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Are Resilience Investments the Answer to Freight Booms?

September 29, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Our whole collective endeavor here is really designed to have the intermodal product be as competitive as possible in the truck,” said Oliver Wyman consulting firm partner of surface transportation, Adriene Bailey, at the recent Intermodal Association of North America’s Intermodal Expo.

Bailey also served as a moderator for the panel at the exposition, where participants from the intermodal freight industry debated the amount of investment funding that should be allocated toward resiliency-boosting infrastructure and other expenditures. The push for these kinds of infrastructure upgrades comes after the industry disruptions and demand surges brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

The group discussed whether or not system overcapacity may lower overall efficiency while chassis availability continues to be a major issue for trucks moving containers. In fact, at the root of the overarching issue is that there is currently an excessive number of containers waiting on any given chassis for a longer period of time than necessary before they’re finally unloaded–meaning the equipment being used in those movements are occupied for days, according to Georgia Ports Authority director of strategic operations, Duke Acors.

The intermodal freight industry as a whole needs to make major changes to its turnover times if any efficiency improvements are going to become realistic, Acors added.

“I am not positive that if you threw another 5,000 chassis into the pool it would make a difference,” he lamented. “The entire supply chain needs to be evaluated.”

Still, there are not enough of the needed chassis types in the areas they are most necessary, causing the current difficulties for the intermodal industry to meet the demands of intermodal freight to increase quickly, explained C&K Trucking president, Mike Burton.

“Everything that we are focused on is…’What we can do to get more chassis?’” he said. “Having to chase all over the city to find a chassis kills our productivity and causes a number of delays.”

The exponential increase of shipments coming in and out of ports across the country in the wake of the pandemic–and the e-commerce boom that came along with it–has overwhelmed many industry professionals without any break in sight.

“We are now going [on] a year–14 months or so–that we have struggled,” said director of international sales at CSX Transportation, Jay Strongosky. “Every stakeholder is struggling, and no one is happy with their service.

CSX, for instance, had to hire an additional 300 conductors in 2021–more than were onboarded in the past two years combined, Strongosky added. This isn’t unique to his company, though. Many companies throughout the industry expected a potential recession during the first year of the pandemic and decided to lay off many employees. Now, with freight volume numbers ending up through the roof, those same companies are currently understaffed and scrambling to boost their recruitment numbers–in the midst of a worsened truck driver shortage.

Luckily, though, the Expo’s panelists unanimously agreed that the intermodal industry has been able to stay steadfast throughout various labor issues, emergency weather events, or other month-or-two-long disruptions that regularly occur throughout the country. Georgia Ports Authority, in particular, has worked to stay ahead of potential downfalls by keeping its capacity at around 20% above demand.

“Last year, we grew on 20%, so we are going to have to reevaluate,” added Acors.

Rising demand will also be aided by improvement projects taking place as soon as possible or in the long-term, such as Georgia Port’s efforts to speed the process of infrastructure initiatives like the project working to boost twenty foot-equivalent unit capacity by 650,000 at the state’s facility in Savannah.

Should the industry allocate capital to a rainy day fund, such as when UPS Inc. began stockpiling equipment before reaching the winter holiday shopping season? It’s hard to tell, because this unprecedented freight increase brought on by an unprecedented pandemic has been impossible to predict and incomparable to any regular busier-than-usual season.

“The pandemic is like a 100-year flood,” said Burton. “As a group, we are not solving it. Customers are not happy across the board. We are broken, and I don’t know that we can fix it.”

Chris Spear Looks Toward Upcoming Infrastructure Bill, Democrats Advance Transit and Climate Change Proposals

September 28, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Roads and bridges are trucking’s shop floor,” said American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear in a recent ATA Technology and Maintenance Council Fall Meeting and Transportation Technology Exhibition. “That’s where we work. And if we do not have good infrastructure, not only does trucking suffer, but so does the entire country.”

Spear has made clear his belief that the upcoming infrastructure package making waves on Capitol Hill will ultimately get the approval the trucking industry has hoped for, especially following the burden that has fallen on truckers’ shoulders throughout the pandemic era.

