User Conference Highlights the Fast Pace of Change

Panel at PeopleNet presentation during the in.sight User Conference + Expo. Photo: Trimble

Change and its quickening pace was an over-riding theme at Trimble's in.sight user conference for TMW Systems and PeopleNet customers that kicked off Aug. 14 in Nashville.

Connected trucks, e-commerce, autonomous vehicles and ELDs were singled out as potential change agents pushing the trucking industry's future. David Wangler, president of TMW Systems, noted pace of change over just the last few decades saying, “the pace of change is accelerating” and that businesses could no longer think “on a linear basis. We need to think exponentially.”

Brian McLaughlin, president of PeopleNet noted that the two companies, along with other Trimble business units in the transportation sector were there to help customers “solve the problems of an ever-changing supply chain.”

The good news, Wangler said, was that the transportation industry thrives on challenge. One of which is to acknowledge that in the industry, “what was fixed, is becoming more dynamic” as customer expectations continue to rise and shippers and transportation face greater pressure to meet these expectations.

That is why both companies say a focus on the “final mile” of a shipment has become more important. “Increasingly, carriers are developing local delivery units,” Wangler said. Carriers are also under increased pressure to provide real-time visibility of loads all along the supply chain. And, they must have a way to squeeze more costs out of the last mile since it accounts for about 50% of the total transportation costs. Carriers will be under pressure from shippers to help them reduce these costs.

Another positive of the changing nature of trucking is that “transportation is an amazing space for innovation,” McLaughlin said. The vision was for a connected supply chain including connected trucks, drivers, freight and business intelligence. It's moved from “vision to reality in record time.”

The ...Read the rest of this story

ATA: Message to California, Don’t Mess With Trucking

ATA president and CEO Chris Spear. Photo: Jim Beach

State governments, especially California, need to understand they can't “mess with trucking,” said Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations.

Singling out California's meal and rest break rules that are causing problems for truckers in California, Spear said that ATA would be “stepping out of our comfort zone” to help its state trucking association partners fight these kinds of rules that hurt trucking. Noting that trucking is interstate commerce, Spear said ATA would sue California over the issue which he argued compromised safety and only benefited “trial attorneys.” He also pointed out proposals in New Hampshire to charge tolls on bridges in the state only to trucks.

As for the federal governments, Spear said that ATA needed “under stand them. We have to work with them.” The roads and bridges we all drive on are “not political.”

The truck industry is too big and too important not to engage, Spear said, noting that trucks move 70% of domestic freight and over 70% of NAFTA freight. As for changes to the NAFTA or other trade agreements, he said, “if you tweak it and do it wrong, we'll be the first people to feel it.”

On autonomous vehicles, Spear said that while the technologies were promising, the media hype indicating driverless trucks are in the near future are “bunk.”

“We are not talking about driverless, it's not going to happen anytime soon.” After all he noted, jetliners are capable of taking off, flying and landing without anyone in the cockpit, “but we don't do it.”

With driverless trucks way off in the future, the industry still needs to find more drivers. Spear said the industry needs a way to get to 18-21 year-olds – not to let them drive, but to get them in the ...Read the rest of this story

Me a king of the road? 10-4!

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UPS Turns to Virtual Reality to Train Drivers

UPS says its new virtual reality training technology is realistic down to the finest details. Photo: UPS

UPS announced it will start using new, virtual reality (VR) technology to train drivers to better spot and identity road hazards. The training will be done using VR headsets that UPS said vividly simulate the experience of driving on city streets while providing a more memorable classroom lesson.

The company will begin launching VR training in September at its nine UPS Integrad training facilities in the U.S. and Europe. It said the adoption of VR for driver safety training reflects UPS's commitment to using the latest and best technology to protect its on-road employees and the communities they serve.

IT experts at UPS created the VR training modules that users see and hear inside VR headsets. Students using the modules must verbally identify potential road hazards such as pedestrians, parked cars and oncoming traffic. The 360-degree view inside the headset is realistic down to the finest details.

