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HDT’s Top Green Fleets of 2017

This is the fifth year we’ve recognized some of the country’s “greenest” fleets with our Top Green Fleets award – and this year, we’ve narrowed the field and made it more competitive, honoring 25 of the most fuel-efficient, environmentally conscientious, alternative-fuel-forward fleets in the U.S.

Source: HDT’s Top Green Fleets of 2017

Dispatch Difficulties: The Value of Quality Dispatchers for Safety and Retention

The Coming Shortage Of Dispatchers
We hear a lot about the looming shortage of qualified truck drivers, and the tactics we can use to recruit and retain skilled drivers. At the same time, nobody seems to be talking about another staffing shortage in our industry: the lack of qualified and experienced dispatchers.The Voice On The Phone
In the past, dispatchers were typically former drivers who had retired from the road for a “desk job.” With years of driving experience, they understood exactly what to do and what to say when a driver or a customer called in. They were able to help drivers stay awake when they needed it, and to talk them through difficult situations. That’s not always the case anymore. These experienced dispatchers are burning out, retiring, and being replaced by a new breed.

Today’s dispatchers are often college graduates with great technical skills but little or no experience in trucking. Many have never driven anything bigger than a minivan, let alone an 18 wheeler, but they are being tasked with supervising the people who get behind the wheel every day. They haven’t experienced the long periods away from home in a cab smaller than a refrigerator box, with little to no support. They’ve never driven through severe weather conditions and road hazards just to get their job done.

On-Call Driver Support
When a driver calls in to Dispatch, what kind of reception does he or she get? Is it a calm, friendly voice ready to help? Or an officious, by-the-book autonomic response that lets a driver know just where he or she stands in the company? Is there someone answering that call who just doesn’t have the time, or is it someone who can empathize with the problems that are causing the load to be late?

It makes a big difference.

When a driver gets rough treatment from a dispatcher, it’s bad enough when it’s a one time occurrence. Add hundreds of miles, repeated disinterest and a lot of time alone, and the driver feels like he or she just isn’t welcome anymore. Dispatchers create a big disconnect when they don’t respect drivers, eventually pushing away good ones and adding to the churn.

The Dispatcher’s Defense
On any given day, a dispatcher has to balance calls from drivers, customers, management, and others in the company to make everything and everyone run smoothly. One call from a driver in trouble or a customer declining a load can throw everything out the window quickly, forcing the dispatcher to scramble and make new arrangements.

But a dispatcher is in an office, behind a desk, and can interact with coworkers. A driver has to handle bad weather, adverse road conditions and an irate customer all on his or her own. The last thing a driver needs is to hear something else from a dispatcher that makes the day a little worse – dispatch needs to be a friend to the driver, and that needs to be understood as part of the job.

The Relationship
Drivers and dispatchers can either be in sync, or in opposition. That relationship makes a huge difference in driver retention. If new dispatchers aren’t equipped with the right knowledge and skills to work with drivers, your company may find itself churning through both. Good communication skills, and an understanding of the challenges of life on the road, are very important given that your dispatchers may be the only ones your drivers talks to at the company at any given time.

This is also true of other driver-facing personnel, whether they be in pay, payroll, management, sales, or elsewhere. If a driver doesn’t feel like he or she is respected, appreciated, or is an integral part of the organization, they’ll leave for another company.

The Solution—Dispatcher Training
There is no shortage of people who may have the technical qualifications on paper to be a good dispatcher. But training a new generation of dispatchers with the skillsets they need to be truly successful in working with your drivers will go a long way toward keeping skilled dispatchers on the desk and skilled drivers on the road.

Dispatchers certainly need technological, managerial, and scheduling skills, but without the knowledge or experience to empathize with drivers, they will be seen as back-office “pencil pushers” and won’t be able to effectively manage operations. Great dispatchers can be one of your company’s greatest assets as long as they have the trust of the people who need them most – your drivers. Spend time training your dispatchers about people skills, how to schedule and what your drivers experience on a daily basis.

