Making the latest technology developments work for your fleet

A whole new ballgame

Fleet executives open the playbook at Qualcomm Vision conference

It’s a swing and a miss. If the rules of transportation were like baseball, you still would have two more chances at redemption. But in trucking, any errors are too risky to repeat.

At the Qualcomm Vision 2012 user conference in San Diego last month, a lineup of industry experts and fleet executives opened the playbook to discuss how technology can be a competitive differentiator in this “whole new ballgame.”

Annette Sandberg, principal of TransSafe Consulting and former head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said no new regulations will be going into effect before the 2012 presidential election. A number of regulations still await in the bullpen, including changes to the hours-of-service rule like the 34-hour restart provision.

“Once the election is over, there is probably going to be a flood of regulations that hits the industry no matter who is elected,” Sandberg said.

During a breakout session, Jeannie Gordon, vice president of compliance for Jacksonville, Fla.-based Landstar System, denounced FMCSA’s Compliance Safety Accountability initiative as “broken,” saying the program as it currently stands measures compliance but not safety.

Gordon cited numerous examples of ways carriers can improve their safety but not their CSA score. “A lot of these violations have nothing to do with safety,” she said. “We are going to be in trouble if we don’t turn it around. We are all in this together.” Gordon urged carriers to visit www.regulations.gov to comment on Docket No. FMCSA 2012-0074 with specific recommendations on how to improve CSA.

Greg Frost, director of product management for Qualcomm Enterprise Services, provided a roadmap for the company’s new technology applications through 2014. Some of the many upcoming features include freight lane congestion information in the Web portal, terrestrial Web browsing (4G cellular) for the Mobile Computing Platform (MCP), trailer identification via the ABS system, a handheld proof-of-delivery application and an integrated driver scorecard.

Frost also said Qualcomm has started development of an Android platform that will run the same hours-of-service, messaging, workflow, safety and performance monitoring applications as the company’s present MCP; the difference is that fleets can use consumer-style Android devices for the display unit. Applications on the devices will sync with a stationary “black box” in the vehicle.