Mother Nature and fuel economy

Fleets can do a variety of things to control their freight efficiency. But one thing outside their control is weather especially wind and temperature. Both of those elements can impact how much fuel a truck consumes.

Headwinds and crosswinds reduce truck fuel economy by increasing aerodynamic drag. Drivers heading in an east-west direction are almost sure to run into crosswinds and headwinds. In fact most drivers will have to deal with wind of some sort because in the United States at any given time there is a 7-mile per hour wind in some direction.

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Nauto appoints Microsoft, Waymo executives

Autonomous vehicle technology company Nauto has named ex-Microsoft executive Sanket Akerkar as senior vice president of global fleets and insurance, and Jennifer Haroon, most recently from Waymo, as head of corporate development and business operations. Both will be based in Nauto's Palo Alto headquarters and will report to Nauto CEO and founder Stefan Heck.

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Q&A: Bruce Stockton Talks Maintenance Challenges

Bruce Stockton

Bruce Stockton has headed up equipment and maintenance for fleets ranging from CFI to Kenan Advantage. Most recently he's hung out his own shingle, consulting with fleets on total cost of ownership and improving uptime, as president of Stockton Solutions.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

HDT: Tell me more about what you're doing now.

Stockton: A lot of fleets want to talk TCO, but not claim it. It is an investment. Also, I'm a substitute bus driver. And I'm finding that school districts keep buses for quite a while, so they're just now starting to have the problems with emissions [equipment] that we've been dealing with.

HDT: You're a big proponent of fluid analysis, and we're not talking just oil. How can that help fleets?

Stockton: Yes. Coolant is as important these days as the lubricants. When I was with Kenan Advantage was when I started to first enjoy the data I would get from the oil samples, because they were doing oil samples when I got there. But at a lot of fleets, the question is, who's looking at the data and what are you doing about it? It's sort of like going to the doctor and getting a blood test and not having it analyzed to tell you what's wrong or what's right. There's real value in that, which I never saw before because I worked mostly for fleets that traded trucks every three or four years with less than a half million miles and were typically under warranty. [So we didn't do oil analysis.] What I learned is with the emissions engines – and everybody puts some EGR [cooled exhaust gases] back into the engine – it's definitely having an effect on the life of the engine and other components.

HDT: I understand you got a ...Read the rest of this story

Truckers Take to the Streets to Protest ELDs

Truckers around the country and in the nation's capital gathered to protest the upcoming electronic logging device mandate, which goes into effect this December.

Some are participating in the ELD or Me protest in the nation's capital, while others took to the streets in Fresno, California, as part of Operation Black and Blue, to protest the implementation of electronic logging devices which have proved controversial among small trucking companies and owner-operators.

Some truck drivers protested in front of the Fresno City Hall to voice concerns over the ELD's effect on their daily work habits, telling local media that the inflexible devices would be forcing them to take breaks when they don't need to, or worse, when they need more time. For independent drivers who need to be on the road as much as possible, and for whom quick turnarounds are key, this issue is about maintaining their livelihood.

With paper logs, drivers were able to add in the extra time they needed to find a suitable parking spot or to account for unavoidable delays at loading docks. To many of the drivers who participated in the protest, ELDs with their cold precision and complete adherence to regulations down to the second can seem out of touch with the human realities on the road.

Operation Black and Blue states on the group's Facebook page, “Operation Black and Blue was created expressly for the support and coordination of efforts by truck drivers to help put a stop to the FMCSA, DOT, and ATA. We are against government overreach and over-regulation.”

The group has more than 3,500 followers.

Many of the protesting truckers, the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association and a coalition of other transportation associations, have put their support behind a bill that, if passed, would halt ...Read the rest of this story

Interesting Equipment at the New Atlanta Show

Dorsey showed a van and a container chassis, as well as flatbeds and lowboys. So the NACV show was about more than freight hauling.  Photos: Tom Berg

By now you've probably heard about the inaugural North American Commercial Vehicle Show in Atlanta, and that attendance was good and exhibitors were plentiful. I headed down there with the belief that we don't need another truck show, but came away thinking that this was a quality production that has a future.

