The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the ELD mandate, finding in favor of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and against the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association.
The December 2017 compliance date remains effective.
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Arlington, VA – The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), in conjunction with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and research sponsor ExxonMobil, today released results of their investigation of fleet fuel economy and fuel usage. Nearly 100 fleet managers provided their views on current and future trends in fuel-saving technologies as well as the advantages and disadvantages of alternative fuels. These fleets operate just over 114,500 heavy-duty truck-tractors and approximately 350,000 trailers.
The study found the median fleet-wide fuel economy of 6.5 miles per gallon was being achieved through the use of a variety of fuel-saving technologies. For truck-tractors, aluminum wheels, speed limiters and low rolling resistance tires were reported as the most common fuel-saving technologies. For trailers, low rolling resistance tires, aluminum wheels and weight-saving technologies were identified as the most common technologies.
Fuel-saving technologies which have shown the best and worst returns on investment were also investigated. Aerodynamic treatments and idle reduction technologies or strategies were identified by respondents as technologies which have shown both the best and the worst return on investment.
“This report shows which technologies fleets are using and which ones they are more skeptical about,” said Steve Niswander, Vice President, Safety Policy & Regulatory Relations with Groendyke Transport, Inc. and Chairman of ATRI’s Research Advisory Committee. “It also serves to highlight the difficulties fleets face when deciding which technologies are the best investments.”
The report found limited use of alternative fuels with biodiesel blends identified as the most common alternative fuel being used today.
The Technical Report, titled A Survey of Fuel Economy and Fuel Usage by Heavy-Duty Truck Fleets, and Executive Summary, are available at www.atri-online.org.
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ATRI is the trucking industry’s 501(c)(3) not-for-profit research organization. It is engaged in critical research relating to freight transportation’s essential role in maintaining a safe, secure and efficient transportation system. UMTRI is dedicated to achieving safe and sustainable transportation for a global society. UMTRI continually strives for innovation in motor-vehicle safety, sound policy, and sustainable business practices in the world of transportation.
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Source: Looming ELD Mandate Tops Trucking Industry Concerns Survey – News – TruckingInfo.com
Source: Canada Scrambling to Develop ELD Standard – Article – TruckingInfo.com
Aaron Huff in CCJ
In April, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published a 440-page document that contains specific instructions and step-by-step testing procedures for electronic logging devices.
The document is supposed to help ELD manufacturers register and self-certify their products with the technical standards of the ELD rule.
The agency’s ELD rule went into effect December, 2015, and enforcement is set to begin Dec. 18, 2017. After this deadline, all carriers and truck drivers — with some exceptions — will be required to use “certified” ELD devices in the agency’s online registry.
Getting in the registry is a marketing opportunity for ELD suppliers, especially those who are relatively new and unknown in the industry. The registration and self-certification process is raising some eyebrows, however.
Currently, five ELD suppliers and their products are listed in the ELD registry, but neither the FMCSA nor any independent third party has conducted tests to verify they meet the requirements in the 440-page document.
One requirement is that ELDs can transfer a raw data file to an external application called Electronic Record of Duty Status (ERODS). The ERODS application is currently being developed by the FMCSA, and may not be available for testing until late 2017, says Elise Chianelli, director of safety and compliance for PeopleNet.
Per the ELD rule, the file transfer has to be done using wireless or local methods. The transfer will make roadside inspections more efficient and accurate for law officers. Rather than looking at a driver’s ELD display, officers will use ERODS to audit a driver’s hours-of-service data and quickly detect any violations in their current 8-day duty cycle.
Being listed in the ELD registry without verifying the capability to transfer files to ERODS raises “a lot of questions,” Chianelli says.
Tom Cuthberson, vice president of regulatory compliance for Omnitracs, agrees that suppliers should have to comply with this and other ELD requirements before they are listed in the FMCSA’s online registry.
Like many other suppliers, Omnitracs has AOBRD-compliant applications for in-cab and mobile platforms as it works on adding new features to its products to offer a fully compliant ELD version.
Because of the delay from ERODS, “it’s going to take some time” for Omnitracs to register and self-certify ELD products, he says. “There is quite a bit of work to do to make sure we vet out our product properly.”
As reported by Todd Dills, senior editor of CCJ’s sister publication, Overdrive, the FMCSA has started to reach out to several providers listed in the registry to conduct additional vetting.
During an online listening session with ELD manufacturers, a spokesperson for the FMCSA said the certification of ELD products can be challenged. After reviewing a challenge, the agency would remove a product from the ELD registry and give the manufacturer 30 days to respond, Cuthberson says.
The FMCSA also raised the possibility that if manufacturers do not reconcile a challenge within 30 days, the manufacturer would have to be vetted by an independent third party to ensure their product meets the ELD test requirements in the 440-page document before they can be re-listed, he says.
Studies show that about half of motor carriers are currently using electronic logs that meet the AOBRD standard. The ELD rule grants a two-year extension for AOBRD users to convert to the new ELD specifications. In most cases the conversion will only require a software update.
Both Chianelli and Cuthberson agreed that fleets that currently use AOBRDs might decide to delay implementation of a full ELD version until 2019, as some required features could add complexity to their operations.
