplier news and equipMent ManageMent trends

by Jack RobeRts

Calling all independents

Owner-operators could help relieve driver shortage

I

recently was talking to a friend who runs a truck fleet out of Wisconsin. Like many of you, he’s had a hard time finding drivers during this economic upswing, despite the fact that his fleet pays well, invests in high-end equipment and technology and has an attractive benefits package.

As we discussed the driver shortage, I said, “You know, I think there’s just a special kind of person out there that is attracted to longhaul trucking, and there just aren’t that many of those people out there to draw from.”

“When you look at it like that,” my friend replied, “I think you sum up the whole driver shortage problem in a nutshell.”

In many ways, our industry is caught in something of a perfect storm. The economy is bouncing back; freight rates, capacity and demand remind us of this on a weekly basis. But as the economy gains steam and adds jobs, the pool of possible truck driving candidates continues to shrink. If you thought it was tough finding drivers in 2014, just wait.

What should the industry do?

How about getting more owneroperators into the game?

Owner-operators never have gone away, of course. They’re still out there, turning and burning, and

22

commercial carrier journal

Owner-operators are still out there, turning and burning, and in many ways, they remain the public face of the industry at large.

in many ways, they remain the public Industry solutIon: face of the industry at large. Moreover, Fleets should get more ownerthese are the very people I was referring operators into the game. to in my conversation with my friend: Efforts applaudEd: People who love the industry so much Many fleets offer lease-to-own that they literally pay to be part of it owner-operator packages. when they buy their own rigs and go into HElp compEtIng: truckbusiness for themselves. ing entrepreneurs should be According to CCJ sister publication granted incentives.

Overdrive, the owner-operator market in the United States bottomed out in 2010, a year after the 2008 recession ended, but has been clawing its way back ever since. According to a Commercial Motor Vehicle Consulting study commis-

| february 2015

Want more equipment neWs? Scan the barcode to sign up for the CCJ Equipment Weekly e-mail newsletter or go to www.goo.gl/Ph9JK.

by Overdrive, owner-operators They literally sioned in 2013 controlled 38,200 fewer trucks pay to be part than they did in 2006.

So another 40,000 – or, dare I say, of the industry another 60,000? – owner-operators the road today would be an instant when they buy on shot in the arm for the industry and go a long way toward easing their own rigs. would the capacity crunch and taking enormous pressure away from fleets scrambling to find drivers. And every truck manufacturer I know would love to see a market for an additional 30,000 to 60,000 high-end Class 8 trucks suddenly materialize.

The obvious question: What can the industry as a whole – and yes, even the government – do to get more owner-operators on the road?

All fleets know the problems with acquiring and operating equipment today, and the larger ones are much better prepared to deal with skyrocketing equipment costs and wildly fluctuating fuel prices than owner-operators. That doesn’t take into account other increased operating costs that didn’t exist in 2006 such as new required technology and increased maintenance and (maybe soon) insurance costs.

Many large fleets already offer lease-to-own owner-operator packages as an incentive to attract drivers and convert company employees to owner-operators. These efforts should be applauded and promoted better. It’s also time for the industry to pressure financial institutions to lower interest rates, and for the government to offer tax incentives to help aspiring owner-operators get started – including some for firsttime Class 8 truck buyers – and existing ones stick around.

The argument could be made that while all small businesses are good for our country and our economy, trucking plays a vital role in a much larger transportation infrastructure with a real impact on international competition and trade. That’s why trucking entrepreneurs ought to be granted incentives and allowances to compete and stay in business.

If industry analysts are correct, the driver shortage soon will begin to affect the industry’s ability to move freight effectively, and that crunch will affect impatient brick-and-mortar and online consumers, eventually putting a drag on the economy as a whole.

Many solutions are being touted to solve the current – and coming – driver crunch. It’s time to consider getting more owner-operators on the road and making serious efforts to turn that idea into reality.

JACK ROBERTS is Executive Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail jroberts@ccjmagazine.com or call (205) 248-1358.

InBrief • T he National Highway Transportation Safety Administration informed CMA and Double Coin that no additional obligation for providing a remedy or notification was required following the companies’ internal revisions to begin placing required sidewall markings on all U.S. tires.

• M ack Trucks announced that Comcar Industries of Auburndale, Fla., has added 350 Pinnacle models to its fleet.

• V anguard Truck Centers opened its newest Mack and Volvo dealership, located about 10 miles west of downtown Flagstaff, Ariz., within view of Interstate 40 at Exit 185.

• M ack Trucks broadened its support for customers and body builders by creating a support team focused on ensuring effective collaboration among body builders, dealers and customers during the ordering and body installation process.

• F ontaine Modification Vocational Services reopened its modification center in Garland, Texas. The facility had been closed since 2012, but the company said demand for modifications on Peterbilt trucks produced in nearby Denton has grown steadily.

• E ast Manufacturing redesigned its Parts Center at its headquarters in Randolph, Ohio, which provides aftermarket parts and accessories for dealer, fleet and owner-operator customers within a 150-mile radius.

• R yder System partnered with telephone interpretation service Language Select to provide seamless communications in more than 200 different languages for its preowned vehicle customers. Customers can call 800-873-3875.

• P acLease updated its website at www.paclease. com to enhance access to information on the company’s full-service leasing, rental and contract maintenance programs for medium- and heavy-duty Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks.

• H owes Lubricator Products teamed with Sage Truck Driving Schools for the“Howes Truckers of Tomorrow $1,000 Scholarship Program.” The scholarship is funded by Howes Lubricator and can be used at any of 25 Sage schools across the country. Applications are available at www. sageschools.com and www.howeslube.com.

• P eterbilt celebrated its 75th year with an anniversary party in Stockton, Calif. Held at the San Joaquin Fairgrounds, the gathering attracted 351 Peterbilts, which the truck maker billed as “the largest collection of Peterbilt trucks ever assembled.” commercial carrier journal | february 2015

23

Eaton expands UltraShift Plus functionality for 2-speed axles

E

aton announced increased functionality for its lineup of UltraShift Plus automated transmissions with enhancements that allow for compatibility with 2-speed axles. Geared primarily to increase the appeal of UltraShift Plus among vocational customers, including dump and heavy-haul fleets, the new compatibility is designed to provide an alternative to torque converter automatic transmissions.

The new features include enhanced gear reduction capabilities to help maximize on- and off-road capabilities while eliminating gearboxes typically installed behind an automatic design. The result is added performance and less driveline complexity that typically yields reduced service and maintenance costs, according to Eaton.

“We are always exploring new ways to expand our breadth of transmission products to best serve the commercial trucking industry,” said Ryan Trzybinski, product planning manager for Eaton.

“Fleets that prefer to operate with 2-speed axles now have an attractive transmission option to increase their efficiencies and improve performance.”

All makes and models of UltraShift Plus now may be specified with the 2-speed axle software. The standard UltraShift Plus warranties, which are dependent on application, remain the same.

All of Eaton’s UltraShift Plus transmissions feature self-adjusting electronic clutch actuation designed for fast, smooth engagements. Intelligent shift selection software employs grade sensing, weight computation and driver throttle com-

All makes and models of Eaton’s UltraShift Plus automated transmissions now may be specified with the 2-speed axle software.

mands to make shift decisions.

Other benefits include: • A Hill Start Aid feature to help prevent rolling while on steep grades and allow for smoother vehicle launches; • Automatic, manual and low mode selections to offer drivers better control; • A Creep feature for improved maneuverability with continuous low-speed control; • Six- and eight-bolt, as well as through-shaft, power-takeoff options; and • An oil sight glass to help check fluid levels more easily.

– Jack Roberts

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Volvo donates truck to ATA image advocacy team

V

olvo Trucks last month unveiled the official America’s In addition to the star-spangled graphics on the truck and Road Team truck and trailer, a Volvo VNL 780 that the trailer, the VNL 780 is equipped with the latest safety and fuel 19 new captains of the 2015-16 team will use at events across efficiency technology. It employs Volvo’s integrated powertrain the country to promote trucking’s image – centered around the company’s I-Shift and teach the public about the industry. automated manual transmission – and the Magnus Koeck, Volvo Trucks’ vice Bendix Wingman system that offers adappresident of marketing, handed the tive cruise control, rollover stability and keys to Pat Thomas, American Trucking active braking.

Associations’ vice chairman, during a The trailer behind the truck, used by ceremony at Volvo’s New River Valley the Road Team Captains at the events they plant in Dublin, Va. attend, is a walk-in with seven televisions “The Road Team Captains truly are and a truck driving simulator. The truck the face of the industry,” Thomas said. and trailer also will be used to take lawThe Volvo VNL 780 used by ATA’s Ameri“They’re going to do great things for ca’s Road Team is equipped with the lat- makers for ride-alongs. trucking. Most folks don’t know a lot est safety and fuel efficiency technology.

“We want to improve the image of the about trucking – the challenges we face industry,” said Susan Alt, Volvo’s senior with infrastructure and regulatory hurdles. These drivers and vice president of public affairs. “There’s no better way [to do this truck will help the public and public officials understand that] than with actual drivers who do the job.” the industry a little better.”

– James Jaillet

Saddle Creek stays the course on natural gas strategy

S

addle Creek Logistics made headlines at the height of the fuel price increases by showing the nation that natural gas was a winner in regional and long-haul trucking applications.

Today, with diesel trending nationally below $3 a gallon, did the Lakeland, Fla.-based fleet miscalculate with such an aggressive move into alternative fuels? Not at all, said company president, Mike DelBovo, in an exclusive CCJ interview.

“We’ve had people ask us if we feel silly now that fuel prices are down, and we don’t,” DelBovo said. “We went into alternative fuels as a long-term project. From the outset, we’ve been looking 10 years down the road. We’re a private company, so we can take the long view.”

While the onset of cheaper diesel has helped fleets across the country, DelBovo said the main impact on Saddle Creek has been to extend the fleet’s alternative-fuel return-on-investment picture. “We obviously do better in terms of ROI when diesel fuel is higher,” he said. “But on the other hand, we are not exclusively a natural gas fleet. We’re about half diesel power and half natural gas power, so it’s really a mixed bag for us. But we remain committed to our natural gas project. These low fuel prices just force us to stretch our strategy out a bit more over that long run.”

