Trucking Industry

$1 Trillion Infrastructure Improvement Bill Approved by Senate

August 21, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

In a 69-to-30 vote, senators have decided to approve the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act–legislation meant to help bring massive improvements to U.S. freight corridors, transit systems, and mobility networks.

The $1 trillion bill includes a variety of climate change and infrastructure improvement proposals from President Joe Biden’s “build back better” plan, and finally gained Senate approval this month. Around $550 billion in new funds will be allocated to bring long-needed boosts to a variety of transportation systems, tunnels, highways, and bridges through the new legislation, explained the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Additionally, around $100 billion of the package will be dedicated to specific road and bridge projects, $66 billion will be dedicated to freight and passenger rail programs, $65 billion will be dedicated to broadband internet improvements, $46 billion will be dedicated to climate change and severe weather resilience programs, $39 billion will be dedicated to specific transit improvement plans, and $25 billion will be dedicated to airport improvement efforts.

“Americans, and the hardworking men and women who carry this economy on trucks, have waited long enough for Washington to act on our decaying infrastructure,” said Chris Spear, American Trucking Associations President, one of many key industry stakeholders who have expressed their support in regards to this new bill.

“Today’s bipartisan vote on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a testament to what we can achieve when we set politics aside and work together for the good of the country,” added Senator Rob Portman of Ohio in a recent tweet. “This historic bill is the result of months of negotiations between [Republicans and Democrats]. Bipartisanship works!”

Portman was one of the political leaders who helped to create the new legislation.

“It will be a lasting bipartisan achievement to help the people we represent,” he said. “It’s going to improve the lives of all Americans. It’s long-term spending to repair and replace and build assets that will last for decades. In doing so, it does make life better for people.”

Portman also made clear that he, along with other policymakers, considered the people throughout the country for whom this kind of funding would make life much easier.

“It improves the life of the mom or dad who commutes to work and gets stuck in rush hour every day, who would much rather be spending that time with their family,” he said. “It improves the lives of people who are tired of those potholes. We all want to fix those potholes. We all hate them.”

Additionally, the bill will set forth an apprenticeship program for truck drivers under the age of 21 entering the workforce to be able to cross state lines in their commercial motor vehicles as a way to ease the current truck driver shortage. It would also approve a truck-leasing task force initiative and require the secretary of transportation to find the best methods of implementing side-underride guards for commercial vehicles.

Through the legislation, mandates would be set in place requiring that automatic emergency braking systems be implemented in some commercial vehicles, and The U.S. Department of Transportation would also be required to thoroughly analyze electronic logging device efficiency.

Finally, the legislation would allow for the reauthorization of the premier federal highway law, which was set to expire at the end of next month.

“Strong, reliable infrastructure represents more than pipes and pavement,” noted Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. “It represents the opportunities for Americans to visit loved ones, new businesses to open and compete globally, veterans to access tele-medicine, and children to learn in safe and effective ways.”

The bill will now move on to the House, where its projected outcome is not yet clear. The infrastructure package is expected to be explained in tandem with an overarching budget plan by Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she sets forth these plans’ legislative process.

House Transportation Chairman Peter DeFazio also plans to work on provision negotiations with the Senate, citing the passage of his recent multi-year highway policy update.

“I set out for several major objectives to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure, bring us into the 21st century, not do another iteration of the Eisenhower[-era] national highway program, but to actually begin to deal with current problems,” DeFazio explained.

Nitrogen Oxide Regulations Getting Major Upgrade from EPA

August 20, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

By the end of next year, new national emission standards will be finalized in an effort to reduce the amount of harmful air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty trucks.

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that starting in model year 2027, commercial motor vehicles will be subject to a series of significant rule-makings over the course of the next few years aiming to implement standards bringing a major reduction to the amount of nitrogen oxide pollution emitted from these trucks.

“This action will include an update of current greenhouse gas standards to capture market shifts to zero-emission technologies in certain segments of the heavy-duty vehicle sector,” said the EPA in a recent statement.

The current standard for nitrogen oxide pollution for on-highway, heavy-duty commercial motor vehicles is 0.20 grams per brake-horsepower-hour, and this particular standard for trucks and engines has not seen any changes for the last 20 years. In terms of its next standard, the specific target reduction in nitrogen oxide has not been made clear by EPA.

