Dec 192011

Senate pushes for EOBR mandate

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Monday, December 19, 2011  9:24 AM

While it is by no means a done deal, the Senate is moving towards a federal mandate for EOBRs for all trucks and buses. The Senate Commerce Committee approved four bills on December 14 as part of the larger two-year transportation reauthorization measure. One of the bills calls for mandatory EOBRs and has the support of the ATA but is opposed by the Owner Operator Independent Driver Association.

The FMCSA mandate for EOBRs was thrown out by the U. S. Court of Appeals in the summer.

Although I am not a big fan of federal mandates, EOBRs are an affordable and effective technology to keep our highways safer and level the playing field between carriers who play by the rules and those who are not appropriately focuses on safe driving.


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Categories: On-board trip recorders
Aug 302011

Federal appeals court throws out EOBR mandate

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Tuesday, August 30, 2011  6:52 AM

Siding with the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the FMCSA’s mandate of EOBR use by trucking companies. The court ruled that the FMCSA mandate does not properly protect drivers against harassment by the trucking companies. The court did not address OOIDA’s compliant that the agency did not demonstrate the benefits of the technology. You can read more about the ruling in The Journal of Commerce or Transport Topics. The American Trucking Associations supports the EOBR mandate and expressed disappointment in the ruling.


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Aug 092011

Electronic On Board Recorder (EOBR) mandate may be postponed

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Tuesday, August 09, 2011  9:47 AM

The Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee may need more time to gather expert opinion on details of how the program will work. For example, the technical standards for communicating electronic information from the EOBR to a laptop in a law enforcement vehicle have not been worked out. In addition, it is not clear who will be responsible for equipping 12,000 CSVA-certified law enforcement personnel with the technology required to interact with an EOBR. It is also not clear how EOBRs should account for incidental truck moves such as when a police officer asks a driver to move a parked vehicle. Drivers are also expected to be allowed some personal off-duty driving time such as travelling for dinner. Finally, EOBR providers suggest that it may take a year or more to work out the hardware and software changes required to comply with the new regulations.

The FMCSA had planned to issue its final rule in June of 2012, but that target appears unlikely to be met. Carriers will have three years to comply once the final rule is issued. I remain convinced that mandatory EOBRs are a good idea for the industry and the general public, but the devil is in the details and it is important to be fair to drivers and to have a smooth implementation.

You can read more about the likely postponement in Transport Topics.


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Categories: On-board trip recorders
Apr 122011

ATA support EOBR mandate

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Tuesday, April 12, 2011  11:51 AM

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) have stated their support for a federal proposal mandating that trucking companies use electronic logging devices to monitor driver compliance with the hours-of-service rule (ATA Press Release). The ATA supports both legislation requiring the electronic logging equipment and a rule proposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. "ATA has always been in favor of strong enforcement of safety rules and regulations. This new policy just underlines that support," Bill Graves, ATA president and chief executive officer, said April 7. The Truckload Carriers Association had already expressed support for the new federal initiative.

While ATA's new policy expresses support for an electronic logging mandate, ATA believes any regulation or law should also address several issues including: (1) Cost-effective device specifications allowing for accurate recording of driving hours; (2) data ownership and access in order to protect the privacy of fleets and drivers alike; and (3) relief from the current, significant burden of retaining additional supporting documentation.

Many carriers that already have adopted the technology report not only safety improvements but also productivity gains by better matching loads with drivers considering each driver's available hours.


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Categories: On-board trip recorders
Feb 212011

EOBR comment period remains open – make your voice heard

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Monday, February 21, 2011  10:19 AM

The Truckload Carriers Conference plans to oppose the FMCSA's mandate that truckers use electronic on-board trip recorders (EOBRs). The group says there is no evidence to link the use of EOBRs with better safety performance. FMCSA expects to have a final rule in place by June 2012 and then carriers would have an additional three years after that to comply. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the National Association of Small Trucking Companies also have indicated they will oppose the mandate. Even the FMCSA allows that they do not have the data to identify a strong correlation between EOBRs and actual safety results.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) is still studying the issue but takes a more favorable view towards EOBRs. Dave Osiecki, ATA's senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs, said that "relatively new data captured by the CSA program in 2009 and 2010 [are] showing a relationship between hours-of-service compliance and safety performance." ATA president Bill Graves said "There actually is data that creates a correlation between those companies that log drivers' hours electronically and the safety of that company." Most large truckload carriers are already using some form of electronic log tracking and some are saying that productivity goes up, not down, with the new technology. The reason is that without electronic logs a driver may accept a good long haul load saying he has hours available, but then shorty after dispatch reports that he is out of hours and needs to shut down. With better information on which drivers have hours available and which drivers need to shut down, carriers can do a better job of assigning loads to drivers thus improving operational efficiency and productivity.