DelBovo said that while natural gas prices have fallen in correlation to gasoline and diesel prices, Saddle Creek’s overall fixed costs have remained constant. “The lower fuel prices really

26

commercial carrier journal | february 2015

haven’t affected us much on the natural gas side of the business,” he said. “But our customer support for alternative fuels has remained constant, and that support is key to our long-term goals. They made it clear this is the path they want us to follow, and federal tax credits last year helped a great deal.”

At the same time, DelBovo said that while the current cheap fuel situation is nice, it also is unsustainable, and Saddle Creek will be well positioned once prices start to climb again. “Every projection available today points to wild fluctuations and consistently higher fuel prices,” he said. “ At the same time, the natural gas technology side of the equation is starting to trend in our favor. Economies of scale are starting to kick in. The cost of new natural gas trucks in 2015 will be cheaper than earlier models, and improvements to their fuel systems have made them more efficient to operate. So it’s a whole new world compared to where we started with natural gas back in 2012. The trucks run and perform so much better today.”

Naysayers aside, DelBovo is convinced Saddle Creek’s move into natural gas has been a winner for the fleet. “We’re going to stay the course, and we know we’ll be ahead of the game when fuel prices do rise again,” he said. “We’re retaining drivers and controlling costs better than ever before. Natural gas has made us a better company on both the diesel and alternative fuel side of the equation.”

– Jack Roberts

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Kenworth delivers one millionth truck

K

enworth Truck Co. celebrated its historic one millionth truck produced in the company’s 91 years during a ceremony at its assembly plant in Chillicothe, Ohio. The milestone truck – a T680 Advantage with a 455-hp Paccar MX-13 engine and a factory-installed aerodynamic package – was presented to TransAm Trucking (CCJ Top 250, No. 89) before a large gathering of Kenworth employees.

“The production and delivery of our one millionth truck caps off an outstanding year for Kenworth,” said Gary Moore, Kenworth general manager and Paccar vice president. “It’s appropriate that the milestone truck is the on-highway flagship Kenworth T680 Advantage, our excellent fuel efficiency leader, and that TransAm, an excellent supporter of the T680 and Paccar MX-13 engine, is our customer for this special honor.”

The Olathe, Kan.-based refrigerated carrier operates 1,050 Kenworth Class 8 trucks. “Our partnership with Kenworth and MHC Kenworth continues to be very productive and successful, and it’s a privilege to be selected to receive Kenworth’s one millionth truck,” said Russ McElliott, presi-

From left, TransAm Trucking’s Murray Droescher, chief financial officer, and Russ McElliott, president, accept delivery of Kenworth’s one millionth truck from Gary Moore, Kenworth general manager and Paccar vice president, and Preston Feight, Kenworth assistant general manager for sales and marketing.

dent of TransAm Trucking, which purchases its T680s from MHC Kenworth-Olathe.

“We appreciate the longstanding partnership with TransAm and the continued opportunity to support its fleets,” said Tim Murphy, chief executive officer of MHC. “We are honored to be a part of the dedication of Kenworth’s landmark truck.”

– Jack Roberts

Rush Truck Centers crowns top technician

E

rick Lincoln took home All Around Rodeo Champion honors at the ninth annual Rush Tech Rodeo in San Antonio. It was the second such honor for Lincoln, a 16-year veteran technician of Rush Truck Center – Albuquerque, who also took first place in the heavy-duty Cummins category.

Lincoln, overall winner of the event in 2011, took home $16,100 in cash and prizes for his 2014 efforts.

“The recognition, the payoff of the training, the payoff for the late nights and long days – it means a lot,” Lincoln said.

“Rush, I spend more time with them than I do with my family.

It’s nice to be recognized.”

Top Medium Duty Tech went to Justin Euler of Rush Truck Center – St. Peters. Euler earned $12,100 in cash and prizes.

Top Parts Tech, a new addition to the ninth installment of the Rush Rodeo, went to Jeremy Weifenbach of Rush Truck Center – Houston. Weifenbach’s winnings tallied $10,100.

Jason Swann of Rush Truck Center – Dallas, a four-time winner of the rodeo, was heavy duty Reserve Grand Champion, earning $9,350 in cash and prizes.

– Jason Cannon

28

commercial carrier journal | february 2015

Erick Lincoln, middle, celebrates his All Around Rodeo Champion honors with NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, right, and Rush Truck Centers CEO Rusty Rush, left.

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in focus: Fuel-eFFicient tires

Smarter rolling SmartWay tells fleets which tires can save them dough

T

By Jack RoBeRts

ruck tires have undergone tremendous changes in the past decade, and the driving force behind many of their new features and capabilities is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay Tire Program. SmartWay’s overall philosophy is to increase energy efficiency while reducing greenhouse gases

and air pollution.

“SmartWay verification tells a fleet manager that the tire is environmentally friendly and has a low rolling resistance,” says Rick Phillips, Yokohama Tire’s senior director of commercial tire and OTR sales.

“Tires that are SmartWay-verified run cooler, which cuts fuel consumption, which cuts costs and benefits the environment.”

If a tire is on SmartWay’s list, it indicates to a fleet that the tire was verified to meet or exceed SmartWay’s rolling resistance coefficient maximum limits. “This means the tire is considered to be a low-rolling-resistance tire and will generally help reduce a tractor-trailer’s fuel consumption by at least 3 percent compared to non-SmartWay-certified tires,” says Brian Buckham, Goodyear’s general manager of commercial product marketing.

Yokohama Tire says its SmartWay-verified TY517 wide-based tire offers added traction and long even wear with an advanced profile for increased durability and retreadability.

30

commercial carrier journal

| february 2015

Goodyear describes its SmartWay-verified Fuel Max LHD G505D truck tire as North America’s most fuel-efficient long-haul tire.

Qualifying OEM partners for all SmartWay-verified products meet or exceed rigorous environmental and fuel efficiency performance criteria. The largest contributing factor for tires to provide fuel savings is to engineer a product that demonstrates a coefficient of rolling resistance that can achieve target values for each axle position.

Factors impacting a tire’s rolling resistance include tread compounding, tread pattern design and casing structure. “In developing tires for SmartWay verification, manufacturers focus particular attention on the tread and belt package areas, as more than 50 percent of the rolling resistance of a tire originates there,” says Patrick Gunn, Giti Tire USA’s director of commercial tire sales and marketing.

When applied specifically to commercial truck tires, SmartWay certifies products that provide a reduction in emissions and an estimated fuel savings of 3 percent or greater relative to the best-selling new tires for line-haul trucks when used on all five axles on long-haul Class 8 trucks.

Design differences also must be considered, says Reuben DeBolt, commercial technical services manager for Cooper’s Roadmaster line. “When some tire makers formulate tread compounds to achieve

Cooper Tires offers a full range of Roadmaster tires designed to meet the SmartWay program’s low-rolling-resistance criteria, helping to improve fuel economy.

the lower rolling-resistance performance required by SmartWay, the tires may wear faster or be more susceptible to cutting and tearing than tires designed with more traditional tread compounds to maximize wear performance,” he says.

Another difference is that some SmartWay-verified tires, particularly drive tires, may have shallower tread depths. DeBolt says Roadmaster’s SmartWay-verified RM851(EM) and RM256 drive tires are designed with tread depths and compounds that offer comparable or even better perfor-

mance than their nonverified counterparts.

Tire position also plays a critical role.

“On a tractor-trailer combination, the steer axle position tires contribute 15 to 20 percent to fuel economy,” Gunn says. “Dive axle position tires contribute between 30 to 40 percent, while trailer-axle position tires contribute 40 to 50 percent to the vehicle’s overall fuel economy.”

Because trailer position tires represent the most wheel positions for the average North American fleet, selecting the best-qualified trailer tires will have the most impact on fuel consumption, Gunn says.

“The first priority for a fleet interested in saving money is to start moving into SmartWay-verified trailer tires and continuing with steers and drives,” he says. “But while fuel economy has a greater impact on the bottom line of high-speed long-haul operations, it also plays a significant role in regional and high-load on-off operations, where SmartWay philosophy and criteria can be applied as well.”

Giti Tire USA says the SmartWay-verified 16-ply version of its GT Radial GSL213FS long-haul steer tire is designed for higher front-end axles and gross vehicle weight.

What to hit: deer or guardrail?

If a deer jumps in front of your truck, hopefully you hit nothing but brakes. But is there any connection between deer accidents and crosswinds? It does not seem related, does it? Actually it is. Let’s start from air drag.

Air drag is like a turbulent “tornado” pulling the vehicle backwards and consuming about half of your fuel.

Crosswinds add to the price tag and claim up to 40% more fuel on top of it by creating another “tornado” that pushes you sideways. At high winds you waste up to 70% of your fuel money to fight air drag. About 32% of truck accidents are also turbulence-related, since it destabilizes a truck and increases driver fatigue. A deer comes here. Tired driver is less likely to react fast. How expensive are crosswinds? Average trucker pays over $3,000 extra in fuel yearly to overcome them.

Are there any solutions? One of them is VorBlade™ vortex generators, introduced by Avantechs, Inc. The technology is well-proven in the industry and verified by the EPA SmartWay. The VorBlade System slices harmful turbulent “tornadoes” around the truck creating a self-adaptive invisible shield that remarkably reduces air drag and the detrimental impacts of crosswinds. A few windy days might cost you more than the VorBlade™ Cab System. Stay safe, gain stability and don’t let your money be gone with the wind! commercial carrier journal Avantechs_CCJ0215_PG.indd 1

|

february 2015

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THE ALL NEW

technology Making the latest technology developMents work for your fleet

The path of least resistance

by AAron HuFF

with the HD-100 from rand Mcnally, Bennett international group has deployed electronic logs on android tablets.

BYOD model helps fleets convert owner-operators to e-logs

E

lectronic logging devices can be a delicate issue for fleets with owner-operators. Last year, research by CCJ’s sister publication, Overdrive, found that independent operators remain strongly opposed to the technology; 70 percent said they would go so far as to quit the industry before using ELDs. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will mandate the use of ELDs when it publishes a Final Rule later this year. Fleets and drivers then will have a two-year window to implement ELDs before enforcement begins.

Traditionally, fleets have used in-cab systems to deploy electronic logs, but using consumer platforms such as smartphones and tablets creates a different vibe. For starters, drivers can install these applications themselves for free within minutes.

