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Print 5/20/2010

E-Logs: A New Era

By Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration opted for the strictest approach it could take in its new requirement for electronic onboard recorders, announced last month. Reaction from the enforcement and trucking communities has been generally positive, with reservations. The rule, which will go into effect June 1, 2012, s ays carriers that violate hours of service rules 10 percent of the time, based on a single compliance review, must use electronic onboard recorders to track driver hours. The lesser option that was considered would have been to target carriers based on two compliance reviews conducted within a two-year period. The stricter rule will affect close to 5,700 interstate carriers, compared to the approximately 1,000 carriers that would have been targeted under the lesser option. Both groups of carriers have a crash rate that is significantly higher than the industry average, the agency said. Carriers that violate hours rules 10 percent of the time in two compliance reviews have a crash rate 90 percent higher than the general population. Those that break the 10 percent barrier in just one review have a rate that is 40 percent higher than the general population. Carriers that violate the standard will have to install recorders on all of their trucks, regardless of when the truck was built, and use the recorders to track driver hours for at least two years. There will be an exception for carriers that install automatic onboard recorders before the compliance review finds them in violation. Carriers that violate the standard but do not install recorders will not be allowed to operate in interstate commerce. For-hire carriers also risk losing their operating authority. The agency acknowledged that it is under pressure from Congress, the National Transportation Safety Board and numerous other interests to move to an even stricter mandate. It could not go further in this rule due to procedural limitations, but it is going to start a new rulemaking proceeding to consider a significantly broader mandate, the agency said. As part of that proceeding, the agency will look at how the growth in voluntary adoption of recorders is affecting the cost of the devices. Meanwhile, the greatest safety benefit comes from mandating recorders for high-risk carriers, the agency said. "We are committed to cracking down on carriers and drivers who put people on our roads and highways at risk," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a statement. "This gives us another tool to enforce hours of service restrictions on drivers who attempt to get around the rules." The details The rule clarifies a key technical question: EOBRs will have to be integrally synchronized to the truck's engine. In the proposal leading up to this final rule, the agency had considered allowing non-synchronized devices, such as wireless GPS systems and GPS-equipped smart phones, but ultimately decided that synchronization is necessary in order to ensure accuracy. The rule also sets new performance standards for recorders. Recorders will have to automatically track the
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5/21/2010 TruckingInfo.com : We've got trucking c truck's location at each change of duty status and while the truck is in motion. They must comply with security requirements. Drivers will be able to add information to the record, but the device must keep the original information as well as the annotations.