There is an interesting technology twist in the EOBR story. Despite the fact that many carriers are using what they consider to be EOBRs, the FMCSA says that EOBRs are legally distinct from the current generation of electronic logging tools that the agency calls "automated on-board recording device." No e-logging device on the market today meets the technical definition of an EOBR set forth by FMCSA, primarily because the agency does not mandate that the old devices be capable of data transfer. EOBRs must be capable of transmitting HOS data in several ways: by universal serial bus (USB), Wi-Fi, and cellular and other radio-broadcast networks. The problem is, law enforcement agencies don't have the technology to read EOBR output nor do they have the money to buy such technology. Furthermore, many companies and state agencies will not allow a USB memory stick from a different company to be used in their computers due to data security and virus concerns. It does seem a little odd in today's environment of heightened security concerns that we would allow a truck driver to hand a memory stick to a law enforcement agent, who would then insert the memory stick into their computer. That makes no sense from a data and network security standpoint. A Wi-Fi connection requires Internet connectivity, which may not be available at the point of inspection. Clearly there is some work remaining to be done.

I remain in favor of the EOBR mandate. The final rule is still over a year out and then there is a 3-year period for compliance. That is more than enough time to solve relatively minor technical issues. The fact that many large and safety conscious trucking companies have implemented EOBR technology without a government mandate is evidence that the technology makes sense from both a safety and economic perspective. It is time to get better control over log violations, and even though an EOBR won't eliminate log violations, they will substantially reduce log falsification.

As a reminder, FMCSA will take public comments on the proposal for 60 days from the date it published the rule in the Federal Register, which was February 1. I encourage you to post your comments through the Regulations.gov web site. The docket number is FMCSA-2010-0167.

 

 

 

 


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Categories: On-board trip recorders
Feb 032011

FMCSA public comment period opens for EOBR

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Thursday, February 03, 2011  2:33 PM

On January 31, 2011 the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a regulatory proposal that would require interstate commercial truck and bus companies to install electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) to monitor their drivers' hours-of-service (HOS) compliance. The rule would apply to all companies that are currently required to use logbooks to record compliance under federal hours-of-service regulations, (about 500,000 carriers). The agency said it expected to have a final rule in place by June 2012 and then carriers will be given three years from the effective date of the final rule to comply. The proposed rule would also relieve interstate motor carriers from retaining certain HOS supporting documents, such as delivery and toll receipts, which are currently used to verify the total number of hours drivers spend operating the vehicle. Carriers that violate this EOBR requirement would face civil penalties of up to $11,000 for each offense. Noncompliance would also negatively impact a carrier's safety fitness rating and DOT operating authority.

"We cannot protect our roadways when commercial truck and bus companies exceed hours-of-service rules," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "This proposal would make our roads safer by ensuring that carriers traveling across state lines are using EOBRs to track the hours their drivers spend behind the wheel." FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro said that "This proposal is an important step in our efforts to raise the safety bar for commercial carriers and drivers. We believe broader use of EOBRs would give carriers and drivers an effective tool to strengthen their HOS compliance."

The proposal has the support of most large trucking companies who have already implemented EOBRs to ease the administrative burden of log audits as well as to reduce the risk that they have unsafe drivers on the road.

Opposing the proposal is the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn. (OOIDA) who said the proposal will hurt small business truckers and increase costs and leveled harsh criticism at FMCSA. "EOBRs are nothing more than over-priced record keepers," said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA. "This proposal is actually another example of the administration's determination to wipe out small businesses by continuing to crank out overly burdensome regulations that simply run up costs." According to the Association, EOBRs cannot accurately and automatically record a driver's hours of service and duty status. They can only track the movement and location of a truck and require human interaction to record any change of duty status. Loading and unloading time should typically be logged as "on-duty, not driving" in order to accurately reflect the hours a driver has worked, but it is up to the driver to accurately record that status.

Owner Operators complain that the units cost too much when bought one at a time, rather than by the hundreds or thousands as larger carriers buy them. FMCSA estimates the cost of an EOBR for trucking companies without fleet management systems to be between $525 and $785 per truck. However, the agency estimates it will cost only $92 per truck for companies with existing fleet management systems. In September 2010, J. J. Keller & Associates introduced a product called $6 E-Logs, a low-cost electronic hours-of-service solution that costs $199 per truck for the EOBR and $6 per truck per month for the service. I am not endorsing this product, just pointing it out as a product on the market today at a reasonably low price.

While I am generally opposed to new government regulations, and while it is indisputable that the trucking industry has done a phenomenal job of reducing the accident rate even without EOBRs, and even though an EOBR does not eliminate log falsification, I think this is a reasonable imposition of technology in the name of safety. After all, we would not have airbags in all of our cars if we left it up to the auto industry to do it on their own without a government mandate.

FMCSA will take public comments on the proposal for 60 days from the date it published the rule in the Federal Register, which was February 1. I encourage you to post your comments beginning February 4 at Regulation Room. Note that Regulation Room is not an official DOT website, and so participating in discussion on that site is not the same as commenting in the rulemaking docket. To read the full submission and find instructions on official commenting click here. One way to comment officially is through the Regulations.gov web site.

 


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Categories: On-board trip recorders