Free electronic logging apps offer an easy entry point, with the caveat that drivers will need to have a printer to create a paper copy of their logs for law enforcement. Fleets and drivers that use these apps also will need to upgrade to 34

commercial carrier journal

an ELD-compliant device in the near future.

DElicatE issuE: ELDs can Diamond Coach Leasing operates luxury be touchy going for fleets buses for clients in the music entertainment with owner-operators. industry. All 94 drivers for the Nashville, usE your own DEvicE: Tenn.-based company are owner-operators.

Free electronic logging apps When looking to make the transition to offer an easy entry point. electronic logs, Sarah Beth Imperi, the fleet’s always working: The safety director, put a premium on the ease of application stays with drivuse. Two of the fleet’s drivers already were users in and out of the vehicle. ing a free app from BigRoad.

“Once I saw the application from a driver’s perspective, I knew it was very easy to work with,” Imperi says.

Diamond Coach Leasing rolled out BigRoad fleetwide. The company pays BigRoad a monthly fee of $15 per user for online access to driver log data through the vendor’s Web-based dashboard.

The fleet plans to upgrade to BigRoad’s latest ELD option, DashLink, a device that plugs into the vehicle’s diagnostics port to record truck and odometer values for an accurate record of driving time. When DashLink is used, drivers do not need a printer.

Bigroad has released a new Dashlink option for its electronic logging app.

| february 2015

Extended mobility By deploying ELDs on personal devices, the application stays with drivers inside and outside the vehicle, helping them to keep their duty status updated and use additional business applications to plan their schedules and routes.

Bennett International Group has an owneroperator fleet of 2,600 drivers and offers a diversified

Interested In truckIng technology?

Scan the barcode or go to www.goo.gl/Ph9JK to subscribe to the CCJ Technology Weekly e-mail newsletter.

set of services, including flatbed, oversized and specialty. The McDonough, Ga.-based company also has a “Driveaway” service for one-way equipment moves.

Early last year, BenWhen looking to make the transition to electronic logs, nett wanted to extend electronic logs and other nashville, tenn.-based diamond coach leasing decided to implement Bigroad’s eld app fleetwide. fleet management applications to an Android platform it had created for drivers to replace its hard-mount in-cab system. The company had created custom apps for drivers to submit paperwork, find loads and stay connected to Mcdonough, ga.-based Bennett International group sethe fleet to improve eflected rand Mcnally’s hd-100, a device that plugs into the ficiency, increase safety vehicle’s diagnostics port, for its 2,600 owner-operators. and save fuel.

“The main thing is we wanted to get a mobile computer in drivers’ hands,” says Tim Hadden, chief information officer. “That is very important for us. We put as much technology in drivers’ hands as possible.”

Another requirement was staying connected with vehicles independent of the tablet. Bennett found such a system in Rand McNally’s HD-100, a small walletsized device that plugs into the vehicle’s diagnostics port.

The HD-100 can be installed by drivers in less than 15 minutes and is synchronized via Wi-Fi with Bennett’s Android tablets to provide immediate communications, including electronic logs.

Bennett has integrated Rand McNally’s apps with its transportation and safety management systems through Web services. The company has deployed about 300 HD-100 systems in the last six months and plans to continue until its entire 2,600-truck fleet is equipped.

Bennett allows drivers to use their own devices and gives them a monthly credit; about 10 percent of drivers use this option. “We feel like we have the best technology for owneroperators inside the truck,” Hadden says.

AAron Huff is Senior Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail ahuff@ccjmagazine.com or call (801) 754-4296.

PeopleNet creates four new business divisions

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eopleNet, a provider of fleet mobility technology, last month announced four new business lines to serve the specific needs of its customers: Trucking, Energy Services, Video Intelligence and Channels/ OEMs. Trucking, the largest division, will be led by Mark Kessler as general manager. Kessler and Peoplenet said his team will serve its new trucking PeopleNet’s 2,500 fleet division will focus on delivering more customers and focus kPIs and analytics. on new products and services. PeopleNet said the division will focus on delivering more KPIs and analytics to help fleets build a competitive advantage.

Other divisional GMs will be named soon.

– Aaron Huff

Pegasus TransTech delivers custom workflow to app

P

egasus TransTech announced the new Transflo Mobile+ 1.2 upgrade for the company’s mobile application. The upgrade – available for free download on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store for the Android platform – is designed to let carriers create custom workflows for drivers to capture and index photos for various uses.

The app also includes customizable pickup-and-delivery status for the loads section, allowing drivers to provide a comment or reason for declining a load.

The Web portal also has been enhanced for faster response time and to provide the driver’s last known location.

– Aaron Huff Pegasus transtech’s upgrade for its transflo Mobile+ 1.2 mobile app lets carriers create custom processes and workflows for drivers. commercial carrier journal

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technology

InBrief

Continued on page 38

• R oadnet Technologies, an Omnitracs company specializing in transportation logistics software, released Roadnet Transportation Suite version 3.6.8, the latest update of its on-premise vehicle routing, scheduling, tracking, mobile workforce and fleet management software. The update is designed to deliver greater consistency in the user experience.

• L oJack Corp. is collaborating with AT&T to power its current and future machineto-machine telematics offerings for the connected car and fleet industries.

LoJack, known for its vehicle theft prevention and recovery services, began offering fleet management applications in January 2013.

• E lectronic Funds Source, a provider of corporate payment systems, announced an option for drivers using Cat Scale’s new Weigh My Truck mobile app designed to allow drivers to automate the weigh station process without leaving the cab. Drivers can create their account at www.weighmytruck.com and select the EFS Card as a form of payment at any of CAT Scale’s 1,550 locations nationwide, and then download the mobile app to their smart device.

• G rowth private equity group Kayne Partners invested in Drivewyze and its sister company, Intelligent Imaging Systems, to support the companies’ growth.

Drivewyze’s cloud-based software leverages cellular networks, the Internet and GPS to provide weigh station bypass services to trucking companies based on their safety records at 411 sites in 30 states via smartphones, tablets and in-cab telematics devices.

• O rbcomm, a provider of machineto-machine systems, announced that Werner Enterprises (CCJ Top 250, No. 10) selected the company’s tracking and monitoring technology for its overthe-road refrigerated trailers. Werner has begun using Orbcomm’s cold chain telematics system for temperature, fuel management, maintenance and logistical applications.

• O mnitracs Analytics, formerly known as FleetRisk Advisors, announced that Super Service, a privately held dry van carrier delivering consumer products, beverages and paper, deployed its Driver Retention Model across its entire

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SmartDrive Systems doubles growth in 2014

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martDrive Systems announced record growth in 2014, with growth in its fiscal third quarter – its most recent – exceeding 130 percent year over year.

SmartDrive’s video-based risk management program is designed for commercial The San Diego-based company offers a vehicles and transit agencies to reduce video-based risk management program collisions and improve fuel efficiency. designed for commercial vehicles and transit agencies to reduce collisions and improve fuel efficiency.

SmartDrive attributed its growth last year – which included an expansion of its customer base by 45 percent – to its continued product innovation, strategic partnerships and customer acquisitions across a number of key vertical markets.

The 11-year-old company said it has stayed focused on identifying unsafe driving and preventing collisions with an open data platform that identifies driving risk; captures video, vehicle, audio and driving data; and automatically offloads the data for review by driving experts. SmartDrive said its database has captured and analyzed more than 80 million risky driving events to date.

“This is an exciting time for SmartDrive,” said Steve Mitgang, chief executive officer.

“Our company achieved remarkable growth as the market has begun to embrace video-based safety programs as a key strategic investment. In addition, we have seen our customers measurably reduce their risk, improving safety scores by over 50 percent within weeks of deploying our solution. At the end of the day, our goal is to help our customers protect their company and their freight and, most importantly, bring their drivers home safely.”

Recent customer wins for SmartDrive include Golden State Foods, Cypress Truck Lines, M&W Transportation, Kenco, Goggin Warehousing, Bulkmatic, KS Industries, Kimrad Transport, Utah Transit Authority and Regional Transportation District of Denver. Bozzutos, a wholesale distributor of food and household products, signed on for an additional three years after seeing a 95 percent reduction last year in its CSA Unsafe Driving measure.

Last year, SmartDrive added its Assurance product line to extend the range of camera, integration and program configuration options – including a 360-degree vehicle view – to capture incidents caused by backing, unintended lane changes, rollovers and close following from passenger vehicles.

Other product enhancements in the past 15 months include custom coaching and scoring, enhanced management reporting and key performance indicators, dynamic range triggering, active safety system integration and extended recording. SmartDrive provides software and firmware upgrades to customers as part of a monthly subscription.

Several strategic alliances also were formed in 2014, such as a union with ProSight Specialty Insurance to create SecureFleet, a fully-integrated video event recorder and risk reduction service. The complementary offering combines the patented vehicle data and video event recording system with a comprehensive driver coaching program to help fleet owners and safety managers reduce risk and costs.

Other recent collaborations include strategic alliances with Wabco and Convoy Technologies on developing solutions to further reduce collisions and improve fleet safety.

– Aaron Huff

february 2015

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technology

INBrief Continued from page 36 Restaurant Technologies uses 950-truck fleet. Super Service said that during the first six months, it reduced its turnover rate of the highest-risk 10 percent of drivers from 203 percent to 66 percent, retaining an average of 20 drivers per month and saving more than $60,000.

• O mnitracs, a provider of fleet management solutions, announced that household goods mover Atlas Van Lines has deployed its Mobile Computing Platform 50 and suite of applications, including Hours of Service (HOS), to help meet its fleet safety and regulatory compliance goals by allowing it to track drivers’ hours in near-real time, leading to more efficient fleet management and increased reporting accuracy.

• E picVue announced that Clayton, Ala.-based flatbed company Boyd Bros.

Transportation is equipping more vehicles with its in-cab satellite TV package after seeing a significant increase in driver retention – more than double – from an earlier EpicVue installation in a sample group of 150 vehicles. EpicVue also announced that it will be the exclusive sponsor of the Truckload Carriers Association’s Highway Angels recognition program.

• R and McNally announced that McNeilus Steel of Dodge Center, Minn., installed its TND 760 devices across its private fleet of 126 trucks to track shipments, log drivers’ hours of service and streamline communications between dispatch and drivers to control logistics and costs further. Most of the installations happened during driver fuel-ups, Rand said.