The $1 trillion infrastructure package is indeed “a very good bill,” Spear added, but it isn’t necessarily perfect, although “no bill ever is. But, even though it just happens to be going through Congress in a very toxic political environment, it is a very good piece of legislation that I believe will be signed into law very soon.”

The DRIVE-Safe Act’s inclusion in this bill will allow truck drivers over the age of 18 operate their commercial motor vehicles within interstate commerce–a move that Spear praises as a potential solution towards easing the current driver shortage.

“This industry is now recognized at a level we never thought possible,” Spear said. “It feels good to get a pat on the back. Truckers don’t have the luxury of telecommuting to work, but truckers rose to the challenge [during the pandemic], despite our drivers having no idea what kind of impact COVID would have on them or their families.”

After House Democrats advanced the climate change and transit proposals in the transportation budget bill–part of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill–chamber leaders are expected to finalize overall proposal plans by the end of September.

“From tackling climate change, to addressing racial and environmental injustices, to building back better after the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation faces big challenges.” said Chairman Peter DeFazio following the panel’s approval of the budget bill. “By advancing this legislation, we’re taking a key step forward in addressing those challenges.”

The transportation measure would allocate $10 billion for low-income communities, $6 billion for local surface transportation priority projects (with specific funding at congressional districts), $4 billion for greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects across surface transportation corridors, and $4 billion for safety programs and transportation equity efforts. Another $2.5 billion will be dedicated to port infrastructure projects and freight supply chain resilience projects, $1 billion will be dedicated to low-emission tech project developments through the U.S. Department of Transportation, $1 billion will be offered to energy-efficient building promotion through the U.S. General Services Administration, and an additional $500 million will be offered to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“With this legislation, we can reduce carbon pollution from the transportation sector that’s driving the climate crisis and make communities more resilient to extreme weather events, connect people with good-paying jobs and affordable housing, address the planning mistakes of the past by reconnecting communities, make meaningful investments to plan or and develop high-speed rail projects, provide more people [with] access to clean water, and make our aviation and maritime sectors greener,” explain DeFazio.

The transportation budget bill will likely be included in the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation legislation by the House Democratic Caucus, with major measures working to boost electric vehicle infrastructure, improve climate change infrastructure resilience, implement social safety net improvements, and support childcare and elderly healthcare assistance. Democratic leaders within the Senate are also aiming to legislate on the bill in September.

Social infrastructure plan-related economic benefits, along with climate change improvements, are the main focus of Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ agenda.

“My ‘Build Back Better’ plan calls for significant new investments in upgrading research infrastructure [and] laboratories all across the country,” Biden said. “We’ll be making one of those breakthroughs in solar and wind [with] storage out of these facilities. [We’ll] out-innovate the rest of the world and drive down the costs of renewable energy.”

These improvements have indeed been a long time coming, democrats say.

“Senate Democrats have been working around the clock for weeks and months with our House colleagues and the Biden administration on the ‘Build Back Better’ agenda,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “We know the American people are facing challenges of monumental proportion. So, we must–and we will–pass legislation that meets the moment.

NTSB Chairman Calls for Road Safety Mindset Changes; $76 Million Granted to CMV Safety Projects

September 27, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“The current approach, which favors automobiles and punishes only drivers for crashes, is clearly not working,” said Jennifer Homendy, the new chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, in regards to the current methods of analyzing roadway safety. “If we are going to get to zero [crash deaths], we will have to do something different.”

Homendy, who was nominated for her position by President Biden, has prioritized efforts to update the ways governments and organizations take highway safety into account, believing that individual driver actions and behaviors are not what need the most attention. With 38,680 roadway deaths in 2020 and 8,700 commercial motor vehicle-involved fatalities in the first quarter of this year (an increase of 10.5% although vehicle miles traveled dropped during the pandemic), major updates are clearly necessary, Homendy explains.

For example, the current “Safe System Approach” to road safety focuses on drivers’ speeding, but Homendy points out that this system as a whole may be what needs the most focus. In fact, during the Governors Highway Safety Association conference in Denver this month, she raised the question of whether or not “ill-conceived” federal regulations and guidance have caused state speed limits to rise, as well as whether or not particular road designs allow for or provoke speeding. In addition, she questioned if states should be able to revoke local authorities’ power to lower speed limits, as well as the power of “manufacturers who design vehicles that can exceed 100 miles per hour or that have no speed limiters.”

