The federal government can't create more hours in a day for commercial truck drivers, but actions taken yesterday by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) may provide more flexibility for drivers during the hours that they have.
The sub-agency of the Department of Transportation issued guidance that, effective immediately, allows off-duty drivers to use a commercial motor vehicle as a personal conveyance even if the truck is laden with cargo. The guidance updates a 1997 policy requiring the trailer be empty before the vehicle could be used as a personal conveyance. For years, motor carriers have allowed off-duty drivers to use their vehicles as personal conveyances.
Under the new guidance, a driver can operate a laden vehicle for personal reasons without running afoul of the federal hours-of-service (HOS) guidelines as long as the purpose of the operation is not to advance the load if they've run out of operating hours. A driver's workday is capped at 14 hours, of which 11 can be spent behind the wheel, with a 30-minute break during the first 8 hours of drive time.
One of the more common examples is a driver searching for a safe and accessible rest stop as the HOS clock is running out, especially if the driver has been detained at either a shipper's or receiver's dock. Another is a driver being woken up in the middle of the night by law enforcement ordering the driver to move the vehicle. In both examples, the driver is not moving the truck closer to its destination, FMCSA officials said yesterday in a conference call.
Returning to a terminal does not qualify as using the vehicle as a personal conveyance because it is part of an interstate move, according to agency officials.
Drivers following the modified policy will need to note their circumstances in their electronic logging devices (ELD), and to explain their situations to roadside inspectors if necessary, agency officials said. It is up to fleets to determine what type of vehicle use they would allow as personal conveyance, agency officials said in their written notice.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), which represents about 160,000 solo drivers and micro-fleets, applauded FMCSA's action. Mike Matousek, the group's director of regulatory affairs, was quoted yesterday in the OOIDA magazine Landline as saying FMCSA "has made some positive changes to what movements are permitted using personal conveyance, many of which we've been urging the agency to make for many, many years."
In its guidance, FMCSA intentionally did not define what constitutes "safe parking." Nor did it specify the length of time or how far a driver could travel in search of a safe parking place. Agency officials stressed that drivers need to use common sense, noting that it remains the responsibility of the driver and carrier to ensure drivers are getting needed rest.
The shortage of safe, secure, and accessible truck parking has become a "national concern," according to comments on the web site of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), another DOT sub-agency. Although there are approximately 3 million licensed truck drivers, there is only parking for about 300,000 trucks, according to FHWA. Of all available spots, 90 percent are located at truck stops, the agency said.
A driver spends the equivalent of one hour of daily driving time looking for parking, according to a study last year by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), a non-profit research arm of the American Trucking Associations (ATA). This costs drivers about $4,600 annually in lost wages, ATRI said.
The problem may be exacerbated by the new requirement that virtually all trucks be equipped with ELDs to track hours of service. Drivers who in the past may have manipulated their paper log books to complete a 600- to 700-mile haul in one day even though they had exceeded their available hours will now be forced to break up the trip into two days. This will put even more pressure on truck and rest stop capacity. A more persistent problem has been drivers delayed at loading and unloading, which in turn cuts into their legally allowed drive times.
FHWA is in the process of updating its 2014 nationwide "Jason's Law" survey that assessed the availability of truck parking. The provision, included in the 2012 federal transport spending bill, was named for Jason Rivenburg, a truck driver who in 2009 was operating a fully loaded truck in South Carolina when he pulled into an abandoned roadside gas station to take a nap because there were no rest stations available. While Rivenburg slept, he was robbed and murdered.
Separately, FMCSA published changes to its hours-of-service exemptions for the movement of agricultural commodities. Currently, ag commodities hauled within 150 "air" miles, or about 176 ground miles, do not count against hours of service. In its update, the agency said any of the time spent working within that 150-mile radius will not count against HOS times. For example, time spent driving to the pick-up point, loading the goods, and then transporting the commodity within the 150-mile radius of the source will be excluded from HOS, FMCSA said.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.