• E lectronic Funds Source announced that J&M Tank Lines of Birmingham, Ala., transitioned to its payments platform, going live with EFS’ integrated fleet card and MasterCard payments platforms.

• T he Asset Intelligence subsidiary of I.D. Systems, a provider of wireless machine-to-machine asset management systems, executed a contract with one of the world’s largest furniture makers to deploy its VeriWise Track and Trace battery-powered trailer management technology on a fleet of about 2,300 trailers for real-time GPS location data via cellular communications and Webbased software.

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telemetry, equipment design for delivery advantage

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estaurant Technologies works with many of the national chains – including McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King – as well as many other regional and independent restaurant groups, servicing more than 21,000 foodservice locations.

One of its distinct advantages involves the use of a telemetry system – a “black box” – at customer locations to monitor fresh cooking oil supply. When inventories drop to a certain level, replenishments are sent automatically in one of the company’s customized delivery trucks.

Restaurant Technologies also can synchronize its pickups with its deliveries.

When one of its Kenworth T370s pulls into a restaurant, it can replenish the establishment’s cooking oil tank with fresh oil, while at the same time drawing out used oil from the restaurant’s storage tank.

“We are the only ones that can do that on a national basis,” said Becky Mueller, national fleet manager. The company has a fleet of nearly 200 medium-duty trucks domiciled at 41 depots across the country. “Our patented design with multiple tanks gives us a unique delivery advantage that also includes simultaneous waste oil Restaurant Technologies uses removal all in one unit,” Mueller said. a telemetry system – a “black box” – at customer locations to While oil management is an ongoing service monitor fresh cooking oil supfor these companies, Restaurant Technologies ply, said Becky Mueller, national also supplies all the oil management equipment fleet manager. and storage tanks, as well as a Web-based customer portal that sends automated alerts to customers when standard operating procedures are not in compliance. It also provides ongoing training and equipment maintenance.

“In a low-margin industry, we have a competitive advantage of not only saving our customers money in the delivery and pickup of oil, but in providing quality in everything we do,” said Mueller. “It’s why we have a 98 percent retention rate with our customers.”

In 2013, Restaurant Technologies began replacing its fleet with Kenworth T370s in single- and tandem-axle configurations; there are 30 currently in service with more on order. The tandems are spec’d with Paccar PX-9 engines rated at 350 hp and mated with Allison automatic transmissions. The singleaxle T370s are powered by the Paccar PX-7 engine rated at 300 hp and also matched with Allison automatics.

Since the Kenworth T370s leave fully loaded with oil – six fresh tanks hold up to 20,000 pounds of oil on the tandem axles, and the single axles handle 12,000 pounds of oil in three fresh tanks – saving weight was a consideration in the specs.

Mueller said on any given week, up to 800 routes will be driven, each with 10 to 14 customer stops. Its routes range from 85 miles for the day up to 650 miles.

– Aaron Huff

february 2015

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in focus: PaPerless Proof of delivery

Manifest destiny Technology takes the paper out of POD by aaron huff

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he information delivered by motor carriers can be as valuable as the freight. Without accurate and timely shipment status updates, a manufacturer may be forced to shut down a production line and incur losses greater than the value of the goods in transit.

Many fleets already use technology to deliver shipment status to customers – the contents, pickup-and-delivery times, real-time location and more. But while this critical information already is communicated electronically, paper documents still are being used as proof-of-delivery receipts.

It long has been standard practice for shippers to hand drivers a bill of lading, or manifest, when they pick up a shipment. These documents accompany the shipment to the destination to be signed and returned to the fleet as a POD receipt for billing.

In a less-than-truckload environment, paper manifests stack up quickly and may get lost in the shuffle as drivers, dock workers and office employees route freight. In truckload, manifests typically stay with the same truck and driver.

In both types of businesses, a combination of back-office and mobile technologies can be used to bypass the paper trail and move information electronically from start to finish.

The back office Transportation management software systems can help keep paper out of the office. LTL carriers traditionally have been inundated by paper manifests coming into their crossdock facilities and being shuffled around before going out with deliveries.

Carrier Logistics Inc. has helped fleets eliminate paper with a dock management application that runs on mobile devices. The app gives dock workers real-time information to execute the shipments and routes according to plan.

The dock management system integrates with CLI’s Facts back-office dispatch, routing and accounting software. These technologies help move shipments through cross-dock facilities at a high velocity, says Ben Weisen, vice president of products and support.

Most TMS systems, including Facts, also support a 40

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variety of mobile POD applications that drivers can use to capture document images and electronic signatures to help eliminate the flow of paper into the office.

Going mobile Some POD applications can eliminate paper manifests altogether. These applications integrate with TMS systems to present drivers with pickup-and-delivery information they otherwise would get from paper documents. The applications also can be used to store manifests electronically and capture electronic signatures for paperless POD receipts.

CrossCountry Freight Solutions, a 210-truck LTL carrier based in Bismarck, N.D., uses a mobile app from Blackbay.

Drivers use the app to scan barcodes at pickups and deliveries and capture electronic signatures.

The app integrates with CrossCountry’s back-office systems to provide customers with electronic POD receipts

Ready.

Set. Learn.

CCJ and its CCJ Innovators partners are proud to highlight the achievements of the industry’s most innovative fleets.

The CCJ Innovators program profiles fleets that have shown initiative in addressing critical areas in their businesses’: • • • • • •

Operational efficiency Use of information technology Customer relations Maintenance practices Employee recruiting and retention Safety Scan the QR code to directly link to the CCJ Innovators website for the complete rules and criteria along with the nomination form as well as browse archives of past Innovator articles, webinars and podcasts.

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INNOVATORS

A. Duie Pyle drives new efficiencies, lowers costs for customers with all-in-one logistics center

BY JEFF CRISSEY

A

s a provider of less-than-truckload, regional and dedicated truckload, warehousing and distribution and brokerage services, A. Duie Pyle means a lot of different things to a lot of different customers.

One of the challenges of running such a diversified operation is trying to become a single-source provider. The West Chester, Pa.-based company realized it had been missing an opportunity to brand itself as an all-in-one supply chain solution.

“We’ve had LTL, truckload and warehousing for years, and we always asked, ‘We want more of our customers’ spend, but how do we do that?,’ ” asks Randy Swart, chief operating officer. “We thought we were an enterprise to them because they used all parts of our business, but we really were no different to them than if they were using an outside company to do one part and then just used us for another.”

Last year, A. Duie Pyle took the first steps to cement itself as a single-source provider with the creation of its Customized Solutions Group that consolidated its custom dedicated, truckload, brokerage and warehouse and distribution services into one business unit. The goal, says the company, is to provide enhanced service offerings to its customer base.

Gaining supply chain efficiencies A. Duie Pyle’s footprint extends from Maine to northern Virginia and west as far as Ohio and includes 24 LTL and truckload service centers and nine warehouse facilities with a combined 2 million square feet of storage space. But these facilities remained separate and required multiple movements for its customers’ goods

A. DUIE PYLE West Chester, Pa. as the freight moved through the supply chain.

A. Duie Pyle realized that even within its new Customized Solutions Group that it could do more to drive down costs for itself as well as its customers.

“If you are a customer using our entire enterprise, it should add value to you,” says Swart, referring to LTL customers that used its warehouses.

“And it shouldn’t be from the volume of business you do with us – it should be because it takes some cost out for both the carrier and the customer.”

Looking to solve this problem while adding value and driving more efficiency into its operations, last year the company developed a single-facility concept that would allow it to bundle these disparate operations under one roof.

“We recognized that we service customers with high-turn products that needed to pull out of inventory and get right into the transportation mode,” says Swart. “Having that product in a separate warehouse just added time and costs.”

A. Duie Pyle set out to purchase land and build its own cross-platform logistics center under the new model, but when Mount Holly, N.J.-based New Century Transportation declared bankruptcy and ceased operations last

The regional LTL and truckload carrier opens a one-of-a-kind warehousing and logistics facility to better meet the changing supply chain needs of its customers.

COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 2015

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A. DUIE PYLE LOGISTICS CENTER SPECS 32 acres 101 doors 18-door 23,000-sq. ft. maintenance shop 132,000-sq. ft. heated and racked warehousing space 180-foot-wide cross-dock operation Systemwide global satellite communications and security and monitoring systems A. Duie Pyle says its “first of its kind” logistics center in Westampton, N.J., integrates LTL, truckload service and warehousing on a massive scale.

June, it provided A. Duie Pyle with a compelling opportunity.

New Century had leased and operated a large facility in Westampton, N.J., on a narrow 400-yard swath of land directly between I-95 and I-295.

The location was situated perfectly between A. Duie Pyle’s existing service centers in West Chester and East Brunswick, N.J. “You couldn’t ask for a better location for a facility,” says Swart.

Late last year, A. Duie Pyle purchased the facility. Last month, the company reopened it as what it says is a “first of its kind” logistics center for a carrier that integrates LTL, truckload and warehousing services on a massive scale.

The 32-acre facility includes a 101door service center, 132,000 square feet of heated and racked warehousing space and a 180-foot-wide crossdock operation. The facility also has a 23,000-square-foot 18-door maintenance shop and serves as one of A. Duie Pyle’s Truck Driver Academies.

“With this concept, if you’re a customer and your carrier is based in the warehouse, you can load directly to all sites from the warehouse, which eliminates pickup costs and driver time at the dock because that’s no longer needed, as a trailer is already at the dock,” says Swart. “A driver no longer has to drive out to a separate facility 44

Onsite driver academy

to pick up the freight, and there is no fuel expended to do that. That’s the value-add – we didn’t incur the costs, so we can share those savings with the customer, and we are both better off.”

A. Duie Pyle also believes its new facility concept will greatly improve service time and flexibility. A customer can call in an order in the late afternoon, and it can be packed and loaded and out on a truck the same day for delivery the next morning, and in some cases even the same day.

“When you are talking about 500 miles and being able to offer that kind of next-day service, that is a real advantage,” says Swart.

A. Duie Pyle’s new logistics center also addresses the question of why a customer wouldn’t bundle all of its services with one company. “Once we are adding the value as a company, you can’t just break it apart because that would just add back those costs,” Swart says. “If customers are getting great cost savings in addition to the service that they want, why would they?

“We believe this is the model for the future,” he says. “We don’t believe it will work in every market, but in the major cities, it will really be big.”

staffing will grow quickly as it peels service territories away from other terminals that are at or near full capacity.

