The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has amended several of the performance standards in the “Electronic Onboard Recorders for Hours of Service Compliance” final rule, which the agency issued on April 5.
The changes to the final rule were made after FMCSA received petitions for reconsideration from Qualcomm, Xata Corp. and a group of industry stakeholders, including the American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council EOBR Task Force.
Qualcomm and the other stakeholders requested that FMCSA reconsider the final rule’s requirements for (1) the temperature range in which EOBRs must be able to operate, and (2) the connector type specified for the USB interface. Xata further requested that FMCSA (1) clarify certain reportable events in the diagnostic table, and (2) consider offering an additional alternative for the data transfer between an EOBR and a roadside safety official’s portable computer.
Temperature range
In the April final rule, FMCSA adopted the EOBR operating temperature range to -40 degrees Celsius to 85 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit to 185 degrees Fahrenheit) based on an SAE standard for vehicle electronics. Qualcomm and other stakeholders stated that the temperature operating range is beyond the range of the leading commercially-available systems today.
Qualcomm noted that off-the-shelf telematics and onboard recorder systems are typically designed for -20 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit), and that it would require significant added technical features and costs in such devices to meet the requirements of the new regulation.
