At Vision 2010, Qualcomm Enterprise Services’ customer user conference, a panel of truckload carriers dispelled the myths surrounding electronic driver logbooks — such as driver retention problems — by citing their own experiences with increased driver satisfaction, fleet productivity and safety.

Cargo Transporters, a 400-truck, Claremont, N.C.-based fleet, implemented the Qualcomm Hours of Service (QHOS) application between October and December, 2008. Since October of 2008, zero drivers have been placed out of service from logbook violations and roadside inspections decreased from 102 to 6.

“We saw a dramatic decrease in our SEA score in SafeStat,” says John Pope, president of CT Management and chairman of Cargo Transporters. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) SafeStat system and SEA score measure the safety status of motor carriers. The higher the SEA score, the worse a carrier’s safety record.

Besides erasing safety and compliance problems, Pope cited labor savings from processing and auditing paper logbooks.

Alan Lowry, director of safety for Salt Lake City, Utah-based Central Refrigerated, said that having the capability to see every violation on every driver in real time has been a great benefit. Before using electronic logs, Lowry says that Central Refrigerated was waiting between 15 and 30 days to receive paper logbooks from drivers.

Between April 2008 and August 2009, the number of log falsifications decreased by 100 percent. Lowry also says the company has saved approximately $50,000 in hard costs by using electronic logs and has not seen any decrease in productivity.

Dustin England, director of safety for Salt Lake City-based C.R. England, says the company began to implement QHOS in January 2009. Since then, the fleet has seen a 75 percent reduction in its out-of-service rate.