A. Duie Pyle also sees great opportunities for the Westampton logistics center as part of the growing pool freight distribution trend, in which a shipper bundles goods bound for multiple destinations into a single truckload and line-hauls it across the country to a centrally located LTL carrier for finalmile delivery. Swart says the Westampton logistics center provides greater flexibility for its customers using this model.

“What we believe is they can fill up a trailer three-quarters full, and on the tail of that trailer, they can load some of their highest-moving product even if it’s not sold yet,” says Swart. “As it goes across the country and is delivered into the Northeast region, we can take the LTL right out for delivery and put the other product in the warehouse if it didn’t sell by the time the freight reached us. When one of our customers calls and says they need the product delivered tomorrow in the Northeast, they actually have some product in our inventory onsite and very close to their customers.”

A vision for the future Currently, A. Duie Pyle has 29 drivers operating out of the Westampton logistics center. The company anticipates

CCJ INNOVATORS profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. If you know a carrier that has displayed innovation, contact Jeff Crissey at jcrissey@ccjmagazine.com or 800-633-5953.

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As a kid in New Jersey, Doug White never envisioned a future beyond turning wrenches. Today he oversees one of the highest-security fleets in the country and is recognized nationally as a trucking industry leader. by Jack RobeRts

D

oug White doesn’t have an ejection seat- and machine gun-equipped Aston Martin DB7 in his fleet. Not yet, anyway. But as vice president of fleet maintenance for Dunbar Armored, a highly specialized armored car company, he wouldn’t be surprised if the need came up.

White oversees a national fleet of up-armored vehicles ranging from Subaru Foresters to Class 8 Peterbilt tractors that haul sensitive, valuable cargo daily across the United States. A manifest at Dunbar Armored reads like a Hollywood script: At any given time, the company is transferring coins, currency, jewelry, securities and sensitive government documents to and from secure installations – cargo that criminal elements and national enemies alike would love to grab.

In White’s line of work, vehicle specs never can be “good enough.” Lives can be lost if a vehicle is not configured properly.

Downtime, while impossible to mitigate completely, carries an entirely new set of risks that most fleets never face.

Sitting in his corner office in a Baltimore suburb today, White shakes his head in mild disbelief at the path his career in trucking has taken. In addition to his responsibilities at Dunbar, White has emerged as a leading voice in the fleet maintenance community, poised to take a highly visible role as a leader on the board of directors for the American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council.

It’s all heady stuff for a kid from New Jersey who never wanted to do more in life than tear engines apart and put them back together again. But White credits the timely appearance of mentors who set him on new paths, broadened his horizons and spurred him to take on more responsibilities with ever-increasing consequences for leading him to this pinnacle of his career.

It’s why he is determined to mentor up-and-coming fleet professionals today and give back to an industry that has given him such tremendous opportunities and rewards over the course of his career.

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A drive to understAnd Doug White was one of four children born into a solid bluecollar New Jersey family. His mother, Fran, was a stay-at-home mom. His father, Walt, was an Air Force veteran who’d served in the Occupation of Japan and had transferred the electronic skills he learned in the service into a 40-year career with the local telephone company.

“He started out climbing telephone poles and ended up working on what was then highly advanced communications equipment like teletype machines,” White says of his dad. “He knew the value of working your way up in life. He taught all of us that.”

White looks back on his childhood with fondness. “My father was the ‘cool dad’ in the neighborhood,” he says. “He was very involved with our lives. We had a lake near our house, and in the summers, he’d fashion a ‘Tarzan’-style rope swing for us to play on.”

White’s mother taught him traits he still relies on every day – virtues like honesty and compassion – while his father instilled discipline in the four White children. “Dad expected you to follow the rules,” he says. “It was understood that if you didn’t, there would be consequences. His philosophy toward life was a simple one and one that has always stuck with me – ‘Whatever you decide to do in life, do it well. If you’re not going to do it well, don’t bother.’ ” Walt White was a gifted woodworker and incessant tinkerer whose shop was filled with a bewildering array of tools and gadgets that young Doug found endlessly fascinating. From an early age, he was obsessed with understanding how things worked – and, more importantly, why they didn’t work when needed.

That drive to understand how and why things function remains with him to this day. His mother gleefully recalls her 5-year-old son going over to the next-door neighbor’s house and marching home with their lawnmower so he could tear the engine down in the family’s garage. “Dad put the mower back

ABOUT THE CAREER LEADERSHIP AWARD Doug White is the 39th recipient of Commercial Carrier Journal’s top honor for lifetime achievement in fleet maintenance. Safeway Stores’ E. Clair Hill was the first to be so honored in 1977. CCJ’s Technology and Maintenance Career Leadership Award honors a career of dedication to professionalism and excellence in fleet maintenance. Industry involvement, recognitions and awards and reputation among peers figure into the selection. Individuals who made significant contributions to the industry while directly engaged in truck fleet management are eligible even if they no longer work for a fleet operation. CCJ welcomes nominations for the 2016 Career Leadership Award. Contact Jeff Crissey at jcrissey@ccjmagazine.com.

COVER STORY | CAREER LEADERSHIP AWARD Doug White was born into a solid blue-collar New Jersey family.

White’s mother taught him traits he still relies on every day – virtues like honesty and compassion – while his father instilled discipline.

together and returned it to the neighbors, so no harm was done,” White says. “But it was understood in the neighborhood from then on that you needed to lock your equipment up unless you wanted that White kid to get ahold of it and tear it apart.”

Walt White was influential on young Doug in other ways as well. Whenever it was time to tackle a project, large or small, the son was welcome to join in and help out. “I remember when he put an addition on the house,” White says. “I was there working right alongside him. I learned a lot. I think he was really happy getting to share his knowledge and his passion with us kids.”

By the time he was a teen, Doug had discovered automotive mechanics and begun to apply his talents accordingly. “For years, I thought the only reason Volkswagen Beetles existed was so you could tear them down, soup them up, turn them into dune buggies and take them out in the woods and destroy them,” he says with a laugh.

CAREER BEGINNINGS White says that by the time he was out of high school in 1974, it was obvious that college was not in his future. He already was operating heavy equipment for a local landfill, but what he really wanted to do was work on Class 8 trucks. “Cars were fun, but trucks were serious machines,” White says. “They were big. They were powerful. I wanted to know how they worked.”

He sought out the owner of a local repair shop to ask for a job and in the process found the first of several mentors in his career.

“Old Benny,” White remembers. “He’s passed on now, and I cannot for the life of me recall his last name. He was a funny, crusty old guy whose shop was in Camden, New Jersey – a rough, rough part of town – and he set me straight right off the bat.”

White strode into Benny’s run-down office and told him that he wanted to tear diesel engines down. “That what you wanna do?” the old man asked, unimpressed.

“Yeah,” White replied.

“Good,” Benny said. “Start by going out there and changing the oil in that truck.”

From an early age, Doug White was obsessed with understanding how things worked – and, more importantly, why they didn’t work when needed. That drive to understand how and why things function remains with him to this day.

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“I don’t want to do oil changes,” White scoffed. “I want to tear engines down!”

“I understand that,” Benny replied. “And you will. Once you know how to properly change the oil in that truck.”

Under Benny’s watchful eye, White learned the importance of preventive maintenance and how to service trucks properly. In a couple of years, those experiences landed White his first job with a national fleet. In 1978, he went to work for Proficient Food Co. – the distribution arm for the Denny’s Restaurant chain at its New Jersey facility.

Here, for the first time, White expanded his diesel engine knowledge with a refrigeration certification, graduating from ThermoKing’s technical school. White enjoyed troubleshooting reefer units and found himself a valuable commodity at Proficient, as the company was in the early stages of bringing new ThermoKing start/stop units into the fleet. “Proficient’s fleet manager out in California had recognized early on that these new units offered significant fuel savings,” White recalls. “We were retrofitting them onto all our reefer units.”

After several years with Proficient, White took a second job at a friend’s towing company and also founded his own mobile refrigeration repair business, which was a success. But White was married now with children, and the demands of working two jobs and managing a business proved to be fatal to the marriage. “It clearly took a toll on the marriage,” White says. “I was just never home.”

One day, White was out soliciting new business for his refrigeration repair service when he called on a fleet owned

by Keen Leasing out of Carlisle, N.J. A few days after dropping a business card

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COVER STORY | CAREER LEADERSHIP AWARD Once the turnaround at Cumberland was complete, Doug and his wife, Jennifer, returned to Maryland, where he took a job with Beltway International Trucks in Baltimore.

at the fleet, Keen’s director of maintenance, Ed Fisher, called White wanting to offer him a job. “Ed was a pilot with a little civilian airplane,” White recalls. “He met me at this little airport near my house. We climbed into the plane, and he interviewed me while we flew circles over Atlantic City. It was a little bizarre, to say the least!”

White was offered a job with Keen as a mobile repair technician. From his point of view at the time, it was nearly the perfect job. “I was completely on my own,” he says. “I was responsible for 18 tractors, 20 refrigerated trailers and two refrigerated straight trucks. I mailed them paperwork, and they mailed me paychecks.”

A NEW OUTLOOK A few months later, White got a new boss when an energetic guy from Massachusetts named Darry Stuart showed up on the yard to introduce himself. White calls Stuart – CCJ’s Career Leadership Award recipient in 1998 – one of the premier influences on his career.

“I wouldn’t be talking to CCJ or have joined TMC, which I hadn’t even heard of, unless I’d met Darry,” White says. “I’d never even imagined that there was a career for me in trucking outside of working on vehicles. He’s the guy who, more than anyone else, showed me the big picture and taught me that there was a much broader and more interesting world in fleet maintenance out there.”

White followed Stuart when he moved on to Cloverland Dairies, taking over a fleet based in Baltimore. At his new job, Stuart pushed White to keep improving his operations.

Following that stint, White followed Stuart again to Massachusetts. “This fleet had a reputation for having the worst trucks in New England,” White remembers. “But for Darry, that was what

made the job interesting. He wanted to see if he could turn an operation like that around. I benefited from that, too, because I was learning to think beyond simple maintenance procedures in a very challenging environment.”

An early example of his learning curve came when White realized that his technicians at a facility near Albany weren’t as efficient in the winter months. Looking into the problem, White discovered that their shop was built with two ancient wooden doors that looked more at home on an old barn. “They weren’t getting any work done because they were too busy trying to keep from freezing to death,” White laughs.

