OTA Dispatch Issue 3, 2021

26 Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch allowed the owner to make and receive phone calls. Next came models that offered text messaging. Following shortly thereafter came email, internet access, and limited data retrieval. Today, the average cell phone owner carries around in their pocket more computing power than the Gemini spacecraft that landed on the moon. What’s my point in inviting you to follow along on this journey down memory lane? My intent is to illustrate that technology continues to advance. We all have the choice to remain skeptical and slow to engage, or we can jump on the band wagon as an early adopter. Early adopters in the transportation arena have the opportunity to seize control of technologies that can increase efficiency, reduce costs, reduce driver liabilities, enhance safety, simplify work, enhance employee morale, contribute to driver retention, etc., etc. There is a rapidly advancing menu of transportation related technology applications. Technology is clearly having a big impact on the trucking world in a lot of different ways, and any trucking companies out there that want to remain relevant and competitive in the modern world need to make the most of the technological options available to them. FleetOwner magazine offered the following perspective in a recent publication: “Moving freight and goods or getting work done with vehicles can be a highly competitive proposition, frequently with very thin margins, so the pitch for technology boils down to this: does it make your fleet more competitive?” For our “must-have” list, we focused on some key add-ons beyond your basic fleet management/telematics product. We looked at how using them can make your fleet more competitive—or, turning that around, if you don’t have them on your trucks, how they could give an edge to your competition. 1. Dynamic Routing In trucking and fleet operations, you’re often moving goods or workers from point to point, delivery to delivery. The route you take to do it is everything. Dynamic routing can add in adjustability and data to inform the paths taken, especially with traffic and weather information that today truly can get close to that often-made promise of “real time.” All of that shaves off time and cuts down on fuel use, both of which are major cost items for a fleet. Getting better trip-planning information to optimize truck routes every day and every time just makes good business sense. 2. F orward-looking Camera Systems In-cab camera systems have been around for some years now and established themselves as the familiar “dash cam.” And they’ve been getting better and better in terms of quality during that time. Vehicle video systems have tracked along with the evolution of digital cameras generally, which have seen big improvements in image processing, usability in low light/nighttime, and high- definition image capture as memory has ballooned storage capacity while getting evermore miniscule in size. Probably first and foremost, the reason fleets implement video in their trucks is to defend the fleet and driver in case of collisions and potential phony insurance claims. For one thing, those looking for a payday can make a false claim or even try to run into a truck, knowing that fleets can be a nice, juicy target. 3. Driver Scorecards The idea has always been simple enough: whatever fuel economy your trucks get, one of the largest variables at play is a truck’s driver, who can make as much as a 20–30% difference in mpg. Bad driving behaviors can burn more fuel and lead to more frequent collisions and other costly events, and fleets can use driver scorecarding/coaching to cut down on those expenditures. But fast forward a bit, and driver scorecards have become more sophisticated, taking a more positive approach and including smarter, more advanced functionality. For driver coaching, Vnomics takes into account the type of load, the truck itself, and transmission shifting data to score a driver more accurately and fairly based on actual vs. potential mpg achievable with a given truck. 4. C ollision Mitigation Technology Research shows that heavy trucks are overrepresented in collisions and fatalities. In a recent study, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration noted that heavy trucks and buses accounted for about 4% of registered vehicles and 9% of total miles driven but were involved in 13% of accidents and 13% of overall traffic fatalities. It’s partly due to their larger mass and size, the agency has speculated, which can easily cause serious damage to smaller passenger vehicles. Even though crash data analyses consistently show it’s the passenger vehicle driver who’s most often at fault when passenger cars and heavy trucks collide, any heavy truck collision can mean expensive insurance claims and lawsuits. One of the more popular systems available is Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems’ Wingman Fusion product, which uses radar and video to monitor the road ahead for obstacles and includes Regulatory Compliance, cont.