To date, J.J. Keller & Associates has made 30 different safety courses available through IdleAire, and they can be viewed either on the IdleAire display or the driver’s own television.

Every year before winter, U.S. Xpress requires its drivers to complete a course on extreme driving conditions. In the past, drivers normally took the training course at one of the company’s terminals on a desktop computer. Last year, for the first time, hundreds of U.S. Xpress drivers could take the course and others like it from the comfort and convenience of their own cabs.

Especially for irregular-route truckload carriers, scheduling drivers for safety training and remediation after incidents and violations can be challenging. With federal regulations often forcing drivers to remain idle for longer than needed to sleep, a major benefit of in-cab training is the flexibility for drivers to use otherwise unproductive off-duty time to become better drivers. Enabling this flexibility are the latest onboard computing platforms that have robust memory, color touchscreen displays and full PC functionality, as well as the expansion of truckstop-based systems that don’t require an onboard computer.

Training onboard
U.S. Xpress was among the first customers for Instructional Technologies Inc.’s Tread-1 driver training software. Tread-1 is stored on Mac computers that are distributed to company terminals and connected to a central server at ITI’s headquarters. This approach was far better than one that required drivers to obtain training at a specific location and at a specific time, but it still forced driver training into the fairly limited times that drivers were onsite at a company terminal.

ITI later released a Web-based delivery system, Pro-Tread. Leveraging next-generation in-cab systems, ITI’s latest version, Pro-Tread In-Cab, skips the Internet connectivity and loads programs directly to the hard drive of the onboard computer. In the cab, drivers can select lessons from a menu, anytime and anywhere. When drivers complete a course, the onboard computer transmits information about the lesson – date, time, driver ID and completion information – to the same Web-based Pro-Tread system that fleet managers log into to track and manage the results. ITI sees great potential for its most recent product, which was developed following feedback from U.S. Xpress.

“(ITI) had to make the usability a lot better, and more conducive to a touchscreen,” says Max Fuller, co-chairman and chief executive officer of U.S. Xpress. “They’ve done a very good job.” Pro-Tread In-Cab currently is available through DriverTech, which U.S. Xpress began installing in its fleet in 2006. Soon, Pro-Tread In-Cab will be available through Qualcomm, PeopleNet, GeoLogic – recently acquired by Xata – and other onboard computing and wireless communications providers, says Bruce Weiss, ITI’s executive vice president.

The DriverTech system has opened the door to other opportunities that U.S. Xpress is only beginning to explore, Fuller says. The carrier is adding short video training courses on how to operate a variety of equipment, including trailers, engines, transmissions and other vehicle technologies. Drivers even can sign up to take college courses in the cab through a program called In-Cab University.