Also, the device must provide a digital file for a police officer to read on a computer. It will not have to print out the driver's log. The officer will get the data via a cord that the driver can plug into a Universal Serial Bus (USB) on the recorder, or through a wireless connection. The information recorded must include the driver's name, duty status including on-duty/not driving, driving time, sleeper berth and off-duty, as well as the date, time, truck location and distance traveled. Recorders will have to use global positioning technology or another tracking system. The carriers that already use recorders that don't meet these standards will be allowed to keep using them through the life of the truck. Recorders installed in trucks built starting in April 2012 will have to meet the new standards. As an incentive to promote voluntary use, the agency will no longer require supporting documents related to driving time, such as toll receipts, for carriers that install recorders. Also, carriers that use recorders will get more liberal compliance review procedures. Enforcement challenges For the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, which speaks for the police officers who will have to rely on the recorders to enforce hours of service, the rule is a step in the right direction. It does not go far enough and it has technical shortcomings, says Interim Executive Director Steve Keppler. "But now at least we've got some specifics that we can react to." CVSA has for some time been pushing for a universal EOBR mandate and is actively working to get one included in the pending federal highway bill. The alliance also is waiting to see what the agency will propose in the next installment of recorder requirements. The agency is working on a proposal to expand the number of carriers required to use recorders and combine that requirement with changes in its supporting documents rules. That proposal is supposed to be published in December. Keppler says the enforcement community is concerned about a number of the rule's technical requirements. One problem, for example, is that the rule does not require the recorder to have the capability of printing out a driver log. If an inspector does not have a computer - and not all of them do - "He'll have to have the driver reconstruct the log, or do so himself, by hand," Keppler says. "That will severely lengthen the inspection. Or if the device is not working, the same thing will happen." The good news for police is that FMCSA will supply software that will convert the recorder's data into a standard format for the police laptop. "From that perspective, we're happy," Keppler says. Another problem he foresees will be the potential for fraud arising from the rule's method for driver identification. Under the system, the carrier will assign the driver a number; no name will be used. The agency said it chose this route because privacy rules would require stringent and complex encryption standards if a driver's name is transferred to an officer's computer. Police can use the driver's license or other documents for identification, the agency said. Another issue is the rule's requirement that vendors and carriers certify that the device meets agency specifications. Keppler wonders if that approach is strong enough. "If we're going to have performance standards rather than explicit design specs, we've got to have a way to oversee that those devices are being built to that standard. You need a strong approach to certification. Otherwise you are going to have people who build stuff that is sub-par, it's just that simple." But Keppler puts these issues into the category of challenges to be overcome in the next two years, before the rule takes effect. He says the enforcement community expects to work with the safety agency and the states on these details.
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Trucking groups react American Trucking Associations supports the rule because it provides incentives for safe carriers to voluntarily adopt recorders and mandates the devices for severely non-compliant carriers, says Clayton Boyce, vice president of public affairs. "This is a good example of the important role of technology in enhancing driver, vehicle and highway safety," he says. ATA does have reservations. For one thing, the incentives for voluntary use are weaker than they should be, says Rob Abbott, vice president of safety policy. In addition to easing supporting documents and compliance review requirements, the agency should have provided EOBR users more flexibility in the sleeper berth rules and an extension of the 14-hour work period to allow for driver breaks, Abbott says. He also cites concerns about technical provisions. For example, he says, the rule requires the devices to function in temperatures ranging from minus 40 degrees to 185 degrees. This will make the devices more expensive, and any handheld devices that interface with the recorder will have to meet the same standard, he says. Abbott also echoes CVSA's concern about the agency's approach to certification and driver identification. He says carriers should have to self-certify against a particular standard, and notes that while there are privacy concerns regarding identification, it will be hard for a police officer to know for sure who the driver is with only a number to rely on. Vendors, carriers and the enforcement community will need to work together to fix these and other problems, Abbott says. "We hope that these issues can be fixed before the rule goes into effect (in two years)." Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, says it is FMCSA's prerogative to enforce this rule. "It's hard to defend someone that's been identified as having violations," he says. But owner-operators don't think the rule is necessary, he says. "We will point out that we've never seen a correlation between onboard recorders and improved highway safety," Spencer says. "I don't think that's going to change." E-log makers can meet specs Manufacturers of recorders foresee little difficulty complying with the technical requirements in the rule. David Kraft, director of government affairs for Qualcomm Enterprise Services, describes the new requirements as "pretty straightforward." The guidelines for downloading data for enforcement appear to be workable, he says. "With this data download approach, it allows enforcement officers to continue to use one standard technology. I think that's a real good part about the rule." He acknowledges that not all police will have laptops all the time, but adds: "These rules tend to be around for a long time, and I think over the long haul it's going to work pretty well." Qualcomm will have to make minor changes in its products and services to comply - "pretty basic stuff" - and two years is plenty of time, he says. Kraft, who is chairman of the Technology and Maintenance Council's EOBR Task Force, echoes ATA's Abbott regarding the usefulness of the incentives in the rule. Carriers are not likely to save much money through the supporting documents incentive, he says. The stronger push for voluntary adoption is likely to come from CSA 2010, the new safety program the agency will begin to implement later this year. The program will stress compliance with the hours of service rules. "If you do poorly in terms of hours of service compliance, it will have an almost immediate and direct impact on your safety rating," Kraft explains. "Carriers just can't afford to have that happen, so implementing EOBRs on a
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5/21/2010 TruckingInfo.com : We've got trucking c voluntary basis makes perfect sense."