The agency’s new “Clean Trucks Plan” will aim to lower overall new heavy-duty vehicle emissions, including those emitted from commercial delivery trucks, buses, and long-haul tractors. This new rule will implement “more robust greenhouse gas emission standards” for all newly-manufactured heavy-duty commercial motor vehicles at least by the model year 2030, EPA has claimed.

“These new rules will be major steps toward improving air quality and addressing the climate crisis,” said the agency. Additionally, these regulations will help areas most in need of improved wellbeing, including many “overburdened and underserved communities,” as heavy-duty truck emission pollution is a major factor in poor health and air quality across the United States, EPA noted.

“Heavy-duty vehicles are the largest contributor–about 32%–to mobile source emissions of nitrogen oxide, which react in the atmosphere to form ozone and particulate matter,” explained the agency in its statement. “These pollutants are linked to respiratory and/or cardiovascular problems and other adverse health impacts that lead to increased medication use, hospital admissions, emergency department visits, and premature deaths.”

EPA has been under pressure by a variety of both local and state agencies throughout the nation urging the agency to find ways to largely reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from big-rigs, as many officials from these agencies are seeing poor health in their own areas due to low air quality and pollution.

“Such reductions are a critical part of many areas’ strategies to attain and maintain the health-based air quality standards, and to ensure that all communities benefit from improvements in air quality,” said EPA.

This month, President Joe Biden also signed an executive order mandating that at least half of all light-duty commercial motor vehicles be electric by 2030 in an effort to further reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

“We’re looking forward to continuing our discussions to educate and help form the next round of low nitrogen oxide standards,” said American Trucking Associations’ energy and environmental counsel, Glen Kedzie. “Likewise, ATA stands ready to be engaged with both EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the establishment of the next round of truck greenhouse gas and fuel-efficiency standards.”

Organizations across the country will need to work together to find the best methods of implementing these climate crisis-tackling standards and regulations, explained Kedzie.

“With clean technologies advancing at such a rapid pace, it’s inherent for federal agencies to understand how these technologies will be deployed and utilized within individual trucking operations,” he said.

In fact, some groups have found one aspect of trucking in which lowering greenhouse gas emissions should be one of the first areas of focus in regards to these new regulations.

“One area [in which] technologies can improve emission outcomes relates to trucks operating at what are known as ‘low loads,’” said EPA. “EPA’s analysis of trucking emissions has shown that current nitrogen oxide controls are not effective under certain low-load operating conditions, such as when trucks idle, move slowly, or operate in stop-and go traffic. Emission-control technologies that can help reduce nitrogen oxide emissions under low-load conditions now exist, and they represent one area [in which] EPA intends to focus as it develops a new nitrogen oxide regulation.”

Annual Roadcheck Event Takes 6,710 CMVs off North American Roadways

August 19, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Hours of service was the most cited driver out-of-service violation during this year’s International Roadcheck, accounting for 41.5% of all driver out-of-service violations,” said CVSA in a recent tweet, following the release of their latest annual Roadcheck numbers. “That’s 1,203 violations.”

During the annual International Roadcheck which took place between May 4th and May 6th, CVSA inspectors took 6,710 commercial motor vehicles off of North American roadways and 2,080 total drivers off of roadways, which came out to a 16.5% commercial vehicle out-of-service rate and a 5.3% driver out-of-service rate for the continent.

The annual International Roadcheck takes place across Mexico, Canada, and the United States through a CVSA program initiative, with collaboration from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Guard, Transport Canada, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, and Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transportation.

The three-day event was an inspection and enforcement effort of high-visibility and high-volume; this year’s event saw more than 40,000 commercial motor vehicle inspections be conducted. Of those, around 83.5% of all commercial vehicles did not have any out-of-service violations.

Still, the most highly-cited out-of-service violation for drivers was hours of service violations, making up 41.5% of all violations and totaling 1,203 citations. Along with hours of service, lighting was another major category in which inspectors accounted for violations. 14.1% of all violations were in this category, making it the third-most-cited violation for out-of-service vehicles and coming out to 1,367 of these particular violations.

Commercial motor vehicles and combination trucks, non-cargo tank HM/DG trucks and combinations, motor coaches and buses, and cargo tank hazardous materials and dangerous goods trucks and combinations were all inspected during the annual Roadcheck initiative by CVSA-certified inspectors. These professionals conducted these inspections throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico at designated inspection stations, weigh stations, and other designated roadside locations.

