trucking companies

Driver Comfort to be Boosted With Fleets’ Seat Tech Investment

August 4, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“The last thing we want to do is lose a driver over an uncomfortable seat,” said Foodliner’s maintenance director, Kyle Neumann. “Drivers aren’t bashful. If they’re uncomfortable, they’re going to let you know.”

Because seat comfortability is so important for a truck driver, as they spend most of their workday sitting in the cab of a truck, the latest, most innovative truck seats have been manufactured with upgraded materials, effective suspension, and more adjustability than ever in an effort to maximize a trucker’s overall comfort while on the job. Many fleets have even been utilizing methods of attracting and retaining new truck drivers such as advertising their high levels of cab comfort.

“That has driven us to constantly look at seats and make sure we’re staying ahead of the curve, so we’re giving them the best option that is out there,” Neumann added.

More engineering and science-backed analyses are what is pushing these new designs forward, said North American aftermarket business director for Sears Seating, John Duax.

“Not only does the seat have to be comfortable to the driver, but there also has to be some science behind it to eliminate a couple major issues prevalent in trucking for years–driver’s fatigue and lost time due to injury,” he added.

The design of truck seats has seen vast improvement in its evolution, and those changes are happening exceptionally quickly, explained Navistar’s chief technical engineer for human factors and ergonomics, Sandeep Premkumar.

“We now have more objective and subjective data around seat discomfort, seat materials have changed, new testing equipment and methods are being developed, seats have gotten better at isolating road inputs, and new functions have been added to sets,” Premkumar said.

Back pain and other issues have always been particularly prevalent in the trucking industry among drivers, so companies like A. Duie Pyle are careful to select the best seats possible that will boost the overall safety and wellbeing for a trucker.

“If I have a poor seat, it can lead to back injuries,” said the company’s vice president of fleet maintenance, Dan Carrano.

Until now, customized adjustments in regards to comfort and lumbar support weren’t as easily accessible as they are nowadays, Carrano added.

“You just had the air that would raise and lower the seat and the seat slide to move it up and back,” he said of previous seat models. Now, adjustments can be made within the seat base to lengthen or tilt it to fit any individual driver’s comfort preferences.

“Between the length of the seat cushion, the tilt of the seat cushion, and the lumbar support, the adjustability is pretty drastic,” he said

Additionally, with these new designs, body shapes and sizes of all truck drivers are able to be adapted to with the latest customizable adjustment capabilities–which can be especially helpful to female drivers.

“Female drivers have complained they can’t get up high enough to see over the hood,” said aftermarket sales manager at Seats Inc., Adam Lindloff. Now, “you can change the rake angle, which increases the hip point where the occupant is sitting. You’re sitting higher, but the position isn’t interfering with you getting to the pedals.”

Additionally, until recently, a majority of commercial vehicle cab design has focused upon ergonomics–the physical toll of a seat on a human body. Now, it’s become more widely accepted that the prioritized elements of a proper seat should accommodate all different postures and body types, and come equipped with fore-aft and up-down travel ranges, seat suspension, and adequate width and firmness.

“Macro trends such as automation, electrification, and connectivity are driving a lot of new technology into cabs and [are] introducing new ways for drivers to interact with vehicles,” and cognitive ergonomics is becoming much more widely adopted, Premkumar explained.

Companies like Navistar are now working to prioritize a driver’s cognitive, physical, and even emotional needs by determining which particular seat characteristics most affect a driver’s needs and experience. The company is also working to determine the performance targets, capabilities, and limitations of the most necessary aspects of an innovative seat design.

“The best defense [to a bumpy environment] can be found in a properly fit seat that removes vibration and increased comfort for the driver’s particular needs,” said Seat Specialists’ director of business development, Jennifer Ross.

Pandemic Triggers Spike in Cargo Thefts

July 5, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

With the desperation that arose behind much of the criminal activity taking place during the coronavirus era, trucking industry experts say cargo thefts were not excluded.

“Our numbers started to jump [in the] second quarter of last year,” said CargoNet’s vice president of operations, Keith Lewis. Cargo Net is a cargo theft prevention and recovery service “We saw a spike in the numbers and it continued on throughout the year.”

In 2020, CargoNet suffered 1,502 circumstances of theft–events including both cargo thefts and vehicle thefts, which can often occur at the same time. These numbers are much higher than those of 2018 and 2019, which saw 1,181 thefts and 1,106 thefts, respectively. For cargo thefts, specifically, CargoNet experienced 797 in 2018, 758 in 2019, and 1,059 in 2020. In regards to solely vehicle thefts, the company had 810 in 2018, 676 in 2019, and 861 in 2020.

“My opinion–we’re still too early in the year, but almost halfway through–my prediction is we’re going to start to, and I hope–I really do hope for the industry–that we start to normalize [in 2021],” said Lewis.

For these numbers, any circumstances in which cargo was stolen, in addition to events when cargo thefts and vehicle thefts occurred simultaneously, comprise the numbers in the company’s cargo theft category. Vehicle theft numbers can also encompass situations involving dual thefts, but these numbers remain specific to the overall number of vehicles which were stolen in an event. Total theft events involve all thefts reported; however, only one event is recorded when a vehicle and cargo are stolen at the same time. Because of these overlapping events, the 1,502 cargo theft situations reported is lower than those of solely cargo thefts or solely vehicle thefts.