EOBR rule has pros and cons Brian McLaughlin, chief operating officer for PeopleNet, is also on the TMC's EOBR Task Force, and says PeopleNet's system is already compliant with the new rule. He sees pros and cons of the requirements. The big pro, he says, is that the rule regulates performance, setting up rules for how it needs to perform rather than specific technical requirements. In Europe, he says, it went the other way, and they have had problems with that. He also praised the requirement for the system to be integrated, or "tethered," to the vehicle. Otherwise, he said, the system could be open for abuse. Say you were using an hours of service app on a GPS-enabled cell phone. The driver could enter his status as off-duty or sleeper berth, or even his 34-hour restart, turn off the phone and take a quick side trip, coming back to the same location and turning it back on - not rested at all. As far as the enforcement issue, McLaughlin says, "I think the approach on how the EOBR can give data to law enforcement is a good start, but it needs some more definition." For example, he says, the TMC committee would like to see USB memory sticks, also called thumb drives or flash drives, as an option for transferring that data. He, too, felt that there were not enough incentives in the final rule to give carriers a reason to adopt electronic logs voluntarily. These concerns are part of about 30 points the TMC EOBR Task Force is delivering back to the FMCSA for their consideration as they write the next rule. Xata says its products do comply with some areas of the new regulations, but not with all sections, says Tom Cuthbertson, director of industry solutions, and Xata is currently assessing what will need to be done. "We believe there may be some changes to the technical requirements contained within the new regulations, based on industry feedback," Cuthbertson says. "These anticipated changes will have an impact on what it takes to make our products compliant, and may actually make it easier." Tampering concerns Another vendor, Jerry Gabbard, a vice president with Continental Corp., agrees that it will be easy to comply with the requirements - too easy. Echoing a popular nickname for paper logbooks that are perceived as frequently faked, he predicts, "This rule, the way it's written, is going to give birth to electronic comic books." In Gabbard's view, the agency fell short in three critical areas. It did not set a high enough standard against tampering. It did not require third-party certification that a manufacturer's device meets the rule's specification. And, it did not adequately address the issue of how police get the data off the recorder. The issue of tampering is particularly bothersome, Gabbard says. Continental, which purchased the recorder business of Siemens several years ago, has worldwide experience with the problem. "Based on our experience in the European Union, in China and in Brazil, if the devices are not tamper-proof, we know that there will be some creative work going on and the information (in the recorder) will be altered," Gabbard says. He cites the emergence in other markets of third-party companies that write algorithms or develop hardware that can get between the EOBR and the engine electronic control unit to allow the driver to alter the original data. The rule forbids such tampering, and the agency expects carriers and vendors to ensure data integrity, but Gabbard says that without tougher security it can happen without police knowing about it. Gabbard warns that this aspect of the rule is likely to be challenged, either through a petition for reconsideration or possibly legal action. Cost still a question The cost picture is not yet clear, largely because electronic logs being used today are generally part of a more
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5/21/2010 TruckingInfo.com : We've got trucking c sophisticated on-board computer system that does many things beyond tracking hours of service.

McLaughlin notes that EOBRs is only one of 20 or so things the PeopleNet system can do. The company last month announced a special low-cost fleet management offering of PeopleNet's eDriver Logs designed for fleets that only want the system for log book compliance. It will allow fleets to spread out the up-front cost of the hardware in a pay-as-you-go program. Qualcomm's Kraft could not give any cost estimates for recorders. Gabbard says a stand-alone, selfcontained recorder that does nothing but track driver hours will cost less than $500. He, too, could not say what a more sophisticated system will cost. Between the EOBR rule and CSA 2010, McLaughlin says PeopleNet has never seen so much interest in and demand for electronic log products. "This train is coming," McLaughlin says. "EOBRs are going to become an essential part of the industry over the next 21 to 24 months." Editor Deborah Lockridge contrib uted to this article. Read International Editor Sven-Erik Lindstrand's ob servations on the European experience with on-b oard recorders online at www.truckinginfo.com/hdt/europeanlogs. From the May 2010 issue of Heavy Duty Trucking.

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