OTA Dispatch Issue 2 2018

22 Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch A s a motor carrier, it is your responsibility to implement a compliant ELD (electronic logging device) solution for your fleet. You need to ensure that your drivers and support staff are properly set up and trained to use your chosen ELD solution and that they’re able to handle different situations such as roadside inspections, annotating and editing log entries, or if the system malfunctions. Your ELD provider is responsible for certifying that its ELD meets mandated requirements to be on the FMCSA registry—and that it remains on the registry. If the ELD you have implemented is removed from the registry, you may be exposed to risks that can cause disruption to your business. At worst, your fleet—and your business— may come to a grinding halt. You will need to quickly swap out some, or even all, of your ELD equipment and retrain your drivers and users in order to stay compliant and keep operating. As a technology specialist, your ELD provider has a duty to ensure that its ELD solution is technically compliant and operationally usable, now and into the future. Bottom line is: if your provider fails, you fail. What is the minimum standard? ELD providers are required to register with the FMCSA, certifying that their devices meet the requirements and providing information on how their ELD works and how it was tested. That information includes a user manual; an instruction sheet for the driver on data transfer mechanisms, for use at roadside inspections; and instructions on what to do when a malfunction occurs. The FMCSA also developed optional test procedures, which providers could use to ensure their ELD met the requirements. While providers are not required to use the FMCSA’s test procedures, this is what the FMCSA uses, and relies on the results from, during any investigation of a complaint in determining whether an ELD system is to remain on the ELD registry. So although it is not mandatory, a prudent ELD provider should draw on the FMCSA’s test procedures and/or design its own internal testing framework to ensure its device remains on the registry. Is this sufficient? The quality of your provider’s user materials may be an indicator of how well they understand the regulations and operational demands on your drivers. For example, the information should demonstrate how intuitive and easy the ELD is for drivers to use under various operational scenarios. However, this may not sufficiently expose the robust operational capability of the system. You should be asking how frequently malfunctions will occur and how easy it is to tamper with the system. Your ELD provider may test on its own and claim its ELD is compliant, but it will ultimately be you that runs the risk of non-compliance if the ELD solution malfunctions or is removed from the registry. Compliance matters; and ensuring that the ELD has been designed and tested to Going the EXTRA MILE to Certify Compliance By Soona Lee, Director, Regulatory Compliance at EROAD, Inc.