“Inspectors performed 23,135 Level I Inspections and removed 5,048 vehicles (21.8%) and 1,200 (5.2%) drivers from roadways due to the discovery of critical vehicle or driver inspection item violations as identified in the CVSA North American Standard Out-of-service Criteria,” explained CVSA.

This kind of inspection–the North American Standard Level I Inspection–is a 37-step process and was the primary method of inspections conducted during the event. 2020’s Roadcheck event was delayed due to the pandemic and finally took place between September 9th and September 11th, finding an out-of-service rate for commercial vehicles of 20.9% throughout the continent. This was a considerable increase from 2019’s out-of-service rate, which came out to be 17.9%–a surprising boost in regards to to the lessened roadway traffic that came from the pandemic era.

Additionally, although overall miles driven dropped by 13% in 2020 with shelter-in-place orders active throughout North America, roadway fatalities rose by 24% in 2020 as compared to 2019, according to the National Safety Council’s figures in CVSA’s recent news release.

During 2020, the fourth-most-cited driver violation was the “failure to use a seat belt while operating a commercial motor vehicle,” which totaled more than 32,000 violations of this kind just in the United States, according to the Management Information System data released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. During 2021’s Roadcheck event, only 773 seat belt usage violations were found throughout the entire continent, with 464 cited in the United States, 305 in Canada, and just four in Mexico.

In regards to the most commonly-cited violations found during the 2021 International Roadcheck event, the top five for commercial motor vehicle drivers were having the wrong class license (565 citations making up 19.5%), having false or inadequate logs (427 citations making up 14.7%), having a suspended license (132 citations making up 4.6%), hours-of-service violations (1,203 citations making up 41.5%), or other various violations (482 citations making up 16.6%).

For commercial motor vehicles themselves, the top five violations this year were issues with tires (1,804 citations making up 18.6%), lights (1,367 citations making up 14.1%), brake systems (2,564 citations making up 26.5% percent), brake adjustment capabilities (1,203 citations making up 12.4%), and cargo securement capabilities (1,192 citations making up 12.3%).

Ways to Find Young, Safe Drivers is Focus of Latest Initiative by ATRI

August 18, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Due to the current national truck driver shortage, the industry is focusing on recruiting eligible drivers in the 18-to-20-year-old range, and new efforts will help industry experts determine the safest drivers in this group.

This new assessment tool is in development through the American Transportation Research Institute and will aim to find the best interstate commercial drivers in this young age range. Still in beta testing, the Young Driver Assessment Tool is an initiative meant to help identify which drivers are the most likely to be especially safe. These determinations come at the hands of specific safety profiles that focus on mental health, physiological traits, and personality aspects of a driver.

“ATRI’s Young Driver Assessment Tool can potentially identify those new entrant drivers who share the same personality attributes as safe, mature, veteran drivers,” explained Rebecca Brewster, President of ATRI. “We look forward to expanding our pilot test to include more younger drivers to further validate the tool’s accuracy.”

In the original assessment initiative, drivers of differing experience levels, ages, and overall safety performance were analyzed during the testing of drivers with a median age of 47–16 drivers were under the age of 30. As of now, drivers 21 and younger are federally prohibited from working across state lines and must only work within intrastate commerce with various freight restrictions also in place.

During initial testing, drivers underwent a myriad of evaluations involving aspects such as sleep quality, cognitive control, impulsivity, reasoning, sensation-seeking, and other personality traits. Then, their overall safety performance was determined by analyzing pre-employment screening data as well as their state motor vehicle records. These records offered data regarding past accident involvement and other safety violations.

The safest group of commercial drivers, according to ATRI’s findings, included those who scored the lowest in the “experience seeking” category and the highest in the “conscientiousness and agreeableness” category. Those who were found to be not-so-safe demonstrated particular cognitive control issues and had much larger reactions regarding “multi-source interference task” conflicts.

“Given all the internal and external pressures on driver recruitment and retention, it is safe to say that the driver shortage crisis is not going away,” said Joyce Brenny, CEO of Brenny Transportation.