In addition to speed limitations, Homendy stated that impaired driving laws need stricter enforcement, although this enforcement won’t be the sole reason highways may become more safe.

“The carnage on our roads has to stop,” she added. “You know it, and I know it.” In her presentation at the conference, she urged governors, vehicle manufacturers, public health officials, road designers, and transportation providers to work toward new, innovative methods of bringing higher levels of safety to the nation’s roads.

In regards to commercial vehicle safety, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has granted more than $76 million to states and educational organizations for CMV safety improvement efforts–all 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands will all receive federal funding.

“Together, these grants represent the administration’s commitment to supporting strong state and local partnerships to reach our national goal of reducing commercial vehicle-involved crashes and saving lives,” said Meera Joshi, Deputy Administrator for FMCSA.

These grants come in the form of High Priority grants ($45.2 million), Commercial Driver’s License Program Implementation grants ($29 million), and Commercial Motor Vehicle Operator Safety Training grants ($2 million). High Priority grants will be utilized to boost commercial motor vehicle safety improvement programs and state technological advancement projects. Commercial Driver’s License Program Implementation grants will work to support state efforts to bring improvements to the current national commercial driver license program–a program that offers financial aid to states complying with driver’s license standards set forth by FMCSA regulations.

In spring of this year, FMCSA granted more than $305 million (as part of Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program grants) in support of local and state law enforcement agencies working to deploy around 12,000 enforcement personnel. These workers collaborated in efforts to lower the severity and number of roadway crashes, as well as to lower the number of commercial motor vehicle-involved hazardous materials incidents.

Additionally, the largest grants this year awarded to state programs–so far–include $2 million allocated to the New York State DOT, the Michigan State DOT, the South Dakota DOT, and the Washington State DOT; $1.7 million to the Connecticut DMV and to the Oklahoma DOT; $1.5 million to the Wyoming Highway Patrol, $1.5 million to the Nevada Highway Patrol Division, and $1.5 million to the California Highway Patrol; $1.3 million to Indiana State Police; $1.2 million to the Indiana DOT and to the Arizona Department of Public Safety; $1.1 million to the Maryland Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance; and $1 million to the Delaware DOT.

Refrigerated Carriers See Massive Changes; TMC Begins New Study About Safe Food Transport

September 25, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

How exactly do refrigerated carriers implement new technology into their operations to keep food safe? The American Trucking Associations’ Technology and Maintenance Council is funding a study to determine just that–and what the maintenance needs are for these changes.

As food retailers are utilizing new supplier and sensor-based tech options for fleets, regulators have begun voicing worries regarding a variety of food safety concerns. Because of this, the Technology and Maintenance Council’s Fall 2021 meeting saw an announcement by Business Accelerants CEO Paul Menig stating that he would be working on relevant food safety analysis and surveys along with WillGo Transportation Consulting CEO, Charles Willmott.

“Health problems from food continue to be a particularly big problem,” said Menig in his announcement. “[A health problem] might have occurred way back with fecal matter in the field, or during the processing of the food.” Problems can, of course, also occur during the transport process, although it can be difficult to determine when or where exactly a food safety issue took place.

The North America Trailer Rental/Lease Company Survey was initially conducted last year, in which a dozen major trailer leasing and rental companies were asked about their predictions and expectations regarding up-and-coming trailer models and the new technologies that would be implemented onboard many of these vehicles.

Now, The Refrigerated Transport Study, which has just begun its surveying efforts, will likely wrap up in January of 2022 with a report to be released in February. In this new study, various additional surveys and interviews regarding refrigerated good transport will be conducted while transportation organizations will offer insight into the current reality of supply chains. According to Menig, other industry professionals may be joining in these survey efforts by conducting presentations or online webinars, as well.

In regards to food supplier accountability, Walmart has announced that it would be launching a program called the “Supplier Quality Excellence Program,” which will focus on supplier actions and order accuracy. The program’s fourth phase will look into the “handling and transportation” of food supply “so we know what they are doing is going to come and impact us,” Menig explained. These impacts will likely come in the form of changes related to packaging, load segregation, and pallets themselves.