Data compiled by CargoNet comes from law enforcement, trucking companies, and other resources, and groups like the Travelers Cos. utilize CargoNet data to monitor thefts, along with their own investigative unit information.

“The majority of thefts involved both the cargo and the vehicles,” said Travelers Cos.’ vice president of transportation and crime, Scott Cornell. “We’ve definitely seen a big jump in 2020, and it started to come down through the fourth quarter into the first quarter of 2021, which was no surprise [and was] pretty much the pattern we expected.”

Luckily, these numbers have already continued to see improvement and companies are expecting their overall theft activity to return to numbers seen before the pandemic. For example, Cornell noted that 2021’s first quarter saw 289 thefts reported, as compared to 321 during quarter one of 2020.

Regardless, a chunk of theft activity was indeed unique to the events surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

“In the U.S., full-truckload thefts increased in 2020 by 25 percent as criminals targeted shipments of medical supplies and household supplies,” explained Sensitech’s supply chain intelligence director, Scott Martino. “U.S. pilferages also increased by 35%, as [fewer] organized criminals targeted cargo at rest stops and in storage locations. This is a very clear example of how economics and market equilibrium are particularly relevant in the illicit market.”

In fact, organized crime is usually at the bottom of full tractor-trailer combination thefts in an effort to reach the cargo onboard.

“These organized groups are strategically located in the United States,” explained Lewis. “They’re stealing the tractor-trailer for what’s on the trailer. Typically, they’re going within about 30 miles or so, they’re going to drop the tractor off somewhere, and they’re going to use their own tractor to continue on with the trailer to whatever their cross-dock is or the fencing operation.”

However, these kinds of thefts are not new–big economic changes can easily trigger this kinds of criminal activity.

“If we go back to 2008, when we saw the economic downturn, we saw tremendous increases in cargo thefts,” said Cornell. “And, we also saw shifts in what was being stolen.”

Before 2008, a majority of cargo thieves looked for electronics and other expensive items, but placed their focus more upon food and beverages when the U.S. was deep in recession during 2010. In 2020, though, the most sought-after items were, unsurprisingly, household goods.

“The things that household goods gives us an advantage with, in regards to recovery, is that [they don’t] disappear,” unlike food items, which are quickly consumed, Cornell said. “But [they are] not as traceable as electronics trend to be. So, that was a big change.”

Colonial Pipeline Cyberattack Brings Array of Waivers at State and Federal Levels

June 14, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack is causing state and federal government organizations to take effective courses of actions in response, including methods to help ease disruptions in truck movement. The ransomware attack, which is believed to have ties to a criminal gang, caused the network reaching from Texas all the way to New Jersey to immediately cease its operations.

For states that have been particularly impacted, a solution to help these effects is being offered by the U.S. Department of Transportation. States covered by presidential declarations of disaster–declarations released within the last four months–are able to transport overweight fuel and gasoline loads by using interstate highways, DOT announced.

“Each state must continue to follow its own procedures for issuance of special permits authorizing the loads, but the added flexibility announced today lawfully permits these trucks to run on the interstate highway system and other federal highways,” explained DOT in its announcement.

This state comes after another recent announcement released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration aiming to offer hours-of-service regulation relief to truck drivers operating within East Coast petroleum supply chains. The hours-of-service flexibility applied to the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington D.C., and West Virginia.

To efficiently assess the capacity of railroad operators to transport fuel between inland communities and coastal ports, the Federal Railroad administration has implemented a specific emergency action plan, and other DOT organizations have been actively making efforts as well.

For the permission of trucks to operate on interstate highways, previous presidential declarations have allowed such emergency protocol updates to last for up to four months, and those instated will be expiring at different times throughout the year. For example. Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia are covered for a while, but Maryland’s 120-day period will end in early June and Virginia’s in early September.

Pipeline operator qualification regulations have been temporarily relaxed for emergency workers needed to help the partial manual of the system get back up and running. This announcement, set forth by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, is only applicable to places operating without appropriate resources for the Colonial Pipeline–a result of the recent cyberattack.

The incident has brought forth responses from many state officials, including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s signing of a state of emergency which suspended state fuel taxes and permitted fuel haulers to bypass weigh stations. The state of emergency also prohibited fuel price gouging. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a state of emergency allowing the Florida Department of Transportation to waive restrictions on weight and size for divisible loads on vehicles that are actively helping in emergency response efforts.

Additionally, executive orders were signed by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam to allow state agencies to offer waivers to marshal public resources, by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to suspend motor vehicle regulations in an effort to allow state fuel supplies to be sufficient, and by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to waive hours-of-service requirements and weight restrictions for carriers.

“Many states are working in concert to minimize the disruption of fuel supplies,” said Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Secretary Jim Gray. “Our cabinet is doing its part to help ensure that needed relief gets to the affected areas.” Gray signed an order to suspend motor carrier restrictions involving the transportation of ethanol and petroleum to states that have been impacted by these interruptions.

A multi-agency response has also been implemented by the Biden administration, and includes the departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury, Energy, and Defense; the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and the Department of Transportation. To gain a better understanding of the cyberattack and its effects on energy and fuel supply, these organizations have been meeting regularly.

“ATA is aware of some locations being temporarily out of diesel fuel, but we are not hearing reports of it being a widespread issue yet,” said spokesman for American Trucking Associations, Sean McNally, who noted that other freight industry members are also doing their part to solve this problem. “We are closely monitoring the situation and are providing information to our members as needed.”