Some fleet-owners have railed against it, many vehicle operators hate it and others claim it has created a shortage of drivers and made products more expensive for regular consumers, however, the ELD mandate helps promote safety and we should not forget that!
The December 16, 2019 deadline is imminent and all commercial fleets in the USA need to use self-certified, registered ELDs. But, how did we get here?
Regulation of driving hours is not new and is widely used in many places around the globe. Europe, for example, has guidelines for the Driver’s Working Hours, which is the equivalent to the Hours Of Service (HOS) in the United States.
In the EU, Tachographs are used to record driving times, breaks and resting of the operators as well as other types of activities that the drivers perform during their working times. The basis and standard regulations for the Tachographs are provided by the Council Regulation (EU) No 165/2014 and, since 2006, all the newly installed tachograph devices are digital.
In the United States, until 2016, no regulation enforced the use of electronic devices to track the driver’s HOS. The HOS law establishes that drivers can drive a maximum of 11 hours on 14 consecutive on-duty hours. After that, the driver must have 10 off-duty hours to rest. Was before this information not being tracked? It was tracked in different ways being the most popular one, believe it or not, just paper. Drivers and companies used to write their HOS on a paper log, which led to constant infringement of the law in two different ways:
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Non-Driving related HOS violation
Drivers needed to fill much information about driving and working times, driven miles, dates, carriers, VIN, co-driver and many other fields which led to constant “Form & Manner violations” on the grounds of defects in the way the paper log has been presented to the roadside inspector.
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Driving related HOS violation
Using hand-written logs is no reliable source of information. Drivers would not necessarily keep a precise track of the driven hours until the moment of filling the log and very easily false information about the driving periods, with or without intention, could be declared, causing a violation of the driving time.
As a result of the enforcement of the ELD rule, the numbers of violations of the HOS rule have dropped significantly as you can see in the graphic provided by the FMCSA.
ELD enforcement
In December 2015, the FMCSA published the ELD rule, where the main bases for the ELD mandate were announced. As the FMCSA stated, “ELDs are an important tool to help the motor carrier industry comply with critical Hours-of-Service regulations that improve safety on our Nation’s roads by making sure drivers get the breaks they need”. Until December of 2017, there was a two year “awareness period” where the institution got ready to enforce the new law and at the same time tried to create consciousness about it to all interested parties. After that, the FMCSA would implement the rule. Up till April 2018, companies had time to find the right Electronic Logging Device provider and from that moment all eligible vehicles needed to have an installed ELD.
Challenges during this period were not only for the companies seeking for providers but for suppliers to ensure that the offered ELD’s were complying with the official requirements.
To provide a clear list of approved ELD’s, the FMCSA created a catalog of regulation-complying devices where providers could also apply to certify their products. As it can be seen on the official register, many suppliers opted for a hybrid solution, which we will comment deeper later on.
After April 2018, all eligible vehicles needed to have an installed ELD.
As a result of the enforcement of the ELD rule, the numbers of violations of the HOS rule have dropped significantly as you can see in the graphic provided by the FMCSA.
How to choose the right ELD provider
Choosing the right provider is not an easy decision, and shouldn’t be taken carelessly since most likely you will end up in a long-term relationship with the supplier. Here we give you a checklist to follow while picking your solution:
1. Are all the requirements met by the solution?
Until this point it was common for providers to just partially meet the requirements, usually the ones that are most commonly searched, but the devil lies in the details, so make sure that your solution meets all the minimum requirements:
- Connect to the truck’s engine and retrieve the required data from it.
- Display the data in the form of a graph.
- Provide data in an FMCSA-standardized format
- Have all the driving required modes: “On-duty”, “Off-duty” & “Driving”.
- Driver’s ability to modify the driving mode at any time and the device verifying it through engine-acquired data.
- Be able to send the data to the authorities in wireless (Bluetooth/Wi-Fi) or USB way.
Once you verify those minimum requirements look for the following features:
- Driving time recorded in 60 minutes intervals.
- Retention of data without tampering.
- Keep records of the last seven days.
- Information access at any moment by the officials.
2. Test the solution by yourself.
Requesting a demo from a supplier is not enough. When you have a shortlist of providers that meet your needs and pricing range, test them yourself. Try them all and, if possible, do it on the same truck and ask your driver to keep manual records for a few days. When the driver is back, take the manual records and the ones gathered by the devices and compare them carefully.
3. Make sure the provider offers technical support
Once on the road, one of the main issues you may face is your ELD to stop working. Why? Well, who knows! With good technical support from the provider, diagnose and solving time will be faster.
Imagine you have a 100-truck fleet that is constantly moving. If one or a few ELD’s fails and the vehicles are far away from the base, you might need to stop them and lose money until the devices are working again (with or without help from the provider) therefore make sure that technical support of the supplier is available at all times to meet your requirements and SLA.
4. Don’t be scared to change the provider.
Choosing a provider is not forever. If you have a big fleet you might even want to work with more than one supplier to test which one works better in the long run. There is no smoke without fire, thus If there is smoke… change the provider. Working with a good supplier and solution will save you hours of work and headaches!