The NACV show will be held every two years, alternating with the huge IAA show in Hannover, Germany. That's important to certain truck builders, and might or might not mean something to truck users and buyers in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. This show's focus was on fleet executives and managers rather than the drivers and owner-operators who attend the Mid-America Trucking Show – MATS – in Louisville.

The apparent success of the first NACV show could mean that the truck original equipment manufacturers that pulled out of MATS will stay out. Did it deserve to be jilted by the OEMs? Who knows? Do drivers and O-Os deserve to be forsaken? No. But I will note that Daimler, which instigated this big change in preferred shows, let Freightliner set up a large MATS booth dedicated to drivers, so didn't forget them. If another of the absent OEMs did that, I didn't see it.

Of course, Kenworth and Peterbilt exhibited at MATS this year and were not at NACV. There are many business considerations and industry politics involved in the pullout from MATS and starting of NACV, but let's put them aside. Because there was a lot of equipment to be seen in Atlanta, and of course I tried to focus on trailers.

I was surprised to see large displays of lowboys and flatbeds when I thought that ...Read the rest of this story

Analysis: 3 Takeaways From This Year’s FTR Conference

“Sometimes growing stronger is also the next thing that leads to the next recession,” said Dr. Larry Davidson (pictured). Photo: Evan Lockridge

Trying to narrow down the single, biggest point made at the annual FTR Transportation Conference, held in mid-September in Indianapolis, would be a fool's errand. That's because the 13th annual event was so content rich, covering everything from the economy and freight to equipment and everything in between.

So what were my key takeaways? Well, I found three.

Dr. Larry Davidson, professor emeritus of business economics and public policy at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, was both pessimistic and optimistic.

On the downside, he said, the economy is stuck in what he called “secular stagnation.” In other words, “we are going to have to put up with growth that's like we've had recently.”

While he described the pace of economic growth as “sauntering,” the good news was that he doesn't see recession as likely. It would take an unexpected shock to push us into a recession, he said, like the financial mess that led to the Great Recession or the quadrupling of oil prices in the 1970s. So far nothing like that has happened, and he believes the U.S. has the flexibility to overcome many problems.

FTR senior analyst Noel Perry said Hurricanes Harvey and Irma could shave half of a percentage point off overall economic growth in the third quarter of 2017.

Perry noted that Texas and Florida represent about 15% of the entire U.S. economy, ranking second and fourth, respectively. The two states also make up about 7% of trucking activity in a normal day and affect another 4% as important parts of truck trip circuits.

Since analysts before the hurricane were expecting GDP growth to clock in at an annual rate of 2% ...Read the rest of this story

Kingsgate Transportation Joins Blockchain in Trucking Alliance

Kingsgate Transportation + Logistics, a non-asset based third-party logistics provider, has become a member of the Blockchain in Trucking Alliance, a group dedicated to setting standards for blockchain applications developed for the transportation industry.

The alliance was formed by tech and transportation executives to create a forum for promotion and education, and to encourage development and adaptation of blockchain applications within the transportation and logistics industries.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology designed for transactional applications such as the movement of freight. The technology is already in use in industries such as stock trading, banking, insurance, and real-estate – all industries with complex, high-volume transactions.

“Kingsgate prides itself on our dedication to developing and utilizing cutting-edge technology to improve industry standards for our customers, carriers, and employees,” said Jeff Beckham, owning partner of Kingsgate. “This advancement in technology will dramatically change the way we interact with our carriers and our customers. We are especially excited about the improvements in service this technology can bring to our clients in the food manufacturing and retail sectors where product traceability and visibility continues to grow in importance.”

BiTA members believe that blockchain will be one of the most significant developments in the transportation industry and the group intends to be the leading blockchain voice for the industry. As a member, Kingsgate Transportation + Logistics will help BiTA create a forum and develop a further dialogue with other innovators in the industry. Through engagement with influential leaders in transportation, finance, and technology, BiTA plans to build the first set of transportation industry-specific blockchain standards.

Related: New Group Lobbies for Blockchain Adoption by Trucking

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