Within the beta test, it was made clear that age-related differences regarding safety were prevalent in terms of a driver’s overall performance, although the safety differences were also visible among older drivers who had been driving for shorter periods of time. Still, the assessment tool’s overarching goal is to find the drivers between the ages of 18 and and 21 who have the qualities of highly-experienced and safe drivers.

“We need to find ways to expand the pool of safe truck drivers, and ATRI’s preliminary research indicates that safe, younger drivers can be found,” Brenny continued.

Because of this belief, Brenny Transportation has established an apprenticeship initiative to be able to train young drivers entering the trucking world more efficiently.

“At Brenny, our young-driver apprentice program has a proven track record,” Brenny explained. “Proper training and mentoring of young individuals who want to become truck drivers does work.”

With current projected freight growth, the driver shortage could rise from 60,000 to 100,000 by 2023, ATRI estimates. Employer competition and oncoming retirements of older truckers affect these numbers as well. For instance, 27.4% of the trucking workforce is over the age of 55, and the trucking industry’s present reliance upon those particular workers means employers will need to boost numbers of potentially qualified drivers.

ATRI has been working on solving the problems surrounding driver recruitment for six years by finding methods of determining which young and qualified people would be the safest and best candidates to enter the trucking workforce. ATRI also plans to expand its beta testing to a larger driver sample and to also expand safety performance attributes and qualities for drivers being tested.

The DRIVE-Safe Act, a federal initiative to allow young drivers to operate vehicles across state lines following apprenticeship programs and strict training (while operating special safety technology-equipped trucks) has been backed by American Trucking Associations and many other groups throughout the industry.

AV Tech and Electrification Changing Truck Market for Good, Paccar Inc. Says

August 12, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The commercial truck market is changing–rapidly. Features like autonomous driving capabilities, electrification, and virtually-connected vehicles are making their way through the industry as more innovative technologies infiltrate the automotive sector as a whole.

“Those are the core technology pillars that are converging at the same time and forcing change,” said the new chief technology officer for Paccar inc., John Rich. Paccar recently showcased two zero-emission Class 8 commercial trucks at the U.S. Capitol, and claimed that the future of both medium- and heavy-duty trucks relies on these trends.

Rich came onboard Paccar after 30 years at Ford Motor Co. as the company’s director of global strategy and of autonomous vehicle technologies.

Paccar also unveiled its battery-powered Peterbilt Model 579 EV, along with a a hydrogen fuel cell-electric Kenworth T680, at the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters. Members of Congress and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm were in attendance.

Peterbilt and Kenworth, which operate under Paccar, have formally introduced their three battery-electric models, although the company’s fuel cell trucks are still in development.

“We’ve made our first deliveries of [electric] trucks,” said Rich. “There’s a lot of talk, a lot of pilot projects, a lot of test fleets, a lot of samples, but cold, hard cash for a truck is a rarity, and we’ve done that in a couple of places.”

For these efforts to be as efficient and widespread as possible, Rich believes that a strong government and trucking industry collaboration is key.

“We’re trying to stress that this is not an industry that’s afraid of the change,” he explained. “We’re just trying to get it done at a measured and predictable pace that works for the industry and works for the economy.”

Additionally, some of the “very important building blocks” for this process include grants and other government incentives to help alleviate some of the bigger overall costs that come in hand with the implementation of electric vehicles and the infrastructure needed to keep them charged, Rich added.

Other key collaborative efforts include those between autonomous vehicle companies and the vehicle manufacturers themselves–efforts which have been focusing heavily upon commercial truck automation much more than the automation of taxi and ride share services–an area that many feel may cause for business overlap.

“We know our swim lanes and our businesses run nicely in parallel with each other,” said Rich.

In fact, Paccar has been partnering with Aurora, a self-driving truck maker, to develop SAE Level 4 autonomous vehicles and to work toward boosting advanced driver-assist capabilities.

These kinds of self-driving vehicles could help alleviate some of the obstacles the trucking industry has been facing in regards to the current driver shortage, as well–particularly within long haul trucking, Rich believes.

“If we can relieve some of that pressure and improve the quality of jobs for people to actually get home and get to see their families in a hub-and-spoke model, it’s a wonderful thing for everyone,” said Rich. “I firmly believe in the safety, job quality, and efficiency improvements that are possible.”

