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Transportation Logistics:
ELD’s Rami cations On Produce
Regulations have brought greater consistency to a supply chain obsessed with transparency.
BY MATT OGG
Fresh produce transportation markets were shaken up last year by rules requiring the use of electronic logging devices (ELD) on truck engines, forcing drivers to comply with strict hours of service (HOS).
e storm around the rules has largely subsided, but it has still left its mark on the behavior and practices associated with hauling perishables.
e actual regulations around hours of services did not change. Before ELDs, truckers were still supposed to only drive for up to 11 hours after 10 hours o duty, but paper logs o ered a certain degree of exibility.
“You could fudge on your times a little bit if it was paper,” says Kenny Lund, vice president of operations at Allen Lund Company in La Cañada Flintridge, CA. “Some people are mad at the ELDs when they’re really mad at the hours of service, which are problematic because they try to be one system that ts very fragmented, very di erent trans- portation systems that are out there.”
Take parking for example. A car can easily stop at any exit on the highway, but a truck can’t just set down anywhere; drivers might need a half-hour just to nd a place where they can stop legally, and Lund notes some states have been shutting down rest stops because of budgetary issues.
ose 30 minutes can make all the di erence on a long-haul trip, especially if the driver needs to make several stops and may need to wait for pick-ups that aren’t ready or o ces that are still closed. ese delays all eat into the 14 hours the trucker is allowed to be on duty.
Although enforcing regulations that prevent drivers from over- working and getting drowsy at the wheel makes sense, the unintended
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consequence may be that the strict system incentivizes more dangerous behavior.
Fred Plotsky, president of Cool Runnings in Kenosha, WI, claims truckers have been driving faster since the regulations were put in place, with speeding tickets up 13%.
“If a guy’s got to make up 600 miles and you cut into his drive time, he’s going to drive faster to make up for lost time,” says Plotsky. “ e biggest downfall of this thing is speed — it’s up, it’s apparent. Just ask anybody who’s on the road.”
Plotsky adds the rules initially upset the circadian rhythm of drivers, leading to unusual sleeping patterns. Evan Kazan, vice president of Target Interstate Systems in the Bronx, NY, agrees.
“ ese are human beings driving the trucks, not machines. At times, these devices force them to drive when they don’t want to, and sleep when they’re not ready,” says Kazan. “Ideally, I would like to see rules that say, you can drive X number of hours in a day, manage them as you see t.”
Plotsky notes: “Once they gured out how it works and came up with a routine, now we’ve got guys that only drive during the day, and guys that only drive during the night.”
ADAPTING TO CHANGE
Mark Petersen, vice president of temperature-controlled transpor- tation at Eden Prairie, MN-based C.H. Robinson, says there is always a fear factor with change, but it is important to embrace technology, transform and reinvent the business to adapt.
“Based on all of this, the expectation is that utilization of ELDs and compliance with HOS is complied with — it’s integrated and it’s