Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/782964
58 commercial carrier journal | february 2017 TECHNOLOGY: TRUCK PARKING complaint or concern around either of those." One reason why productivity has not been an issue is that drivers can record up to 600 hours of content on the DVR. EpicVue recently surveyed about 50 drivers and asked how much time they spend watching TV each day; one hour per day was the average response. EpicVue has a stationary product that streams and records programs only when trucks are parked, as well as an in-motion product that allows drivers to record shows while moving. The in-motion product is most popular among fleets with team drivers, as live TV can be viewed and recorded in the sleeper bunk, Platt says. Hotel stays In 2010, liquid bulk hauler Carbon Express replaced its sleeper cabs with daycabs to increase payload and revenue. While this gave the Wharton, N.J.-based fleet 20 percent more capacity than its competitors with sleeper cabs, it now had to pay for hotel rooms. "When we got rid of sleeper cabs, we did it to get more business," says Steve Rush, the company's president. "At the end of the day, we saw what hotel rooms did for drivers. It improves their self-respect and dignity. If you ask our drivers, the majority will tell you they couldn't go work for someone else and sleep in the back of a truck." Rush credits the hotel stays for Carbon's low turnover rate and says drivers prefer the predictability of knowing where and when they will find truck parking and hotels along their routes. Drivers carry an American Express corporate lodging card and book their own stays. Increased revenue from more payload capacity, the lower equipment costs of daycabs and the savings from reduced turnover are not the only factors that can make hotels a preferred alternative. In December 2015, Comdata established a Hotel Network that helps drivers find lodging options with confirmed truck parking spaces at discounted rates. The program guarantees 20 percent off the lowest published price at over 12,000 participating hotels nationwide. Motor carriers with company drivers, owner-operators or both are able to use their Comdata fleet card program to pay for hotels in the event of a layover, an equipment breakdown and for other reasons. Drivers can use a mobile app to search for hotels by location, make a reservation and upon check-in present their fleet-issued Comdata card to pay. Fleets can have the cost automatically deducted from the driver's pay through an integration with their back-office systems. Comdata says that during the network's first year, fleets saved about $800,000 with nearly 50,000 nights stayed. The average savings is $15 to $20 per night. New technologies that address truck parking activities, entertainment options and overnight stays are benefiting both fleet productivity and driver satisfaction. PARKING APPS While the DAT Trucker app includes DAT's load board functionality, it also features parking information and other locators. Users can lter by break locations, which include truckstops and rest areas, truckstops only, truck-friendly hotels, weigh stations, fueling locations and service locations. For any truckstop on its map, the app has the number of parking spac- es and if pay-to-park is an option. Park My Truck is an initiative of the National Association of Truck Stop Operators and others that allows users to view nearby parking locations at ranges from 50 to 250 miles away. It shows the current distance from the parking locations, the total number of spaces at the location and the number of open spaces, which is updated by the operators of the truckstop or parking location. When a phone is opened in an area with cell service, the Road Breakers app stores the data to the phone to use it later even if service is unavailable. When a destination is entered, users can see the parking locations around that area. The app also highlights the amenities of each location and the parking lot's general size. Truckbubba allows users to input their desti- nation for the day to see what they can expect when they arrive, based on information provid- ed by drivers using the app. Truckbubba also routes a trip and shows parking locations along the way. The map feature also can show current tra c conditions along the selected route, as well as fuel and weigh station locations. Trucker Path's parking data is crowdsourced, and its accuracy is based on the information provided by drivers. When a location such as a truckstop or rest area is selected, it will show the most recent parking updates. Trucker Path also provides a full history of a selected location to get an idea of the hours when the parking lot tends to be full or open. – Matt Cole