Many fleets are devoting 10% of their operating budgets to maintenance, but it doesn’t have to be that high, suggests Jim Buell, EVP of sales & marketing for FleetNet America. “If you talk to most people, they think maintenance costs are like death and taxes, you can’t do anything about it,”
Fleets using ELDs say they reduce manual processes related to HOS compliance, reduce compliance violations, and improve driver and public safety. All of these benefits provide fleets another benefit: potentially lower insurance costs.
CargoNet, a Verisk Analytics company specializing in averting cargo theft, has launched a new app to boost its theft risk identifying properties according to a Verisk press release. The company’s RouteSearch app is available to registered CargoNet members only at this time.
Daimler has been given permission by the Oregon Department of Transportation to test truck platooning on the roads of Oregon following successful trials in Madras, OR. The company has said it will first test the platooning technology on two connected heavy-duty Cascadias in the first step called “pairing.”
An entirely new generation of technological change is now occurring in the transportation industry, and it’s called the autonomous truck, or what design specialists refer to as “intelligent engineering.” But what are some of the benefits, and risks, associated with the technology?
President Donald Trump and Republican leaders introduced their long-awaited tax reform plan on Wednesday. As expected, the plan calls for a significant cut to the corporate tax rate, from 35% to 20%, and the elimination of four of the seven individual tax brackets, creating brackets of just 12%, 25% and 35%.
As truck fleets have installed Bendix safety products on their vehicles over the past few years, few had any realization that those products, such as air disc brakes, Wingman Fusion, BlindSpotter, and stability control systems such as ESP and TAB-6 for trailers, would form the basis of autonomous technologies.
Customer experience and uptime are two of the focus areas that Volvo Trucks North America (VTNA) addressed when designing its new lineup of VNL and VNR tractor models – both launched earlier this year at separate events.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is creating both hope and fear in the transportation industry; hope for the wealth of efficiency, cost savings, and safety improvement that AI promises, and fear that the ever-changing job market that accompanies the AI movement may put the careers of thousands in the transportation industry in jeopardy.
Self-driving technology puts truck driver jobs at risk, however, the potential benefits are rewarding. And that is making it a hot topic in Washington, where legislators are trying to determine how involved the government should be.
As the Congress works on developing legislation aimed at regulating self-driving vehicles, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is looking to guide that legislation with less of a regulatory hand, according to Bloomberg.
The numbers are startling: 250,000 U.S. drivers fall asleep at the wheel each day; 83,000 drowsy-driving related crashes occurred between 2005 and 2009, and there is a drowsy-driving related crash every 25 seconds. For trucking companies, the costs can be staggering.
The U.S. House passed driverless car legislation on Wednesday, but the bill does not address commercial trucks and the likelihood of trucks being included is uncertain at this point.
As most of the nation turns its attention to Hurricane Irma, people in Texas continue to recover from the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey at the end of August. True to its nature, the trucking industry has been there to help.
C.H. Robinson has acquired Milgram & Company, a Canadian provider of freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and surface transportation. C.H. Robinson paid approximately $50 million in cash for the company.
Honeywell and Intel have collaborated on a new solution that is designed to identify potential damage to cargo while in transit, allowing time to possibly re-position that cargo to prevent further damage.
As efforts to delay implementation of the electronic logging device rule continue to flounder in Congress, opponents have received an olive branch from CVSA. The group says that while it will enforce the ELD mandate on Dec. 18 as planned, out-of-service orders will not be issued until April 1, 2018.
Driver-facing cameras are a controversial topic. Many drivers hate them, but at G&P Trucking, the company has implemented them and had success through an educational program that helps drivers understand why they are important.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has suspended certain commercial regulations in Texas and Louisiana, including hours of service, for drivers providing “direct assistance” for hurricane relief under regulation 49 CFR 390.5.
Road crews have traditionally used a “crash truck” to protect workers. It’s often the first – and last – line of defense for construction workers, but it leaves a driver in that vehicle exposed to greater risk. The Colorado Department of Transportation hopes to change that, thanks to self-driving technology.