“Virtual Reality offers a big technological leap in the realm of driver safety training,” said Juan Perez, UPS chief information and engineering officer. “VR creates a hyper-realistic streetscape that will dazzle even the youngest of our drivers whose previous exposure to the technology was through video games.”

The VR training modules replace the touchscreen devices UPS Integrad facilities currently use to teach lessons on road hazards. For now, the VR training is only for those who drive package delivery trucks. But the company is exploring VR and even Augmented Reality (AR) for training tractor-trailer drivers and performing other duties throughout the operation.

UPS Integrad facilities teach students the fundamentals of driving delivery vehicles and delivering packages using a hands-on approach. Students even practice driving UPS delivery trucks in a replica outdoor city that has real streets and sidewalks and simulated delivery and ...Read the rest of this story

Economic Watch: Retail Sales Gains Push GDP Hopes Higher

One of the biggest drivers of the U.S. economy shifted into high gear in July, posting its biggest gain in seven months, according to a new Commerce Department report.

Retail sales increased 0.6% from June, the largest gain since December 2016 and better than a consensus estimate from Wall Street.

The department also upwardly revised June's performance for a 0.3% hike following an originally reported 0.2% drop from May. Retail sales in many earlier months of the year were lackluster.

The June level of retail sales is 4.2% higher than the same time a year earlier. Total retail sales for the May 2017 through July 2017 period were up 3.9% from the same period a year ago.

Helping to push the June level higher was a 1.2% increase in auto sales from the month before, its biggest increase since December. There were also strong gains in sales at furniture stores, hardware stores and restaurants.

Excluding sales of autos, gasoline, building materials and food services, so called “core sales” surged 0.6% last month following an upwardly revised 0.1% increase in June.

Non-store retailers, which includes online shopping, reported sales increased 1.3% in July from the month before, while recording a whopping 11.5% compared to July 2016.

This latest gain in retail sales adds to the hopes that the overall U.S. economy will find even more traction in the current quarter. The nation's gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.6% in the second quarter, up from the 1.2% pace in the first quarter of the year.

The July retail sales report was strong overall, and so was the core retail sales, which goes into the calculation of GDP, according to Eugenio J. Alemán, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities.

“This means that not only is the second quarter personal consumption expenditures probably going to be revised higher ...Read the rest of this story

Time to Face The Future Head-On

Newcomers to trucking are looking at established business models and probing for weaknesses with fresh eyes -- and ideas. Photo: Daimler Trucks

It's happened before and it's going to happen again – soon.

Somewhere, sometime in the very near future, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Tesla's Elon Musk, or some other tech guru you you may never have heard of, is going to sit down and pore over every aspect of your business model they can find.

They're going to look at the equipment you run and how you use it and when you get rid of it. Your fuel of choice and how much of it you burn. They're going to look at your maintenance costs. When your shops are open. And when your shops are closed. The routes you run. How long your trucks stay out on the road. Who your customers are. What your customers' demands are – how green they want you to be, how efficient they want you to be. They're going to look at what you pay your front office people and technicians working in your shops. They're not only going to look at what you pay your drivers, they're going to look at how you pay your divers. They're going to look at the tools you give your drivers to help them work and live better out on the road. And they're going to look at your profit margins and how much money you're bringing in.

All of that is nothing new. It's called “due diligence,” and pretty much anyone interested in starting a business does the same thing before investing time, money and energy in a new venture.

But what is different is these visionaries are looking at your business with fresh eyes. They're looking at every aspect of your operations through the prism of new ...Read the rest of this story

Trucking asked to rank top concerns

The American Transportation Research Institute launched the 2017 Top Industry Issues Survey. The annual survey, commissioned by the American Trucking Assns., asks trucking industry stakeholders to rank the top issues of concern for the industry along with appropriate strategies for addressing each issue.

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