Taking an end-run around normal procedures, White ordered new insulated doors for the shop. “Darry wasn’t really thrilled that I’d done that,” White admits. “But productivity in that location went up dramatically, so it was hard to argue with the results. But just as importantly, I was learning to look at the bigger picture in terms of operations and how everything fits and works together to make a fleet a productive and efficient one.”

The turnaround job at Cumberland was a massive one. White had to oversee a transition from gasoline-powered units with a smattering of ancient ’72 Mack U Models running the streets in Boston. By the time he and Stuart left in the late ’90s, they’d overseen a complete transformation in the entire operation while bringing it into the modern age of trucking.

“We were one of the earliest fleets in the country to install 12volt fax machines in our cabs,” White laughs. “No one thought we could do it, but our philosophy was to keep the trucks on the road making money. They were mounted on the passenger seat and tied in with the driver’s cell phone. It was all about efficiency.”

HYPERCRITICAL UPTIME

Today, Doug White is vice president of fleet maintenance at Dunbar Armored, responsible for a far-flung fleet of 1,500 highly specialized trucks, 80 facilities and 66 maintenance operations.

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| FEBRUARY 2015

Once the turnaround at Cumberland was complete, Doug and his new wife, Jennifer, decided it was time to return to Maryland, where he took a job with Beltway International Trucks in Baltimore.

One of Beltway’s biggest medium-duty customers was Dunbar

COVER STORY | CAREER LEADERSHIP AWARD Armored, and over time, Doug White has been a certified diver and White built a relationship SCUBA instructor with the fleet. “When the since the 1980s. offer from Dunbar came along in 2002, I jumped at the opportunity,” he says.

Today, White is responsible for a far-flung fleet of 1,500 highly specialized trucks, 80 facilities and 66 maintenance operations – most of which are one-man shows. The fleet consists of everything from aircraft support vehicles to uparmored Subaru Foresters, conventional medium-duty armored trucks, stealthily armored Class 8 tractors and armored trailers. White says unarmored vehicles are the exception in his fleet.

Because of the nature of Dunbar Armored’s work, White says preventive maintenance is absolutely vital for keeping its trucks on the road and performing up to expectations. “Uptime is hypercritical for us,” White says. “When a conventional fleet has a truck go down, they oftentimes get in line at a dealer and rent a truck to pick up the slack while the work is getting done.

We can’t rent an armored truck, so managing our PMs and minimizing downtime – understanding we can’t completely eliminate it – is absolutely vital for our operations.”

White requires his maintenance supervisors to do routine maintenance audits to document and validate all scheduled work. But he still likes to get out and inspect operations firsthand. “I manage people,” he says. “The people manage the trucks. My job is to instill the thought processes that were instilled in me in them.”

Still, White says it’s just human nature to take shortcuts and resist doing the little things that make effective PM schedules work. “That’s why I always look under a hood and inspect a truck’s battery terminals when I’m in the field,” he says. “I’ve Doug and Jennifer White enjoy boating and a host of other hobbies along with their five children, Lauren, Doug Jr., Kevin, Craig and Jessica, as well as their five grandchildren.

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| FEBRUARY 2015

learned over the years that if the little things aren’t being taken care of, it’s a sign there’s trouble. You always see that with the battery cables. If there’s a layer of green acid built up on the terminals, it’s an obvious sign that something is wrong.”

Running such a specialized fleet with predominantly mediumduty trucks also has given White insight into looming problems he believes will affect the trucking industry at large in the next few years. “We idle a lot,” he notes. “We can’t turn a truck off, both for security reasons and because there is always a person in the truck on guard. As a result, we’re seeing accelerated wear conditions on selective catalytic exhaust systems and particulate filters that don’t seem to be showing up in conventional medium-duty fleets yet. I think that it’s going to create problems industrywide once they do.”

One solution White is exploring at Dunbar to counter these maintenance trends is a return to gasoline engines. “Gasoline engines have gotten a lot stronger in the past 20 years, and they have good torque now,” he notes. “The price of fuel currently is an obvious advantage, and even if they don’t hold up as long as a diesel engine, I can still rebuild or replace a gas engine for less than I can replace an SCR exhaust system on a diesel. On the other hand, we’re seeing more front tire wear and alignment problems because our drivers tend to drive them like they’re their own pickup trucks instead of vocational trucks. So there’s always a tradeoff.” Additional driver training should resolve this issue, he says.

At the same time, White has overseen the implementation of telematics use into the Dunbar fleet as powerful tools to counter the criminal elements that threaten the trucks, drivers and cargo every day. “We’re using telematics and particularly geofencing in highly interesting ways,” he notes. “Our drivers cannot access the

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cover story | career Leadership award cargo equipment in our vehicles unless our system confirms that the truck is in a safe location to do so.”

A drive to AlwAys do better Today, Doug and Jennifer enjoy a host of hobbies along with their five children, Lauren, Doug Jr., Kevin, Craig and Jessica, as well as their five grandchildren. The family loves boating, and Doug has been a certified diver and SCUBA instructor since the 1980s. Any free time not spent on the water is usually down at the family’s second home in Orlando, Fla., with frequent trips to Disney World tossed in for good measure.

Stuart, White’s early mentor and friend, looks back on his protégée’s accomplishments with pride. “He had so much potential in him when I met him,” says Stuart, president of DWS Fleet Management. “But he had a hard time initially evolving from a technician to a manager. The biggest issue was that he expected everyone around him to meet his insanely high levels of performance, knowledge and ability. But once he learned that you’re only as good as your people and learned to coach employees to maximize their strengths and overcome their weaknesses, he mastered the art of being an incredible fleet manager.

“He tells people that he wouldn’t be where he is today without me, but I tell people the exact same thing about him,” Stuart says.

“His excellence allowed me to stop worrying about minutia and

concentrate on the big picture with absolute peace of mind that the little things were being taken care of day in and day out. And even though we don’t work together now, we share experiences almost daily on how to get better and improve the people and the processes we use, and that is invaluable to me.”

Looking ahead at his upcoming slot on TMC’s board of directors, White wants to help address a multitude of issues, including the importance of attracting young people to the trucking industry and improving its image to the public at large. “The industry has made great progress in making scholarships available to train the next generation of technicians and fleet managers,” he says.

“The problem is that these scholarships aren’t being used, and that’s a much broader problem to solve that is going to take a committed effort from all aspects of our industry.”

Running an armored car fleet gives White great satisfaction today and draws upon everything he’s learned over the years, from his father’s determination to lessons handed down from industry mentors. But at the end of the day, White says his job is simply to make sure his people get home safely every day.

“Our application is more dangerous than most,” he notes.

“While we’re deeply committed to protecting our customers’ cargo, you can always replace money, jewelry or other valuables, but you can’t replace a human life. That’s what drives me today to always do my job better than the day before.”

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Commercial Carrier Journal honors

Douglas White Sr. Vice President of Fleet Maintenance Dunbar Armored Inc.

39 Annual th

Technology & Maintenance Career Leadership Award Recipient Our Sponsors Salute the Leaders in Vehicle Maintenance Management

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HOW TO

EVALUATE LIFE CYCLE COSTS

The following is an exerpt from How to Evaluate Life Cycle Costs, a manual produced by Commercial Carrier University and sponsored by Chevron Delo. CCU is an educational program produced by Commercial Carrier Journal that includes business management manuals, seminars aimed at improving management skills and a website. For more information, visit www.commercialcarrieruniversity.com.

A

lthough some fleet managers might operate with few budget constraints, most live with financial limitations that may prevent them from replacing vehicles at the most economical time.

At least twice a year, assess your fleet in light of any changes in the business, resale values, manufacturer incentives, and principal and interest costs.

When you make this assessment, establish a priority ranking that will guide you through the replacement cycle. Any vehicle targeted for replacement should receive a physical inspection by operating, maintenance and specification professionals to determine whether it is feasible to extend the vehicle’s life with some added investment in maintenance and repair. A vehicle assessment report will help you develop a ranking system to determine which vehicles should be replaced first.

Set priorities to determine which vehicles to replace with the available funds. The following method is one possible approach.

If a vehicle is due for replacement, project the total cost of the unit for the following year and compare it with the proposed replacement price.

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The price difference indicates whether the vehicle is beyond its economic point of replacement.

This priority ranking approach can be developed for an entire fleet by class of vehicle. If funding is available for equipment replacement, develop a replacement priority rating list to guide replacement decisions. To maintain the lowest vehicle cost and greatest vehicle availability, consider replacing older vehicles when the cost of operating and maintaining them is higher than the price of a new vehicle.

Identifying such costs requires meticulous data entry. But once you do that you have a wealth of information in various formats that you can analyze and use to make the mostinformed equipment decisions. This is a basic concept of life-cycle costing and good business sense.

Broadly speaking, life-cycle costing helps you measure and compare ownership costs with operating costs.

The object is to replace an old vehicle just before incurring significant maintenance costs and after amortizing a large investment.

Ownership costs represent the principal and interest costs incurred on a monthly basis until the vehicle is paid off. Ownership costs can be depreciated

| FEBRUARY 2015

(reduced on a fixed period, such as five years) until full value is reached.

Operating and maintenance costs are familiar expenses. Operating costs include fuel, taxes and registration fees.

Maintenance costs include labor and parts. You can track vehicle costs either manually or on a computer to accumulate life-cycle costs. Ownership costs are the most predictable. Maintenance and operating costs are less predictable, showing peaks and valleys. As the vehicle ages, additional costs are incurred.

Measuring these additional costs allows you to predict future performance from historical information.

Vehicle costs can be scheduled or unscheduled. Scheduled component costs are preferable, because they usually are lower than their unscheduled counterparts. Brake replacement is scheduled; brake repair is unscheduled.

As you record and analyze vehicle costs, you can use historical data to predict costs for a new model in the same class. By modifying vehicle specifications, you can limit or minimize unnecessary future expenses. You might require higher-capacity alternators to lengthen the service life of electrical starting and charging systems. If one brand is more successful than another, incorporate the most cost-effective

COMMERCIAL CARRIER UNIVERSITY brand into the specifications.

Although identifying such costs requires lots of data entry, you can then extract the statistical data in various forms and evaluate it.

Grouping similar vehicles allows you to calculate a class average and compare individual units with this average. If a vehicle is below average, its historical cost trends, compared with the average for the class, will help determine an economical replacement time.

