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to be turned on until it’s 150 miles away from the packing shed where the product is being picked up.
“And so that was a huge game-changer,” he says. “If you gured out how to use that exemption, hauling produce actually got easier this last year.”
Lund notes, however, some trucking companies have been reluctant to use the exemption, because it could lead to a lot of hours straight on the road.
“Nobody wants somebody out on the road for 20 hours of straight driving; that’s not safe no matter whether you have an exemption or not,” he says. “So they’ve used that exemption sparingly, but it has made it a lot easier on the enforcement and to not be paying a lot of nes.”
Plotsky of Cool Runnings begs to di er with the idea that exemptions can help truckers, claiming it really only applies to growers.
“Our insurance said ‘your clock starts and there are no exemptions,’ ” he says. “If drivers are taking that exemption, in our insurance company’sopinion,thenthey’recheatingthe system.”
Plotsky does note a positive from the
ELDs —the e ciency of buyers who have “done a better job predicting.”
“It used to be they would order a load on a Monday and say they need it on Wednesday, but legally it can’t be there until ursday. e shipper needed some lead time,” he says. “Buying patterns changed ... and even those shippers had to gure it out, they just had to be a little quicker.”
AUTOMATION AND ITS POTENTIAL
Petersen of C.H. Robinson says the purpose of ELDs is to provide visibility of consistent HOS, but that is just one way data is shared for those interested in tracking the movement of perishables. Could the changes we’re seeing be the tip of the iceberg for the modernization of supply chains?
“Since ELDs only need to track total time, the next level of sharing is location, so that the amount of time on the road is paired with where a driver is on the road,” says Petersen. “Beyond tracking total time on the road, there are a number of automa- tion advancements, from real-time location tracking and temperature monitoring to helping carriers and loads available be better matched.”
Digital supply chain optimization is a big deal for C.H. Robinson, using smart tech- nology to constantly rerun scenarios to ensure the best possible match of capacity and ship- ments.
“ e application of AI, machine learning and predictive analytics is to use data to avert issues you may encounter in the life of the order,” he says. “Unlike personal transporta- tion, shippers tend to plan days in advance of their need for transportation. ere’s a lot riding on freight getting to market on time.”
e company has 200 million automated events annually and more than 100,000 monthly active users on digital carrier prod- ucts.
“Ultimately, utilizing data science helps to be more predictive and prescriptive,” he says. “We use the community of data to identify market shifts far ahead of others and help customers and carriers react and hedge against change.
“ ere is a balance in understanding when it’s appropriate to automate and how to main- tain the quality of experience. It’s more notice- ableonthesmallercarriersizesegment,much of which hauls temperature-controlled freight and speci cally produce,” says Petersen. pb
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