CCJ

February 2018

Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal

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42 commercial carrier journal | february 2018 technology Random inspections Data management helps fleets increase bypass opportunities BY AARON HUFF T he technology used in weigh station bypass programs is straightforward. A truck-mounted transponder or mobile device sends a signal to a reader at a weigh station, and a law enforcement application uses the signal to identify the carrier, allowing officials to determine whether or not to inspect the truck or let it pass by. While the technology works consistently, bypass programs are not uniform. Carriers may have a solid safety record but not be getting the green light as oen as they believe they should. Changing scores Weigh stations and mobile inspection sites rely on the Inspec- tion Selection System to determine pull-in rates. Since ISS scores are determined from a motor carrier's safety data, the pull-in rates can fluctuate from month to month. In other cases, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administra- tion randomly assigns a high ISS score of 99 to a select group of carriers to put them in the high-inspection category. at's because the agency has little to no data on these carriers, nearly all of which are small operators, so it does this in an effort to collect more information on them. Pull-in rates also vary by state. Currently, two companies offer inspection bypass programs: Help Inc. with its PrePass program, and Drivewyze with its PreClear program. Both list California and New York as the states with the highest pull-in rates. California pulls in every carrier with an ISS score of 75 or higher. New York uses the same pull-in rate for all vehicles, regardless of their ISS scores. Nearly all states that use the PrePass program have a random 5 percent pull-in rate for carriers that are qualified, regardless of their ISS score. Participating carriers get an automatic red light if they have been placed out of service by FMCSA. Steve Vaugh, national director of field operations for Help Inc., said other factors that will trigger a red light include not having current credentials for International Fuel Tax Agree- ment fuel taxes, International Registration Plan and state regis- tration, hazardous materials and state-specific taxes. Drivewyze uses an app on its customers' mobile technolo- gies, including electronic logging devices, to connect the truck to its cloud-based PreClear inspection bypass program. States determine their own pull-in rates with PreClear by using public safety credential information on motor carriers. Going for green e only way for a carrier to improve its ISS score and get a higher bypass rate is to get more clean inspections on its record, said Brian Mofford, vice president of government experience for Drivewyze. To help increase the number of clean inspections, PrePass carriers can use Inform, the company's free web-based intel- ligence tool, to identify patterns in their violations by location, Vaugh said. To help carriers receive more clean inspections and improve their odds for bypass opportunities down the road, Drivewyze is developing an application that will populate forms that law enforcement officials use to record Level 3 inspections, Mofford said. at's because when trucks enter a weigh station, officers sometimes will check a few of the carrier's credentials but not file an inspection report to save time if no violations are found. Drivewyze's application will eliminate some data entry for officers, making it more likely they'll complete a clean inspec- tion report, which should help carriers improve their ISS scores, Mofford said. Blacklidge, a Gulfport, Miss.-based asphalt company with 20 trucks, has seen its bypass opportunities increase steadily since it started using Drivewyze about a year ago, said Paul Johnson, director of logistics. Drivewyze has 248 fixed and mobile loca- tions in the 13 Southeast states where Blacklidge hauls asphalt products to customers. Both PrePass and Drivewyze say the monthly cost of their programs, on a per-truck basis, is reimbursed by the time and fuel savings of one or two bypass events for each truck. in focus: WEIGH STATION BYPASS Drivewyze uses an app on its customers' mobile devices to connect the truck to its cloud-based PreClear inspection bypass program.

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