Total unit costs are affected by each of the following costs and the rates at which they rise, alone and together: • Depreciation. This is the cost you incur due to the declining value of a vehicle as it ages. Equipment depreciates fastest early in its life. A new vehicle has higher principal and interest payments based on its higher purchase price. When the cost of borrowing money is high, when vehicle trade-in incentives or resale prices are low, and when a difficult economic climate affects business growth and profitability, a strong case

can be made for extended vehicle trade cycles. Resale values, due to supply of and demand for new vehicles, affect depreciation rates. Depreciation rates must be calculated and included in the annual analysis.

Federal law allows taxpayers to use an accelerated depreciation method to recover the cost of acquiring and operating an asset. The method is called the modified accelerated cost recovery system (MACRS). It allows an asset to be depreciated on a double-decliningbalance method over the asset’s depreciable life. Tractors are three-year property in terms of depreciable life, for example, and trucks and trailers are five-year property.

• Operations. These costs tend to increase gradually due to rising fuel prices, lower miles per gallon and related costs.

• Maintenance. As vehicles age, the cost of servicing and maintaining rolling stock tends to increase. Controlling these costs through effective sched-

uled maintenance — including preventive maintenance inspections, driver support and timely component replacement — can help you keep these vehicles longer, provided they don’t become obsolete.

• Downtime. When a truck sits idle due to a scheduled or unscheduled repair, it costs you money. These costs should be recorded and any unacceptable variations highlighted.

Servicing a vehicle during nonuse periods eliminates downtime.

• Obsolescence. When the vehicle can no longer perform its job, it is obsolete. Remove it from the fleet and replace it with a usable vehicle. Use the resale revenue to offset the purchase price of the new vehicle.

• Inventory. Have the necessary consumables and components available to maximize vehicle availability with minimal inventory.

• Life costs. This is the sum of fixed and variable expenses over time and mileage.

Commercial Carrier University is an educational initiative for owners and managers of trucking companies that are held at select Truckload Carriers Association events. We’re certain you will find this program a valuable resource in managing your business more easily and more profitably.

CCU’s goal is to provide you with an in-depth road map for success through clear advice on basic and advanced business practices.

CCU Titles Available: • How to Evaluate Life Cycle Costs • How to Manage Cashflow • How To Plan For Succession • How to Use Financial Statements • How To Write A Business Plan Produced by:

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CCU manuals are available on USB drives and can be purchased online through eTruckerStore.com.

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COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL

| FEBRUARY 2015 57

E US AT

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products new

LED lights Peterson’s LumenX LED line now includes 4-inch Round Strobe and 6-inch Oval Strobe lights. Both models offer 12- and 24-volt compatibility and are rated for use as directional flashing warning devices. The lights feature white-diode LEDs and the company’s proprietary lens design that illuminates the entire lens fully and evenly without hotspots or dead zones, regardless of viewing angle. The lights are available in amber, white or red and are designed to produce 73 quad flashes per minute. They are built with AMP-compatible weatherproof receptacles and grommet or flange mounts.

Peterson Manufacturing, www.pmlights.com

Wide-based retreads

Replacement parts TRP’s expanded lineup of replacement parts includes turbochargers, power steering pumps and windshield wash. The turbochargers are designed for increased durability and improved turbo life, while the power steering pumps are engineered to provide the correct amount of pressure to help decrease steering effort, increase vehicle safety and ease driver fatigue. TRP Premium Windshield Wash is formulated with natural cleaning agents to help power through dirt, bugs and tree sap while beading and repelling rain.

TRP Parts, www.trpparts.com

Goodyear’s fuel-efficient SmartWay-certified G392A SSD UniCircle and G394A SST UniCircle wide-based retreads are offered with the company’s proprietary UniCircle Technology, which features a uniform and balanced spliceless design that matches the shape of the tire’s casing to help extend casing life and mileage. The UniCircle manufacturing process also is engineered to help deliver lower rolling resistance. The G392A SSD UniCircle features a 24/32-inch tread depth, and the G394A SST UniCircle has a 12/32inch tread depth; both are available to fit size 445/50R22.5 casings.

Goodyear Commercial Tire Systems, www.goodyeartrucktires.com

Brake drum ConMet’s TruCast brake drum, based on the company’s TruTurn and CastLite brake drum technologies, is balanced for vibration-free performance for heavy-duty truck and trailer applications. The 16½-by-8-inch version weighs 116 pounds, and two 16½-by-7-inch models are available, one weighing 111 pounds and a lighter version weighing 106 pounds.

Consolidated Metco, www.conmet.com commercial carrier journal | february 2015

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products

Driver alertness detection system InterCore’s network-based Driver Alertness Detection System operates as a cloud-based real-time monitoring and warning system that can assist in preventing accidents caused by driver fatigue, lack of alertness or distractions. The system captures information from users with a Bluetooth camera linked to a smartphone and alerts the driver using audible and visual signals while sending notifications for up to a two-hour period to third parties such as dispatch centers.

DADS also can provide data on drivers and their driving patterns to assist in decreasing loss and delays while offering a strategic tool to meet performance targets and increase overall effectiveness and safety.

InterCore Inc., www.intercoreinc.com

Cordless impact wrench Snap-on’s CT8850 ½-inch Cordless Impact Wrench is designed to remove 450 bolts tightened at 400 ft.-lbs. in one charge powered by a 72 watt-hour 18-volt lithium battery. The tool has a high-efficiency four-brush motor, a microcontrolled digital smart switch with variable speed, a thermal sensor to help protect from overheating, a battery fuel gauge to indicate charge status and an integrated LED light for added visibility.

Snap-on, www.snapon.com

Marker/clearance LEDs Phillips’ Permalite XT PC2-rated round marker/ clearance LED lights are designed for improved light dispersal for vehicles more than 80 inches wide. The lights are manufactured with the company’s Boardfree technology, an in-mold process that uses a single LED sealed in a compact acrylic housing that helps protect against damage from moisture intrusion, harsh chemicals and UV exposure. Mounting accessories include either an anti-theft mounting ring or a mounting grommet.

Phillips Industries, www.phillipsind.com

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Coolant additives Prestone Command Supplemental Coolant Additive is formulated to protect coolant systems from corrosion by replenishing inhibitors, prevent rust and scale buildup and control pH balance with chemical conditioning, protecting all engine and cooling system component metals. Prestone Command Extender Liquid Coolant Additive, a corrosion inhibitor recharge, is a premixed liquid chemical additive formulated to replenish lost corrosion protection; inhibit rust, corrosion and scale formation; provide wet liner protection; and protect all cooling system metals. Both additives are suited for heavy-duty cooling systems with extended service interval technology.

Prestone Products Corp., www.prestonecommand.com

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Poly toolbox Minimizer’s 18-inch poly toolbox is lighter than metal and is built to fit into many tight places on trucks, truck chassis and trailers for a variety of applications. The durable toolbox is made of solid molded plastic materials engineered to withstand harsh environments and won’t rust, crack

or require paint. The toolbox weighs 22.8 pounds and measures 18-by-24-by-18 inches to allow for mounting onto trucks that have less room near the axles or near the liftgate, which allows it to house liftgate controls. It provides a right-toleft door orientation for the driver’s side and is designed to allow for easy access to electrical hookups, hydraulic controls, fuel cells, battery boxes, spill kits/hazmat kits and other industry uses.

Minimizer, www.minimizer.com

Wide-based splash guard Andersen Flaps’ Eco-flaps aerodynamic splash guard line now includes an 18-inch-wide model that can be paired with wide-based tires. The splash guard’s design helps reduce wind resistance and excessive road spray by redirecting airborne water to the pavement rather than into a passing or trailing vehicle’s line of sight. The splash guard is made from durable high-impact nylon to enable it to withstand extreme conditions and provide longer life. A custom shorter-length option means less surface to block airflow behind the tires to facilitate improved highway fuel economy; it also helps reduce the risk of catching when backing over curbs.

Andersen Flaps, www.ecoflaps.com

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Rand McNally’s IntelliRoute TND 730 navigation device can be paired via Bluetooth to its HD 100 device that connects to the vehicle’s data port for a fully compliant ELD.

Electronic logging devices are coming.

Will the benefits outweigh the costs?

By aaron huff

E

lectronic logging devices soon will become the new standard for all 3.4 million commercial drivers required by law to keep a record-of-duty status. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to issue a ruling by Sept. 30 to mandate their use.

In 2010, the agency published the original mandate, only to have it vacated by a federal court on the basis that fleet managers might use the technology – called electronic onboard recorders in the rule – to micromanage or “harass” drivers.

FMCSA addressed this and other issues in March 2014 with a new ELD 64

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rule proposal. Once the agency publishes the final version, enforcement of the mandate will begin two years later.

During that two-year timeframe, all ELDs on the market will need to be updated from the current rule for automatic onboard recording devices.

Suppliers expect that the new ELD standard will require them only to make software updates that can be pushed out to devices instantly. But rewriting the software code could take more than 12 months to complete.

That delay will compress the timetable for fleets that have yet to implement ELDs, but only if they wait until after the final rule is published – presumably

| february 2015

in late September – to get started. However, those that implement compliant devices before the final ELD rule will get an extra two years to meet the compliance deadline – by late 2019 at the earliest.

Since it appears safe to assume that any ELD purchased today will be updated to meet the new standard, does it really matter which product that you use?

If compliance is the only consideration, perhaps not. But if the goal is to maximize return on investment, then the differences matter. Consider these five criteria for evaluating ELDs.

Adaptability All companies that supply electronic logging software have experience in updating their products in response to rule changes. A new hours-of-service

technology: ElEctronic logging DEvicEs

Zonar uses an Android-powered onboard tablet for hours of service and an application for pre- and post-trip inspections.

rule came in July 2013 – only to have a portion of that rule, the 34-hour reset provision, suspended in December.

The next changes will be more technical in nature. As part of the new ELD rule, devices will have to transmit duty status information outside the truck to an application currently under development for law enforcement to use to verify compliance.

FMCSA has not specified what transfer method will be used, says Elise Chianelli, PeopleNet’s senior product manager of safety and compliance.

Most likely, ELD devices will use cellular or satellite connectivity to transmit a packet of duty status information to law enforcement for instant review.