In fact, the Food and Drug Administration is already working to set forth new additional traceability record-keeping regulations for those involved with the processing, packing, holding, or manufacturing of foods as part of its Food Traceability List. These requirements will be added to the already-existing regulations in place for inclusion on this list.

The FDA added that this potential regulation addition, deemed the “Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods” will play a major role in the New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint within the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

For new technology being implemented into these trailers, around 65% of reefer trailers available at leasing and rental companies are already equipped with telematics capabilities, according to Menig. He added that by boosting refrigerated transport-focused conversations in the industry, “we will see more of a need for a willingness among [food transporters] to be the early adopters for technologies for smart trailers,” such as tire pressure management systems, electronic door locks, trailer location tracking devices, and remote cargo temperature monitoring capabilities.

Of course, “all of these things have implications for maintenance, too,” explained TMC’s technical director, Jack Legler. “It’s not only what the technology can do, but you have to be able to handle the data. The minimum for tractor-trailer communication 10 years from now is going to be 1,000 base T.”

1,000 Base T, or the IEEE 802.ab standard, is a Gigabit Ethernet standard for transmitting large amounts of information at once.

“It’s not simply going to be fixing a wire,” added Legler. “You will have to be a data diagnostician to go along with being a highly-skilled electrical technician. You will have to understand what the data is that is going through that wire you are repairing.”

In addition to these kinds of technology upgrades that will bring sweeping changes across the refrigerated transport sector, low-emission standards will affect these vehicles as well. For example, TRUs sold or operated in the state of California will be subject to zero-emission requirements by the end of 2029.

Driver Recruitment Methods Change as Trucker Shortage Worsens Following Pandemic

September 24, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“The biggest change that we’ve seen–other than the sheer number of companies who are now using our website to advertise their driving jobs–are the types of companies who are doing so,” said CDLjobs.com president, Darin Williams.

These kinds of recruiting effort boosts have seen widespread utilization among motor carriers as the long-term truck driver shortage has been strained even further due to the explosion of e-commerce and other pandemic-related consumer demand increases.

CDLjobs.com is an online service which aims to easily transfer data related to driver job applications to specific carriers (the service has an advertising platform just for truck driver jobs). Pre-pandemic, the website typically catered to major carriers, but things have changed quickly in that regard throughout 2021.

“Post-pandemic, we are representing carriers who never had to advertise,” Williams explained. “Private carriers, union carriers, [and] ‘mom-and-pop’ carriers.” In 2020, CDLjobs.com represented 86 carriers; that number jumped to 135 in August of 2021, bringing a 53% sales increase for the company by the end of last year and a 110% overall sales increase by July of 2021.

Additionally, around 52% of professionals in the transportation industry are aiming to boost job advertisement spending throughout 2021, according to an August U.S. Transportation Spotlight Report released by background screening and workplace solution provider, HireRight. The report also showed that 86% of industry workers who participated in the survey deemed the difficulties in finding properly-qualified candidates for job openings a primary concern.

“In the past, carriers typically worked individually with multiple service providers and media partners to generate [leads on drivers],” said Conversion Interactive Agency’s vice president of marketing and training, Priscilla Peters. “It involved lots of time, lots of phone calls, and lots of unconnected data and analytics.”

These kinds of efforts have been proven obsolete in the currently highly-competitive marketplace, especially with more and more carriers across the industry looking to obtain better methods of boosting their overall brands and their knowledge regarding the most effective strategies for recruitment.

“This year, we’ve found ourselves in conference rooms on Zoom calls digging in deep with more and more carriers to identify what their driver persona is, and how we can create a marketing plan that includes multiple media partners but has one strategic message and goal,” said Peters. “Carriers of all sizes are committed to building a brand preference with drivers more than ever.”

Throughout the pandemic’s trucker shortage, The Alabama Media Group–a digital marketing agency–has doubled the amount of trucking companies for which it advertises from 50 in 2020 to more than 100 this year.

“We’ve seen a big increase in trucking firms of all sizes,” said Alabama Media Group vice president of marketing, Bart Thau, “but especially in the small-to-mediums, [and] the sort of 50- to 1,000-truck range firms. What they’re trying to do right now is differentiate themselves and try to get the recruiting funnel directly connected to them.

