If knowledge is power, then Electronic Logging Devices (ELD) could be the most powerful device on the truck. Sure, the device at its most basic is responsible only for monitoring hours of service, but the potential of networking and integrating data is impossible to ignore.
Why settle for simple electronic logging when it can serve as a total fleet management solution in a box?
A friend of mine drives for a 10-truck floral distribution company and makes regular runs from Ontario's Niagara region to Chicago, Michigan, and western New Jersey. The picture he paints of his distribution manager would be amusing if it were not (most likely) true. The manager must be a fellow who grew up trucking in the '60s, and still listens to eight-track tapes of Red Sovine and Dave Dudley. The routes are badly planned, trucks are frequently diverted en route, the vehicles are always breaking down, and all communication with drivers is done over the -telephone. And he doesn't believe in ELDs. My friend says his boss will wait until the last possible moment to equip his fleet – and then only because he must.
Too bad. He's missing out on the predictive analytics that can be channeled through the device to deliver maintenance alerts that could forestall or outright prevent all those breakdowns. The manager is not even looking at the routing and scheduling potential because he thinks drivers will no longer be able to complete their routes within the -confines of legal hours of service, my friend suggests.
“While your ELD and telematic solution may not be a routing application per se, there's probably some routing features and functionality in there,” says Robin Kinsey, a training specialist with Oakville, Ontario-based Geotab. “You can optimize the route from the start and then compare arrival and dwell times to see
