Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/778830
34 | Overdrive | February 2017 ELDS' EARLY ADOPTERS the huge boon to rates and pricing that many have expected or anticipated, sug- gests the Stifel company's Transportation and Logistics group. It issued a November report to investors that included notes from a conference call with a representative of the Transplace 3PL/brokerage about this subject. The larger fleets surveyed by Transplace reported productivity declines of 3 to 6 percent with ELDs, Stifel reported. Some regained it after operational changes were made to adjust. At least some smaller fleets were thought to have experienced greater declines, though anecdotes abound of beefing up office operations to help plan better runs to combat the problem. Eight in every 10 larger fleets (defined in the report as 250 trucks or more) were using ELDs, Stifel wrote, while "only 33 percent of smaller fleets had fully imple- mented." For the smallest one-truck fleets among Overdrive's core audience, most recent estimations show an even smaller share having moved to imple- ment a fully engine-connected e-log unless they were leased to a fleet where it was required or encouraged. Montana-based owner-operator Chuck Shaffer is among the latter, hav- ing transitioned in mid-2014. Shaffer, who hauls in a 2007 Volvo 780, says that his live-load flatbed operation might have suffered more than a 6 per- cent decline in productivity. When the e-log was new to his operation, missed load opportunities became something of a norm due to hours. Such issues might not be as apparent – or at least less dramatic – in drop-and-hook or more quick-load operations, he guessed, given they "don't have to sit at a dock waiting," eating up hours within their 14-hour daily on-duty maximum with idle time. Shaffer says he's "not one that did 'cre- ative writing' in the last 10 to 15 years. But with the current rules the way they are," with rigid constraints on hitting the pause button for very long on the 14-hour on-duty clock to extend drive time, going electronic has firmed up that rigidity, with occasionally costly results. Shaffer says he suffered a $20,000 revenue hit between 2014 and 2015, but fuel's dramatic falloff in price and concurrent surcharge-revenue declines likely accounted for a lot of it — and his decline is well in line with industry aver- ages. Based on DAT's surcharge tracking by segment and ATBS' owner-operator income averages, the surcharge decline from 51 cents/mile to 28 cents/mile between 2014 and 2015 represents a 13 percent revenue-per-mile decline, figured as a percentage of 2014 revenue for the average flatbedder. The three independents examined below say they did not experience sig- nificant revenue effects following adop- tion of fully engine-connected electronic hours recording. Though all experienced a learning curve, benefits also have been seen, such as time saved and efficiencies from new back-office tools. ELDs and the 'quagmire' of undue detention Rico Muhammad knew the challenges associated with the e-log environment before he ever made the transition. Using the BigRoad smartphone logging app, he simulated an e-log operation before converting in 2015 to engine- connected e-logs with Rand McNally's TND760 fleet edition ($550-$700, about $20/month). He runs two trucks, himself operat- ing a 2002 Kenworth T2000 out of Atlanta. In recent times, after regular freight from a direct customer dried up, he turned back to using brokers via load boards to fill his trailers, occasion- ally supplemented with direct freight. Muhammad echoes Chuck Shaffer's concerns about the impact dock delays Rico Muhammad, Atlanta: reefer Part 1 of this series, published in the December 2016 issue, addressed perhaps the biggest exemption to FMCSA's ELD requirement of import to owner-operators: the exclusion of 1999 and older model-year trucks from complying. Other exemptions exist, however, for the following groups: • Drivers in drive-away/tow-away operations, where the vehicle be- ing driven is the commodity being delivered. • Drivers operating under the timecard exception to the hours re- cording rules – the 100- and 150-air- mile radius short-haul exceptions – exclusively. Hotshot flatbed owner-operator Buster Lewis' business is such that, occasionally, he doesn't technically need to keep a logbook under the hours regulations, given he mostly stays well within a 150-air-mile radius. However, as he notes, he's keeping logs for well more than an eight-day time threshold that the ELD final rule specified for such opera- tors, the final exempted class: • Drivers who do occasionally keep a log book but do not do so for more than eight days in any 30-day period. For more on the pre-2000 model- year exemption from the mandate, search "Eyes on the prize" at OverdriveOnline.com, or see the December 2016 issue. THE SHORT-HAUL AND OTHER ELD EXEMPTIONS