Commentary: Separating Electronic Logs and Hours of Service

Deborah Lockridge

Mandatory electronic logs have been a long time coming. A broad range of issues dogged the 15-year effort to draft a rule, including concerns about tampering, driver harassment, expense, and how enforcement officials would do their jobs. It was the subject of a protracted court battle.

Yet the underlying issue for many fleets really wasn't so much the notion of using an electronic device to track driver hours — it was the hours of service regulations themselves.

Many drivers have “fudged” their paper logs for very good reasons. Maybe they were only 30 minutes from home when they ran out of hours because they got caught in a traffic jam on a highway blocked by a serious accident. Maybe they had to wait an excessive amount of time to deliver their load, despite arriving on time for their appointment. Maybe they had to drive farther to find a safe parking place to spend their required sleeper berth time. With electronic logs, fleets and drivers know they no longer will be able to get away with these types of “adjustments.”

This was pointed out to me by David Heller, vice president of government affairs for the Truckload Carriers Association, who I talked to for this month's cover story on the electronic logging device mandate that goes into effect in December. He contends that by digging in their heels and resisting the ELD mandate, fleets are only hurting their cause for revising the HOS regs to something that better reflects the day-to-day realities of trucking.

“They need to start embracing technology,” he told me. “If we want to fix hours of service — which believe me, we're trying to do — arguing against ELDs is not the way to do it.

“As an industry, I can't emphasize this enough, we can't advocate non-compliance. Nobody ...Read the rest of this story

The Long and the Short of Truckload Today

Intermodal is playing a larger role in changes in long-haul trucking. Ports on the East Coast, like the Port of Savannah, may see more traffic coming through the newly expanded Panama Canal, which could result in less freight being trucked across the country from West Coast ports. Photo: Port of Savannah

The truckload landscape is slowly but surely being reshaped by market forces that are redefining for many fleets what it means to be a long-haul carrier. While these changes may not be as rapid or disruptive as what's happening in the last-mile space, they are just as transformative for trucking in the 21st century.

The deregulation of trucking in the early 1980s threw open the door to truckload carriers, many of which launched with a single truck and grew into industry giants. Those operations have been synonymous with long-haul freight movement, as carriers in the less-than-truckload segment have primarily picked up and delivered freight with regional and shorter hauls, including local “peddle” routes.

To be sure, long-haul freight is not going away. But how it gets moved by truckload carriers is starting to evolve, driven by changes in customer and market demands as well as the impact of the continuing driver shortage.

Shippers are becoming more demanding of their carrier partners, which is remaking many familiar freight distribution patterns. Underlying changes in consumer habits have been driven by advances in what supply chains can do at dizzying speed to engage individual shoppers plinking out orders for socks or dog food or what-have-you on keyboards out there in Anywhere, U.S.A.

Because technology is changing how sellers of all things interact with both their business and consumer buyers, shippers are being compelled to redesign supply chains to ensure product gets to market faster and more intelligently than ever. They are doing what it takes to ...Read the rest of this story

USA Truck’s President-Trucking Resigns

Martin Tewari. Photo: USA Truck

The president of USA Truck's trucking operations has resigned, effective March 13, in the latest in a string of leadership changes at the Van Buren, Arkansas-based company.

In an SEC filing March 13, USA Truck announced that N. Martin Tewari resigned as President - Trucking of the company. No other details were offered other than the fact that a search for his replacement has begun.

Tewari was named to the newly created position of President - Trucking in September 2015. He joined USA Truck from Con-way Truckload.

USA Truck reported a fourth-quarter loss of $3.8 million, or 48 cents per share, compared to net income a year earlier of $3.9 million, or 39 cents per share. This happened as revenue slipped to $103.1 million from $118 million. And its trucking operation reported an operating loss of $6.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2016 versus an operating profit of $4.5 million a year earlier.

“Our consolidated financial performance was unacceptable,” said James Reed, president and CEO, in reporting the company's fourth-quarter and year-end 2016 results.

There have been a number of leadership changes at USA Truck in recent years. Reed was named president and CEO in late January of this year, succeeding Randy Rogers. USA Truck has had three different presidents and CEOs in the past three years, after John Simone stepped down from the position in 2015 to receive cancer treatment. He died in March 2016 and Thomas Glaser was named to replace him in July 2015. Rogers succeeded Glaser in January of last year.

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Missouri Great Dane Joins Vipar Heavy Duty

Missouri Great Dane is the latest company to join the Vipar Heavy Duty network of distributors as a stockholder, the group announced.

Missouri Great Dane serves a customer base of fleets, independent service facilities, municipalities, owner-operators, and farmers in the greater St. Louis area. The company operates out of Benton, Missouri, and from the St. Louis branch that opened in 1993.

It specializes in heavy-duty tractor and trailer parts, tools and equipment, and shop supplies, offering critical parts delivery, complete trailer repair, light truck repair and trailer mobile service.

“The addition of Missouri Great Dane to our network of distributors provides added distribution and a strategic partner to enhance our footprint in this key market,” said Jim Pennig, vice president of business development, Vipar Heavy Duty. “The company's management team is committed to growing their business and supplying customers with high-quality products with outstanding service.”

Related: Vipar's President Baer Named CEO

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U.S. Xpress announces new CEO, president

Schneider Launches Online LTL Hub

Image via Schneider

Schneider has created a new one-stop online shop for less-than-truckload freight.

OrangeHub Powered by Schneider was created to help shippers quote, select, and send LTL freight out the door with expedience. From start to finish, LTL shippers will have full control of the process and the ability to access it at any time from mobile, tablet or desktop computers.

OrangeHub Powered by Schneider puts shippers in control of LTL freight in three steps:

New and current LTL customers can access OrangeHub by registering and logging into their account on Schneider.com.

“OrangeHub Powered by Schneider offers a seamless, easy, and fast user experience to give shippers more time to focus on the important stuff – their business,” said Erin Van Zeeland, Schneider's senior vice president and general manager of logistics services. “With every step there's complete transparency, providing shippers with peace of mind and real-time analytics that can be used to identify future efficiencies in their supply chain.”

Related: Schneider Files Paperwork Preparing to Go Public

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