The new ELD rule also will put greater responsibility on drivers to certify log accuracy. Drivers can accept or reject any logbook corrections made by fleet managers and edit certain portions of their logbooks, such as the time they switched from off-duty to on-duty status. They also will be able to specify when they used a vehicle for personal conveyance, yard moves and other instances where the ELD detected “miles without hours,” Chianelli says.

ELDs presently must be connected to the vehicle’s engine data to be compliant. They are not designed to capture changes to duty status unless those changes are related to engine information.

In light of these and other chang-

es, the type of ELD platform – mobile, hard-mounted or a combination of the two – is important considering that the information needs to come from both the vehicle and the driver.

Suppose a driver works for another company after hours or on J.J. Keller and Associates and Verizon are developing an integrated fleet weekends. How would compliance and telematics system for all vehicle classes. a fleet handle that vice, it is easy for a driver to log his time on-duty time to ensure its operations when working for another provider,” remain compliant? says Kelly Frey, Telogis’ vice president of “There are a lot of open questions products. “That is an opportunity to be around duty time,” Chianelli says. more compliant and easier for the driver Here’s where mobile platforms might to stay compliant.” have an advantage: A driver using a Mobile platforms for ELDs come in smartphone or tablet can update his logs three general varieties: while outside the vehicle.

Computer-assisted logging. Drivers “When you’ve got a smartphone decan download apps to personal Apple or Android devices. BigRoad, KeepTruckin and others offer apps for free. Fleets subscribe to these services to access and manage driver logs from an online portal.

Telematics devices. A low-cost recording device stays connected to the – Eric Witty, Cadec Global’s vice president of product management vehicle and communicates with mobile

Making the data available in real time increasingly will become more important to enable fleets and drivers to make better and faster operational decisions.

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technology: ElEctronic logging DEvicEs apps on smartphones and tablets.

These products are compliant and can be upgraded to the new ELD standard without buying additional hardware.

Enterprise-grade mobility. These products combine a robust telematics device with a durable mobile tablet display. Zonar offers its industrial-grade 2020 Android tablet display and an onboard computer to run applications for ELDs, vehicle inspection, navigation and driver workflow messaging. PeopleNet soon will offer its own rugged Android tablet.

Companies that supply telematics devices that communicate with mobile apps include Omnitracs (XRS), uDrove, J.J. Keller, Rand McNally, Telogis and BigRoad.

“One of the unique things about uDrove is that we do not require any driver interaction for the tracking part of our system,” says Nick Reed, uDrove’s general manager. “If a driver forgets his phone or tablet, it still tracks location and drive time.”

uDrove Prime is a small plug-and-play device with its own cellular modem that synchronizes with the uDrove Pro electronic logging app for Android and Apple devices.

Maximizing payback Fleets that already have implemented ELDs voluntarily may say the technology is saving them time and money. The reality is that using ELDs is difficult to justify if they are the only mobile application a fleet is using.

The best option for an ELD ultimately may depend on what set of applications offers the best return on investment in terms of productivity, fuel savings, safety and more.

The decision may come down to the product that offers the easiest migration path for drivers. Fleets that use the owner-operator business model are finding success with the “bring your own device” strategy and using computer-assisted logs or low-cost telematics.

For fleets that primarily use company assets and drivers, an enterprise-grade mobile platform may be more appealing to eliminate concerns about power 66

commercial carrier journal

The core technology of Omnitracs’ XRS is a small in-cab Relay device that communicates via Bluetooth with a wide range of compatible devices, including the driver’s existing smartphone or tablet.

supply, losing devices, data storage and other issues surrounding mobile devices.

Vnomics offers electronic logging on a hard-mounted display, and a real-time fuel-coaching application offers a quick payback, says Mari McGowan, the company’s director of market development.

When a driver exceeds 1,500 rpms, the in-cab display emits a beep that sounds similar to grinding gears, prompting the driver to shift and bring down his rpms.

When drivers come to a stop, a “shift efficiency” score appears on the display along with a color-coded vertical bar chart that shows the percentage of time drivers shifted in the “good,” “acceptable” and “poor” range.

| february 2015

Enterprise-grade platforms that use hard-mount or mobile displays generally are designed for fleets looking for more than compliance applications.

“Transportation operations are way more complicated than electronic logs, and for vendors, it will continue to be about the value proposition that your product and company provides,” says Eric Witty, Cadec Global’s vice president of product management. “Many buyers will look for additional opportunities to reduce cost and improve efficiency and safety and will look to vendors to integrate features and technology that can provide this value.”

Bulletproof compliance To manage compliance, fleet managers may need more than logbook data.

Some ELD products have compliance management tools that capture and report log violations – and more.

J.J. Keller & Associates’ E-Log application, tailored for fleets wanting a more comprehensive approach, is sold with an ELD device that connects to the vehicle’s diagnostics port. This device communicates with the Keller Mobile app that runs on the iPad, iPhone, Android or Keller’s Compliance tablet.

The app sends data to the company’s cloud-based Encompass portal that fleets use to manage log data, including data that managers enter manually from drivers who still use paper logs, says Randy Thome, J.J. Keller’s vice president of technology services.

The portal has several different subscription levels or editions. Upgrading to the Compliance edition gives fleets a paperless system to manage driver hiring, qualification files, training and other safety and compliance processes.

The Premium edition includes driver performance and operational information such as fuel use, speed, braking and GPS location.

The additional compliance management tools included in some ELD

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technology: ElEctronic logging DEvicEs offerings also can help fleets protect themselves and their data in the event of a U.S. Department of Transportation audit. Telogis can integrate data from various sources into its online management system for driver logs.

Integrating data from third-party fuel cards and proof-of-delivery applications makes it possible for Telogis to audit the data continuously with its own ELD to identify any discrepancies and match duty status to other known driver activities, Frey says.

BigRoad offers a compliant Automatic On-Board Recording Device option for its paperless driver logging app.

Automated workflow Fleet mobility platforms also can have ELDs embedded within an automated driver workflow process. Compared to using a standalone ELD, an integrated workflow presents the driver with tasks to complete as they go through their workday.

“Tying (electronic logs) to the driver workflow does make all the difference,” says Keith O’Brien, CarrierWeb’s vice president of product management.

Most fleets using CarrierWeb have the platform integrated with their transportation management software system in the back office. When drivers use CarrierWeb’s Mobile Data Terminal in the cab, the interface prompts drivers to enter information pertinent to their status at that moment, O’Brien says.

Besides capturing duty status information, the integrated workflow identifies what activities are taking place during drivers’ on-duty nondriving time, such as making a delivery, washing the tractor or fueling. “Because we have the ability to create many statuses, we can associate each status with a category,” he says.

As part of Telogis’ integrated workflow, hours-of-service information is presented to drivers through its navigation interface.

“We are allowing them to keep their eyes on the road while giving them alerts and notifications if they need to stop for a break or are approaching their 68

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Fleets can add the Telogis Compliance suite for electronic logs, driver vehicle inspection reports and IFTA fuel tax reporting for a combined monthly subscription.

drive limit,” Frey says. “We present that information in the least intrusive way possible.”

Integration with future technologies Another consideration for choosing an ELD platform is the other technologies used in the vehicle to improve safety and compliance. Rather than use separate devices, some platforms are designed to consolidate various technologies such as video capture, active safety systems, weigh station bypass and more.

“Making the data available in real time increasingly will become more important to enable fleets and drivers to make better and faster operational decisions,” Witty says.

Law enforcement also will want to leverage technology to help decide which trucks to inspect. One technology that could help is mobile inspection bypass.

| february 2015

Drivewyze’s platform allows state agencies to reward motor carriers with bypass opportunities based on their Compliance Safety Accountability scores. A secure interface inside the weigh station displays the results of each bypass request after it has been processed.

PeopleNet, Zonar, XRS and Rand McNally have integrated the Drivewyze app with their ELD applications. The Drivewyze system only identifies the trucking company and currently does not send logging information to inspection officers, but it can send certain parts of logbook data.

“It matters what the customer wants,” says Fred Fakkema, Zonar’s vice president of compliance.

The general trend for ELD applications and fleet mobility is toward using consumer devices for the display since this offers fleets and drivers more flexibility to use complementary applications, says John Day, Geotab’s product manager. “Drivers are all going to be carrying smartphones,” Day says.

Besides using Apple or Android devices for the display, Geotab allows fleets to add their own and thirdparty applications to the menu of its myGeotab online management portal for logging, mapping and engine diagnostics. The telematics provider also is adding the same feature to the menu button of its Geotab Drive mobile application for drivers.

For fleets seeking a mobile platform or replacing an existing one before the ELD mandate arrives, the market has many low-cost compliance options that offer room for additional applications to increase return on investment.

Visit www.ccjdigital.com/reviewcategory/logging-deviceshoursof-service/ to see real-world reviews of the different products mentioned in this article by fleet managers who use them daily.

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t dawn, trucker John Doe ambled toward the ready line with a granola bar and a jug of steaming-hot coffee flavored with Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup for extra energy. The day’s tow was a 48-foot flatbed laden with steel coils. After his pretrip inspection, Doe wheeled his rig out of the terminal yard and headed eastward on four-lane Pickwick Pike. The sun rose in a cloudless sky, and traffic was light.

Doe looked forward to an easy trip, but his milk run was about to go sour.

Pickwick Pike dead-ended at the I-007 Bypass, where he needed to turn left. To ensure room for a wide turn, Doe got into the right lane, and when the light turned green, he eyeballed I-007 for red-light runners, then cautiously John Doe was making a wide started to execute his turn. left turn from the right lane In the adjacent turn lane, bus when a bus driver in the adjacent turn lane didn’t turn driver Wilbur Smurd also started to left sharply enough and sideturn left, but he didn’t turn sharply swiped Doe’s tractor. Was this enough and moved partially into a preventable accident? the next lane. Doe, in shocked disbelief, stopped dead and sounded his horn, but Smurd failed to react and sideswiped Doe’s tractor. It took several sips of coffee to calm Doe down, but even that couldn’t help him get over the warning letter from his safety director for a preventable accident.

Doe disagreed that he should have hung back and anticipated that the large bus would encroach on his lane. Asked to resolve the dispute, the National Safety Council’s Accident Review Committee ruled in Doe’s favor. He had proceeded with caution and reacted properly but still fell prey to the bus driver, who had plenty of room to maneuver and initially did not appear to pose a threat, NSC said.

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