On Jan. 31, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced that all interstate commercial truck and bus carriers that now use logbooks to track compliance with hours-of-service regulations would have to use electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs). The only exception to the new rule is short-haul interstate carriers that use timecards to document HOS.
FMCSA expects to issue a final rule by July 2012 and begin enforcing the rule three years later, in 2015. For the companies that supply EOBRs to the trucking industry, this mandate did not come as a total surprise.
“We did see it coming,” says Dave Kraft, vice president of business development for Qualcomm Enterprise Services, citing recent rulings, technology that is available today and the aggressiveness of FMCSA to make the roads safer. “They have been looking at this stuff for more than 20 years.”
A series of rulings have made this new mandate seem inevitable. On Christmas Eve 2008, FMCSA announced that data from advanced technologies, such as systems that use the Global Positioning System (GPS) for vehicle location, are supporting documents for verifying driver logs. Subsequently, many carrier executives viewed that policy as a de facto mandate for electronic logs.
In April 2010, FMCSA issued a final rule for section 395.16 that required carriers that have a history of serious log violations to install EOBRs. The rule also says the agency can mandate EOBRs for motor carriers that are shown in a single compliance review to be in serious noncompliance with any major hours-of-service regulation.
The 395.16 ruling takes effect in June 2012, but all signs indicated that FMCSA would have more to say about EOBRs before then.
“We knew there was going to be a broader mandate,” says Brian McLaughlin, chief operating officer of PeopleNet, an onboard computing and mobile communications provider. “My estimate was between 30 and 50 percent based on conversations and intuition, but nobody thought it would be 100 percent. I think that exceeded anybody’s expectations. The good news is that it’s a fair playing field now.”
The mandate could usher in new wave of business during the next three years as carriers convert from paper logbooks to EOBRs. While the number of fleets using paper logbooks is sizable, the EOBR business was already booming due to recent changes in the regulatory surrounding drivers’ hours of service records.
“We’ve seen take rates for our EOBR module go from 50 percent to about 90 percent,” McLaughlin says.
One of the reasons EOBRs are selling so quickly may be the price. Current Qualcomm customers can get hours-of-service for less than $50 a month through its Unlimited Value Plan (UVP). PeopleNet offers a broad range of onboard computing applications, including an EOBR-only system for $48 per month with no upfront hardware costs. Xata offers its Turnpike system that includes an EOBR and many other fleet management tools for $35 a month plus the cost of a data plan from a wireless provider (about $20 per month).
Aside from talk of future mandates, FMCSA’s Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 — which is now called Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) — made it more difficult for carriers to maintain paper logbooks. Under CSA, the agency is using a new Safety Measurement System that weights logbook violations heavily.
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will will will , the goverment (ray lahood)wants recorders .the same group that went to mexico and are paying for them to install the systems but we as tax payers have to pay,our current goverment only cares about them-selves the old saying do as i say,not as i do has never been true'r. will america obama said we needed change will what do you think of his bs now .until we start standing up to this runaway goverment there will be no change for the better god bless america,for we as voters are messing it up
Besides Qualcom who are the other companies providing eobr technology
I am independant and im sick of the lying scum in this industry I charge 3.25 a mile now from wi in il to the east coast and i will be raising my rates as soon as I have to put eobr in my truck thats if I decide to stay in the industry cause im so sick of it nothing but regulations that hurt the botom line there was never a driver sortage and never will be the only shortage is the driver pay and freight rates if you get freight coming out of mid west to east nothing coming back so i come back empty im sick of all the customers thinking that we are here to make them rich im geting so fed up with it i do one load a week just to pay some bills and dont care if they have loads that need to be hauled and they ring my phone of the hook teling me the rates are 2 dollars a mile coming out of chicago if you dont like my rates piss on you stop calling me every day begging for a truck every where there is freight then their is no freight coming back this industry is a waste of time greedy corporations want you to haul it for free so they can post 500million quaters and get richer of of your hard work I hope one day every body shuts this country down and strikes im ready lets do this
i think its great we need our government to regulate every aspect of our lives
For the smaller carriers such as myself that survived the crash of the economy in 2009 & 2010 and are still strugling to cath up will now be hit with yet another monthly payment. I support any measure that will continue to improve on safety and make the roads safer. Trucking company's that were unable to upgrade their equipment due to the down turn of the economy and the increased cost to the new equipment were hoping to upgrade by 2012 but the proposed changes in the hours of service rules and the new EOBR's will greatly increase our cost of doing business and will drastically increase the need for additional qualified and experienced truck drivers which there is a major shortage right now.
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