Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/522363
June 2015 | Overdrive | 77 FLEET NEWS BY DEAN SMALLWOOD FACILITIES SOUTHEASTERN FREIGHT LINES, a Lexington, S.C.-based less-than- truckload company, opened a new 37-door service center in Lubbock, Texas, to be closer to its customer base and allow for earlier deliveries and pickups. The company also relocated its service center in Van Buren, Ark., to a 39-door facility in response to growing business in the region. SERVICES DAYTON FREIGHT LINES, a provider of regional LTL services, intro- duced DFXpedited Service for expedited shipments to address same-day and next-day needs. DFX will use ground and air transpor- tation – including tractor-trailers, cargo vans, same-day flights and air charters – to serve all of North America. The Dayton, Ohio-based company said 24/7 service is avail- able for freight of any weight and dimension, including hazardous materials. HONORS GORDON TRUCKING of Pacific, Wash., won the Fleet Safety Award for the large fleet division from both the Indiana Motor Trucking Association and Illinois Trucking Association. Gordon also has received state safety awards this year from trucking associations in Oregon and California. Con-way Truckload buys 635 AMT-equipped tractors CON-WAY TRUCKLOAD purchased 635 new tractors equipped with auto- mated manual transmissions as part of the replacement cycle for its 2,500-tractor fleet. The Joplin, Mo.-based company is buying 575 Kenworth T680s and 60 Freightliner Cascadias that are being delivered in a phased deployment through November. With the purchase, the number of trucks outfitted with AMTs in Con-Way Truckload's fleet will increase from 23 percent to 48 percent. Vaughn of Help Inc., provider of the PrePass system and a public-private partner provider of various electronic screening systems, described WRI as an electronic screening tool to "increase the number of safety inspections. What they're looking to do is develop a system to retrieve real-time safety data at the roadside" without a direct interaction between the driver and law enforcement. Here's how it works: When a truck enters an area, data about the carrier, the driver's duty status, his recent hours history and, among other things, vehicle condition information recorded by on-vehicle sensors is sent to the inspection facility. "The plan shows that it will give a recommendation to the inspector at the site to either inspect or don't inspect," Vaughn said. Automating inspection procedures where possible also has been in the discussion. Steve Keppler, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance executive director, says concerns over the WRI initiative from the industry, commercially available bypass companies and state officials are legitimate. "Some people are con- cerned that the federal government is building a system that could compete with existing systems," Keppler says. "Is that the appropriate federal role?" Both PrePass and Drivewyze offer systems that perform some of the same functions as WRI. Drivewyze in 2013 went so far as to demonstrate how existing commercially available technologies could be used to populate a Level 3 inspection report with data adequate enough to efficiently upload an official inspection of a truck outfit- ted with electronic logs. Industry and public entities have concerns, Vaughn noted, the primary one being privacy. How much data col- lected by automated roadside systems on carriers "will be made available to the public?" he asked. "What will be available to carriers' competitors?" As with CSA, "If the public can get it, competitors can, too." The appropriations bill draft language addressed that concern by requiring DOT to ensure the agency wasn't over- stepping its current statutory authority by using automatically collected data in its inspection databases. The bill also makes certain that DOT puts in place restrictions "to specifically address privacy con- cerns" of motor carriers and drivers. Only after 180 days following such actions taken or certified by DOT would funding, $11 million worth of it, according to FMCSA's website, be allowed to continue. "There's concern that people don't know where this is going," Keppler says. "Will FMCSA require the states to adopt whatever they come up with? Until they can articulate what the long- term goal is," the bill's language would put a stop to the program. The legislation does, however, note explicitly that "nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting the Department's ongoing research efforts in this area," perhaps an acknowl- edgment of the inevitable march of technology. (Continued from Page 44) DECREASING INSPECTIONS