Mack, Telogis team for telematics test drive

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TMC 2017 Day 2

Some 4,500 attendees flocked to the 2017 Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) annual meeting in Nashville, TN, with over 400 companies displaying their wares at the Music City Center convention hall. Here are just of few of the sights spotted on day two of this yearly gathering of fleet maintenance professionals. (All photos by Sean Kilcarr for Fleet Owner)

Mack increases uptime

Route optimization improved

Q&A: Don Daseke on Going Public

Don Daseke

HDT: Congratulations on converting Daseke Inc. into a public company. Since you have not offered a typical initial public offering of stock, can you tell us about the process you followed to secure a Nasdaq listing?

Daseke: Thank you. What we did is somewhat unique; most people are not familiar with how we did it. Effectively, we merged with what used to be a special-purpose acquisition company [Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. II], which is a firm that just has cash to invest. Once we merged, the new company took the Daseke name and, as a public company, we received our stock symbols [on Feb 28]. It's a very fast transition to going public compared to issuing an IPO and the company remains controlled by the board [which includes two directors who were the top executives of HCAC]. HCAC has gone away and now Daseke Inc. has the capital to go out and add more open-deck specialized carriers to our family of companies, which now numbers nine.

HDT: Daseke is the first trucking company to go public since 2010. I understand that taking the company public had been a goal of yours, perhaps even since launching Daseke in 2009. Why was that?

Daseke: [Along with raising capital] going public will allow for employee ownership of the company. We have always intended to offer that to all our employees, especially our drivers. We've found that people think differently and feel differently if they are the owner. [Employee ownership] is a way to show respect, especially to our drivers. Driving is a tough job and it's even more so for our drivers, who must tarp all sorts of heavy, unusual things. It's a highly skilled job and we want to show drivers respect for the difficult job they do and show we ...Read the rest of this story

Cummins X15 extended drain program

Trucking Alliance Endorses Developing Autonomous Trucks

Hands-off on the highway in the Freightliner Inspiration, a demo vehicle for autonomous-driving technologies. Photo: David Cullen

The Board of Directors of the Alliance for Driver Safety & Security (aka the Trucking Alliance) has announced its unanimous support for the development of autonomous driving technologies for commercial vehicles.

Per a Feb. 28 statement, the board stated that it “supports the development of advanced vehicle technologies that enable commercial drivers to utilize highly automated driving systems, enhancing their safety and security.”

The board also said that the Alliance “supports the use of these technologies to achieve safety performance levels that rival commercial airlines” and supports other initiatives that focus on drivers and their safety, such as “advanced driver assisted technologies in commercial vehicles, rather than commercial vehicles that rely solely on full automation.”

The statement pointed out as well that the Alliance “believes that commercial drivers are an indispensable asset to the safe operation of commercial vehicles” and that it “maintains the principle that commercial drivers are necessary to improve the safety and security of the general public.”

In addition, the board said it “believes that commercial drivers are integral to supply chain accountability, as well as managing unforeseen weather events, emergencies, detours, vehicle conditions, computer software programs, cybersecurity disruptions, cargo security, and in providing efficient customer services.”

The Alliance describes itself as a coalition of transportation and logistics companies, as well as supporting businesses, that are "committed to ensuring greater safety and security for commercial drivers and that support regulatory and legislative proposals that, if adopted, could reduce large truck accidents, injuries and fatalities that occur each year on the nations' highways."

The companies within the Alliance companies and the states they're headquartered in are: Cargo Transporters (North Carolina), Dupré Logistics (Louisiana), JB Hunt Transport Services (Arkansas), KLLM Transport Services (Mississippi), Knight ...Read the rest of this story