In fact, fleets are looking to reach job seekers who may not even be searching for roles in the trucking or transportation sector at all, Thau explained.

“We’re developing marketing strategies that help trucking companies brand themselves in the workplace for potential recruits,” he noted. Some of these outreach efforts focus upon making the trucking world appear as appealing as possible, especially through social media. This involves portraying workplace atmosphere, lifestyle, benefits, and pay as being highly lucrative and irresistible.

“The majority of the inquiries that we’re getting now are from smaller fleets that really never had to advertise,” added Pat Hightower, CEO of Hightower Agency. “They could always find drivers, through referrals, or through word-of-mouth, and they could do a little advertising internally. Companies with, say, 150 trucks or less [could do this].”

Nearly 1.1 million new truck drivers will need to enter into the industry over the next ten years to keep up with increasing demands and worker retirements, the American Trucking Associations has predicted. This comes out to almost 110,000 new truckers needed each year.

Trucker Fatigue Still Major Issue, But Cell Phone Distraction Has Decreased, New VTTI Study Says

September 23, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Hands-free cell phone use was found to be protective as it likely helps drivers alleviate boredom, while hand-held cell phone use was found to be risky as it takes the driver’s attention away from driving tasks,” a new study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute stated.

This study found that truck drivers were at a much higher risk of crashing when engaging in distracting actions like adjusting their mirrors, reaching for a snack or beverage, or even adjusting their seat belts, although activities like singing or talking while driving were not found to be a distraction.

Additionally, as compared to past studies, the overall usage of cell phones in a trucker cab was found to have significantly decreased in recent “naturalistic” research focusing upon driver fatigue and distraction.

In fact, “the eighth driving hour showed the highest rate of safety-critical event occurrence,” noted VTTI’s study, which aimed to determine the overall effects of drowsiness and distracting actions on big-rig truck driver safety. The study collected data from 182 trucks, 172 truck drivers, 73 motor coach drivers, and 43 motor coaches across seven different fleets, 10 different locations, and 3.8 million driving miles.

A “significant critical event” in the study pertains to four distinct outcomes–unintentional lane deviation, crash-relevant conflict, a near-crash, or an actual collision

In previous studies, researchers found that around 25% to 30% of crashes came as primarily a result of driver distraction. In Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s new study, though, researchers determined that, due to their latest research methods, “it is commonly believed that the actual percentage of distracted-related crashes may be substantially higher.”

These updated ways of collecting more accurate data in more efficient ways has made all the difference in finding real safety issues in the trucking industry today, VTTI added.

“Naturalistic data collection and reduction has become the gold-standard method for investigating driver distraction as it allows researchers to see what a driver is doing just prior to a safety-critical event in real-world settings,” the institution said in its study.

Some of the study’s most vital findings include that truck drivers had a direct correlation between the time their eyes were taken off the road for at least two seconds and the amount of risk they had in being involved in a crash or near-crash; that the time of day and the length of a driver’s rest break may impact his or her overall driving behavior; that the time at which the driver begins a particular trip can have a particular effect on his or her fatigue; and that by diving deeper into the collected data regarding driver drowsiness, it was clear that fatigue levels are highest within systematic baselines between 1:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. for crashes or near-crashes in truck drivers who start their shifts in the early-morning hours and who have long trips starting at those times.

“Researchers, transportation officials, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have all identified driver fatigue as a serious concern for vehicle safety and deemed it to be significantly associated with fatal commercial motor vehicle crashes,” said VTTI in the study. “Drivers have reported that they become fatigued from insufficient time spent recovering during off-duty times, work overload, not working according to their circadian [rhythms], disturbed sleep patterns, and the time sensitivity associated with the nature of their jobs.”

Other determinations made from the results of the study include that the first 10 driving hours for a trucker can be separated into: low significant critical event rate within the first hour, moderate significant critical event rate within the second hour, and high significant critical event rate within the third hour through the 10th hour; that most of the significant critical events took place in daylight when the driver was on a non-junction roadway, on a divided roadway, or in areas without many traffic jams (like an interstate), and while no adverse conditions were present; and that lower amounts of driver texting may show that individual carrier policies, public information campaigns, and local and national legislation changes regarding handheld cell phone use while driving have positively affected safe driver behavior changes throughout the industry.