Trucking Industry Survey - Your Input Needed

At the TXTA Annual Conference in August, we released the 2013 Texas Trucking Industry Study that we co-sponsor with TXTA. We hope you are finding it useful; please let us know if you need any additional copies. 

As we make preparations for the 2014 Texas Trucking Industry Study, we want your input. We are reaching out to all TXTA members for feedback about the areas in which you'd like the study to focus. We have put together a brief online survey which should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Please click on this link, short survey, and provide your answers. We'd like to get your thoughts by January 10.

Feedback from TXTA members will help us understand your strategic priorities. The responses are anonymous and the results will be compiled and analyzed for preparation of the actual research questions to be used in the 2014 study.

Following the TXTA Annual Conference and research presentation in Lost Pines, we received positive feedback regarding the expanded study and its focus on the Highly Successful Subset (HSS). We are planning to continue this section as well as continuing to address key benchmarks so that we may maintain cumulative trends over time.

 

Please contact Meghan Jaskowiak at 210-495-8474, 

Coordinator@TexasTruckingAlliance.com or the Texas Trucking Alliance (www.TexasTruckingAlliance.com) as needed. We will be pleased to follow up to see if we can answer any questions. 

How Do Your Drivers Measure Up?

How Do Your Drivers Measure Up?

Transportation Research Board’s 93rd Annual Meeting

You are invited to attend a forum presented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Office of Analysis, Research, and Technology on Tuesday, January 14, 2014, at the 93^rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). The forum will be held from 8 a.m. to noon in Salon 3 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, 2660 Woodley Road, NW, Washington, DC 20008.

Topics will include:

• Motorcoach Safety Initiative
• Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century Act (MAP-21)
• Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)
• Policy and Research
• North American Fatigue Management Program
• Overview of the FMCSA Data Quality Program
• National Survey of Long-Haul Truck Driver Health and Injury
• Vehicle Safety Innovation
• Future Technology Initiatives

FMCSA Eases Enforcement of Break Requirement for Short-Haul Drivers

FMCSA Eases Enforcement of Break Requirement for Short-Haul Drivers - News - TruckingInfo.com

Truckload Rates Reflecting Hours Rule

DAT Analyst Sees Truckload Rates Reflecting Hours Rule - News - TruckingInfo.com

Weather Problems and Fuel Shortages Have Prompted 10 States to Waive Federal HOS

Weather events and fuel shortages have prompted the waiver of Federal Hours of Service Rules in the following states:

• Alabama, until further notice
• Colorado, until further notice
• Illinois, expires 12/18/13
• Maine. expires 12/27/2013
• Minnesota, expires 1/8/2014
• Mississippi, until further notice
• Montana, until further notice
• New Mexico, until further notice
• Oregon, expires 12/31/2013
• South Dakota, expires 12/31/2013

You can find details and conditions on the FMCSA's web page. 

The LoadTrek Customer Support Portal - Introduction and Training Webinars

We have created a new Customer Support Portal and would like to invite you to the upcoming introduction and training webinars on Tuesday, December 17th and Thursday, December 19th at 13:00 Central.  You will be receiving links to register for the webinars on the mornings of 12/17 and 12/19.

The Customer Support Portal allows LoadTrek users to enter new requests and view existing requests.  Portal users can add examples, attachments, and comments to requests and the LoadTrek Support Team will reply with answers, comments, training materials and/or documentation.  The two-way visibility will increase the communication between LoadTrek customers and the support team, allow for greater information sharing and assist in request resolution.

Over the next week, LoadTrek customers will be asked to provide the support team with a list of up to 3 contacts (name and email address) to create logins for the Customer Support Portal.  We will solicit this information via a separate email on or before 12/19.

We encourage you to attend the scheduled webinars and we look forward to improving the LoadTrek support experience.

Thank you,

The LoadTrek Software Team

ELD Rule Expected by Year End

Progress has slowed somewhat on proposals to mandate electronic logging devices and to prohibit coercion of truckers, which had been expected to clear another rulemaking hurdle by now.

The White House Office of Management and Budget indicated Dec. 13 it had not yet cleared the ELD plan. The ELD Supplement Notice of Proposed Rulemaking finished its first step of rulemaking when the Office of Secretary of Transportation forwarded it to the White House for review Aug. 7.

Executive order places a 90-day limit on OMB review, but the DOT or the OMB can elect to extend consideration of draft regulations.

Earlier this month, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration indicated it would publish the SNPRM Dec. 23 for a 60-day comment period.

The last highway funding authorization act directs agency officials to develop an ELD mandate that protects drivers from being pressured to work in violation of safety regulations. The devices had been called electronic onboard recorders, but the FMCSA now uses the term ELDs to reflect the act’s language.

Additionally, the SNPRM is to stipulate hours-of-service ELD performance and design standards, requirements for use and hours-of-service supporting documents.

The upcoming notice will supplement the agency’s NPRM published nearly three years ago. It is to address issues raised in the 2011 appellate court decision, which vacated the previous year’s final rule for not safeguarding against driver harassment.

The FMCSA also noted it would it would send its driver coercion proposal to the OMB by Dec. 13, then publish a March 26 NPRM with a 60-day comment period. The 2012 transportation reauthorization act prohibits carriers, shippers, receivers and transportation intermediaries from pressuring drivers to work in violation of violation of safety regulations.

Before issuing an ELD final rule, the agency will review its research on driver coercion, including a 15-month survey of drivers and carriers.

FMCSA Seeks Feedback on Proposal to Improve Reporting of Inspection Violation Data

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has published a proposal in the Federal Register to improve the quality and uniformity of violation data across FMCSA systems. The proposed changes will allow court outcomes on contested citations to be incorporated in the Agency’s Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) database. These changes would impact how violations are displayed and used in the Safety Measurement System (SMS) and the Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP).

The Agency is proposing that, in early 2014, motor carriers and drivers could request inclusion of adjudication information for citations associated with violations in MCMIS inspection reports by submitting Requests for Data Review (RDRs) through FMCSA’s DataQs system (https://dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov). Motor carriers and drivers would have to upload court outcome documentation in order for the States to review the RDRs and record the court outcomes.

FMCSA’s SMS and PSP would, correspondingly, reflect court outcomes. These systems would retain the violation when it resulted in a conviction; remove the violation when found not guilty or the violation was dismissed; and indicate the violation when the court outcome shows a conviction of a different charge. When the court outcome shows a conviction of a different charge, the SMS severity weight tied to the violation will be reduced to the lowest possible value (1).

The Federal Register Notice provides additional information about FMCSA’s proposed new processes for documenting in its data systems. The 30-day comment period will end on January 2, 2014. We encourage your feedback on the proposed changes. (https://federalregister.gov/a/2013-28795)

LoadTrek Training Webinar Schedule and Topics - Week of December 9th 2013

Webinars will last approximately 30 minutes, with 20-25 minutes of instruction followed by a 5-10 minute Q & A session.

Invitations and links to register for the next scheduled webinar will be sent prior to each session.  All webinars will be recorded and posted to the existing LoadTrek training video library.

The calendar of upcoming webinars can always be viewed online by accessing the Support Pages of our website: www.loadtrek.net and clicking on "Webinar Calendar".

Date              Time                   Topic

12/10/2013     15:00 Central    Setting and Monitoring Driver Expiration Dates

12/12/2013     15:00 Central    Driver Timesheet Review and Explanation