Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/85086
WHILE IT'S TOO EARLY TO KNOW HOW MUCH THE HOURS-OF-SERVICE FINAL RULE WILL IMPACT COMPLIANCE AND PRODUCTIVITY, TECHNOLOGIES ALREADY ARE AVAILABLE TO HELP COMBAT THESE CHALLENGES BY AARON HUFF A TIME WILL TE L percent of their deployed units have electronic onboard recorder applications and that virtually all new customers are using electronic logs. Changes in the HOS fi nal rule likely will increase demand because on-duty time will become more diffi cult to enforce on paper. Consider the new requirement that drivers take a 30-minute break within the fi rst eight hours; drivers and fl eets will have to plan and monitor cur- rent and previous drive time more carefully. "Real-time communications and automation SCHNEIDER NATIONAL'S TACTICAL PLANNING SIMULATOR SHOWS MANAGEMENT HOW POLICY CHANGES IMPACT DRIVER HOME TIME, PICKUP-AND-DELIVERY APPOINTMENTS, ASSET UTILIZATION AND OTHER AREAS. helps to coordinate these breaks, causing the least impact to customer service yet staying within legal parameters," says Drew Hamilton, executive vice president of Teletrac, which offers electronic logs in its FleetDirector platform. "Drivers will be prompted to take a break at the next stop before those fi rst eight hours elapse." Electronic logs also eliminate confusion from the 34-hour restart provision. Applications will show drivers when they can return to duty. The off-duty rest period almost always will be more than 34 hours since it must include two nights. The earliest a driver could return to duty is 5 a.m. on the second consecutive night. Anything that requires tracking over a long period of time always will be more diffi cult to 50 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 2012 TELETRAC OFFERS ELECTRONIC LOGS IN ITS FLEETDIRECTOR PLATFORM TO AUTOMATICALLY MONITOR AND DISPLAY DRIVE TIME AND LET DRIVERS AND SUPERVISORS SEE WHEN WORK CAN BE PERFORMED AGAIN WITHIN LEGAL BOUNDARIES. fter the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued its proposal to change the hours-of-service regulations in December 2010, thousands of carriers and drivers sent com- ments to the agency – many warning of serious economic impacts if driver hours were reduced by any amount. Time will tell if these dire predictions are true, but in the fi nal rule issued Dec. 22, FMCSA said with certainty that any negative economic impacts will be minimal. Some carriers are not taking a wait-and-see approach before enforcement begins in 2013. Schneider National is using predictive technology to assess the impact of the fi nal rule on its vast operations with an advanced tactical planning simulator to make decisions based on virtual pilot projections rather than use actual groups of drivers, equipment and company resources. The TCP shows management how policy changes impact driver home time, pickup-and-delivery appointments, asset utilization and other areas. Schneider used its TCP to assess the proposed rule and now is evaluating the fi nal rule. Few fl eets have the resources to do a similar "pro-forma" assessment of the changes in the HOS fi nal rule – yet most have the technology to boost effi ciency in the face of new challenges. When the new rule takes effect, which of these technolo- gies most likely will emerge as the most effective weapons to combat challenges with compliance and productivity? Electronic logs All major providers of onboard comput- ing platforms say that between 70 and 85