Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/538378
COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JULY 2015 33 H ow will drivers respond to a computer-generated message of this kind? "You've been driving for three hours. The sun will rise in 45 minutes. A parking spot is ahead. Pull over, and take a 20-minute nap." Many fleets, especially larger ones, already use routing and navigation applications that give drivers turn-by-turn directions and optimized fuel purchase plans. Will drivers follow more intelligent route calculations, such as the example above, to reduce fatigue? A few years ago, changing routes based on predictive modeling might have seemed more like high-risk gambling than intelligence. Navigation and routing applications already got drivers from point A to B. As for when and where to sleep, that decision was left up to the individual. Electronic logs have not made that decision any easier for drivers. "You can be 100 percent compliant with the hours of service but be sound asleep at the wheel," said Dean Croke, who has made a career out of unravel- ing the complexities of driver fatigue and truck accidents by us- ing predictive models and data. Croke's career began by following his father into the truck- ing industry, where he drove for more than two million miles as a trucker or "truckie" in Australia. Croke now is working on intelligent routing as the vice president of Omnitracs Analytics. The company is developing a routing and navigation system that incorporates predictive models. Suppose a fleet has a route that goes into New York City. Croke said the software eventually could notify fleet managers if the driver assigned to the route on that day is more likely than other drivers in the fleet to wreck. With this advance notice, it probably would be wise to assign the route to someone else. Following the predictive lead Croke was one of the founders of FleetRisk Advisors, a company that developed predictive models for fatigue, accident frequency, workers' compensation claims and driver turnover. When FleetRisk began 10 years ago, its concepts never had been rolled out successfully in the trucking industry, Croke said. When the company landed its first customer, Dupre Lo- gistics of Lafayette, La., "we weren't sure we could do this," he said. "We had no idea that we could use data to predict anything." The debut was suc- cessful, and FleetRisk began working with C.R. England, Covenant, Maverick, Averitt Express, Schneider and Swift. The company became known as Omnitracs Analytics following its acquisition by Qualcomm, which led to the acquisition of Qual- comm's Omnitracs unit by Vista Equity Partners in November 2013. Predictive analytics has changed a lot since Omnitracs Analytics built its first models. The amount of data has increased exponential- ly with the speed, power and intelligence of its data processing. The models are tailored to each customer and use thousands of data points to identify at-risk drivers and the recommended actions to prevent a likely event, such as an accident or voluntary termi- nation of employment. In most cases, the recommended action is a conversation with the driver to alleviate the stress, anxiety or frustration from their personal or professional lives that is causing a change in behavior and attitude. Croke also mentioned other ongoing projects and insights gained from predictive modeling. Omnitracs Analytics' fatigue model uses sleep science and electronic log data to predict when and how much drivers slept in a 24-hour period. By using a Web portal or integration with third-party dispatch systems, fleet managers can monitor for exceptions such as drivers who have been awake for 16 continuous hours. MAKING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS WORK FOR YOUR FLEET BY AARON HUFF technology AARON HUFF is Senior Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail ahuff@ccjmagazine.com or call 385-225-9472. Putting more intelligence in truck routing Predictive analytics grows exponentially IN THE LOOP: Many larger fleets already use routing and naviga- tion applications. THE NEXT STEP: Will drivers follow intelligent route calculations to reduce fatigue? TOUGH COMPLIANCE: Electronic logs have not made decisions easier for drivers. Dean Croke is vice president of Omni- tracs Analytics, which is developing a routing and navigation system that incorporates predictive models.