Five Steps for Less Stressful Roadside Inspections with ELDs

With the many models of ELDs and AOBRDs in use today, along with varying levels of inspector and driver knowledge of those systems, getting your drivers ready for roadside inspections with ELDs is more critical than ever. Preparing your drivers ahead of time will greatly reduce their stress. And the better prepared the driver, the quicker the inspection will be, which will reflect well on your company and leave a good impression with inspectors. Electronic logs have been in use for years, so you can’t expect “soft enforcement” on hours-of-service violations, as limits’ regulations have not changed. Below we list five steps you can take to prepare your drivers for a new way of communicating their hours to inspection personnel:

  1. Train your drivers thoroughly on how to transfer hours’ data via both options within the local or telematic method (whichever method is used by your ELD). Officers will not want to handle cell phones or tablets to avoid any perception of impropriety or accidental breakage. Role play the inspection process with your drivers until they are comfortable navigating within the ELD application. Choosing a driver-friendly ELD will make the system easier to learn and give your drivers more confidence during an inspection. (AOBRDs do not need to transfer data, only display data.)
  2. Train thoroughly on how to display or print hours data. If the data transfer doesn’t work or is extremely slow, the driver must know how to print data or get the ELD in “inspection mode” to display the hours of the current day and prior seven days. To avoid a violation, the display must be capable of review without the officer entering the cab.
  3. Train and verify the drivers’ understanding of identifying and correcting basic malfunctions and resolving data inconsistencies. The ELD manual, malfunction and data transfer procedure instructions, and 8 days of blank logs must have readily available to show the officer. If you have upgraded from an AOBRD to an ELD recently, verify that the documentation is for the ELD, not the AOBRD.
  4. Train drivers on the proper use of the “Personal Use” and “Yard Move” options. “Personal Use” is not to be used to reposition a truck after running out of hours. Duty status locations won’t match, causing enforcement to scrutinize these moves. Have a clear policy on when this option can be used and make sure that drivers understand it.“Personal Use” is covered only in DOT Interpretation number 26 in §395.8 and allows moves from the terminal to home and back to the terminal, and from enroute lodging to personal destinations only when unladen. The “Yard Move” option can only be used on property that cannot be deemed a highway. Private property can be a “highway” (see §390.5) unless it is gated or signed prohibiting public access.
  5. Drivers and operations personnel should understand the ELD-related violations that can result in an Out-of-Service Order. Covering these violations should be part of your ELD training and will help drivers understand their responsibilities under the ELD mandate. Here’s a few examples:
    1. Using an ELD that is not on the registry, a device that an officer believes is noncompliant, or not using an ELD or AOBRD at all when required. An officer will report a potentially non-compliant device to the FMCSA for possible decertification.
    2. Drivers unable to produce, display, or transfer the required hours, which includes after a malfunction, not having reconstructed logs of the current day, and not having printed copies of the prior seven days’ logs.
    3. Carrier hasn’t repaired or replaced the ELD within 8 days of a malfunction and doesn’t have an extension from the FMCSA.
    4. Creating a false log. Drivers that have not appropriately logged into a device may be cited for intentional falsification. Other common ways to falsify logs are logging out and driving when out of hours or not logging into the ELD to avoid starting their clock.

Above all, coach your drivers to remain calm and be patient. Remind them that for the first few months of the mandate, enforcement officers are also learning, and they have more than one ELD system to deal with. It goes without saying but I’ll say it again, drivers should never argue with the officer. Rather, they should ask the officer to show them or tell them the exact nature of the violation and include a regulation citation, if possible.  

Six Steps to Thwart Cargo Theft

“Cargo theft hasn’t necessarily gotten worse lately, but there is more sophistication on the criminal side than 20 years ago when it was strictly a crime of opportunity,” says Eric Fuller, CEO of U.S. Xpress. But there is much motor carriers can do to help protect customers’ goods and their own assets and employees from heists.

Source: Six Steps to Thwart Cargo Theft