Rich also noted that “extraordinarily high tech” diesel trucks will be making their way into the industry in order to meet the 2027 federal emissions standards, an initiative that will work alongside the latest electric-powered vehicles and autonomous driving tech that have been entering the trucking industry recently.

“You can’t argue that anybody–any segment of the industry–is going to be more advanced than that,” he said. “There’s no second fiddle in this space.”

Operations and vehicle uptime will also see major improvements with the advancement of connected-vehicle technology, Rich noted.

“We haven’t even imagined some of the benefits that we’re going to get out of that,” he said.

Overall, autonomous trucking capabilities will be a huge component in the quest to improve trucking efficiency and safety for the country as a whole.

“The technologies will work,” Rich said, explaining that it will still take time. “You have to be patient with it.”

Legislation Underway to Repeal Truck Excise Tax

August 7, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

As a way to help bring further modernization to the American freight industry, a pair of U.S. senators have introduced a proposal that would repeal the excise tax placed on new truck and trailer purchases.

Highway and freight committee policymakers Senators Ben Cardin of Maryland and Todd Young of Indiana have proposed a new bill that would withdraw the current 12% tax on truck sales–a tax that has been implemented for over 100 years in the United States and is considered to be one of the highest excise taxes levied on any product throughout the country. The repeal of this tax would come as part of 2021’s bipartisan Modern, Clean, and Safe Trucks Act.

“The federal excise tax disproportionately impacts electric and alternative-fueled trucks–which currently have a higher upfront cost–at a time when adoption of these technologies is needed to accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles and the reduction of carbon pollution from transportation,” the legislation explained.

Clean power-implementing and fleet-modernizing technologies that are making waves in the domestic truck industry could see many of their private investment opportunities diminished, some of the current tax’s opponents claim.

“Our tax policy is one of the most effective ways Congress can encourage cleaner and green energy,” noted Cardin. “The current federal excise tax has become a barrier to the progress. I am proud to support Maryland manufacturers in their efforts to innovate and deploy cleaner and safer technologies in our trucking industry. Our legislation will spur growth and competitiveness while making our roads safer and less polluted.”

A variety of House transportation policymakers have been working to repeal the tax over the last few years, as many of them believe a change in this kind of legislation is well overdue.

“It’s time to repeal this outdated and onerous tax on our Hoosier truckers,” Senator Young said. “Our bipartisan bill will open the floodgates to investment in safer and cleaner trucks and trailers that will benefit our economy and the environment.”

The excise tax, which came about in the early 20th century, has been able to increase a new truck or trailer’s cost by around $21,000, according to industry analysts. Because of this, various stakeholders, such has the American Truck Dealers (a National Automobile Dealers Association division) and American Trucking Associations have also been voicing their agreement with efforts to repeal the tax.

“The federal excise tax on heavy trucks is a relic from the First World War that’s now serving to keep cleaner, safer trucks off of our nation’s roads today,” explained American Trucking Associations president, Chris Spear. “By repealing this antiquated tax, Congress can deliver a win for the environment, highway safety, manufacturing jobs, and supply chain efficiency. We thank Senators Young and Cardin for their bipartisan leadership in advancing a common-sense solution to the benefit of American truckers and the motoring public.”

Fleets that are working to implement the newest, safest trucks (that are also best for the environment) shouldn’t be punished for doing so, many trucking companies say.

”Cummins supports Senators Young and Cardin’s effort to repeal the outdated and burdensome federal excise tax on heavy duty trucks,” said Cummins Inc.’s president and chief operating officer, Jennifer Rumsey. “This tax penalizes those who want to adopt the cleanest, most advanced technologies to reduce emissions and improve safety, and repealing it will help ensure the most efficient technologies are being deployed. We applaud Senators Young and Cardin’s leadership on this issue [of importance] to the environment, our customers, and our communities.”

Additionally, because so many fleets’ trucks need major updates–and soon–an excise for this tax is of the utmost importance for the nation and the efficiency of its trucking industry.

“On behalf of the trucking industry, we thank Senator Young and Senator Cardin for the bipartisan legislation to repeal the [federal excise tax], which will result in cleaner, safer trucks on the road,” said American Truck Dealers chairman, Steve Bassett. “With most heavy-duty trucks over 10 years old, passing this bill is crucial to help America modernize its aging truck fleet.”