For instance, the new ELD rule requires that all unassigned drive time – the time that is recorded to the vehicle but not assigned to a driver ID – be presented to drivers during the ELD login process.
The driver has the first right to reconcile these events before management steps in.
Presenting unassigned events to a driver at login could be especially difficult for fleets with slip-seat operations, Chianelli says. What if drivers reject driving activities that belong to them?
“If you have supporting documents stating that a driver is in the cab, moving a load, but they are rejecting a driving activity, what does that mean?” she adds. “I see a lot of company policies that need to be put into place to support that piece.”
Cuthberson advises that fleets create login credentials for the primary driver as well as logins for mechanics and other associates that drive short distances but who are exempt from hours-of-service rules. Defining the types of movements in the fleet, and assigning logins for exempt drivers, will help to eliminate the unassigned driving events that are presented to primary drivers at login, he says.
One notice provides the Agency’s responses to comments received in response to our January 23, 2015, notice releasing the results of our crash preventability research. That notice explains that FMCSA conducted additional analysis, in response to comments, on how the Agency uses crash information.
The second Federal Register notice proposes developing and implementing a demonstration program to determine the efficacy of conducting preventability determinations on certain types of crashes that generally are less complex. This notice provides FMCSA’s proposal for a demonstration program and seeks additional comments.
The public SMS website provides information on the recordable crashes of motor carriers. The Crash Indicator BASIC percentiles have always been available only to motor carriers who log in to view their own data, as well as to Agency and law enforcement users.
Research on this issue conducted by FMCSA, as well as independent organizations, has demonstrated that crash involvement is a strong indicator of future crash risk, regardless of role in the crash. FMCSA’s recently completed SMS Effectiveness Test shows that motor carriers with high percentiles in the Crash Indicator BASIC have crash rates that are 85 percent higher than the national average.
The Agency took time to carefully study the issue carefully and gather public input before determining a path forward. Earlier this year the Agency published its report and asked for comments. The proposals in these notices are based on the comments received in response.
The FAST Act only requires the Agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) to review the treatment of preventability in the SMS once the National Academies of Science complete their study. However, in response to the Federal Register notice published on January 23, 2015, describing the Crash Weighting Study, the Agency continues to receive feedback from stakeholders expressing concerns about this issue. Proposing this program is a first step toward addressing those comments. By gathering data at this time, FMCSA will be able to provide the MCSAC with more data when considering a broader crash preventability program. By testing these limited crash scenarios, the Agency will be able to determine how often they are deemed “Not Preventable” and will be able to get experience operating a program to develop cost and resource estimates for any larger program.
On an effective date to be named in a future Federal Register notice, the Agency proposes to begin a demonstration program under which it would accept requests for data review (RDRs) through FMCSA’s DataQs system. The Agency would accept an RDR as part of this program when documentation proved that the crash was not preventable by the motor carrier or commercial driver.
A crash would be considered “not preventable” if the commercial motor vehicle (CMV) was struck by a motorist who was convicted of one of the four following offenses or a related offense:
The demonstration program would also test the impacts of determining a crash to be “not preventable” when it was the result of a suicide, an animal strike, or an infrastructure failure.
FMCSA proposes that the minimum time period for this crash preventability test would be 24 months.
The Agency proposes that evidence of a conviction must be submitted with the RDR to document that the crash was not preventable by the motor carrier or driver. In addition to documentation of the conviction, these RDRs would include all available law enforcement reports, insurance reports from all parties involved in the crash, and any other relevant information. For events that did not that did not result in a conviction (e.g., animal strikes and suicides), police reports and insurance information would be submitted.
Because some of the crash scenarios submitted by ATA were too broadly defined and/or may not result in convictions, the Agency is not using the suggested standard of “was found responsible by law enforcement for the crash.” Previous research by the Agency showed that Police Accident Reports do not generally provide a clear determination as to the preventability of a crash. Relying on a conviction related to one of the crash scenarios described ensures all parties involved receive adequate due process.
FMCSA is considering a process in DataQs that would direct these types of requests to a group of reviewers under the Agency’s direct supervision. This would be FMCSA staff and a third party under contract to FMCSA. During the test period, these RDRs would not be directed to the States.
The Agency proposes that the RDR would result in one of the following three decisions and actions:
In keeping with the Agency’s current preventability guidance, if a post-crash inspection determines that the motor carrier, vehicle, or driver was in violation of an out-of-service regulation at the time of the crash, the crash will be determined to have been “Preventable.”
Under this demonstration program, the Agency would continue to make crash preventability determinations before issuing adverse safety ratings based on crashes, and the appropriate changes to the websites, as described above, would be made. Finally, this process would also apply to any crashes challenged under 49 CFR 385.15 that were determined to be “not preventable.”
The public, including motor carriers and drivers, would be allowed to appeal the RDR decision to FMCSA using the DataQs system and processes currently in place.
Any intentionally false or misleading statement, representation, or document that is provided in support of an RDR may result in prosecution for a violation of Federal law punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000.00 or imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both (18 USC 1001).
The SFD proposal would only use crashes that been reviewed for preventability in any proposed unfit rating, consistent with current practices and, therefore, it is not impacted by this program which only will affect crashes displayed on the Agency’s SMS website.
