The better to see you with
Machine learning and the Internet of Things can help real-time visibility tools produce more accurate ETAs because they can account for factors that might otherwise go unreported in a check call.
“For a truer ETA, companies are using IoT data from trucks to get a better understanding of driver behavior, such as typical driving speeds and times, as well as how they operate in heavily congested areas,” said Chris Cunnane, writing in ARC Advisory’s Logistics Viewpoints. “Companies can take sensor data from trucks and incorporate hours-of-service rules to know when, where and for how long a driver needs to stop.”
Keep it moving
“We know we have to work on it.” That’s what FMCSA Acting Administrator Robin Hutcheson told journalists during the Mid-America Trucking Show last week.
Answers are elusive when it comes to parking and restroom access for truck drivers. Nearly 70% of drivers admit to violating HOS rules to find parking and 96% have had to park in areas not designed for trucks. FMCSA has been working on the issue for years.
There are solutions at the state level. Legislators in Washington state passed bills requiring the state’s seaports to allow drivers to use restrooms, and directing all 47 state-owned and -operated rest areas to remain open to truck parking.
Long Covid
China began its most extensive coronavirus lockdown in two years this week to control a growing outbreak in Shanghai. Manufacturing and cargo transport in the area is expected to grind to a halt. Forwarders expected factories to suspend manufacturing and transport between the airport and container terminals to be limited.
Here in the U.S., “We really are moving toward an endemic and getting away from the pandemic,” Paul Bingham, supply chain transportation economics consultant at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said during a Transport Topics webinar. “We’ve come through omicron, and there’s no sign that the next wave is going to keep people at home and out of work.”
In the U.S., the BA.2 variant isn’t yet dominant but it’s forcing substantial shifts in the country’s approach to controlling the pandemic.
Risk lessons from a Ukrainian procurement leader
Procurement specialists across all categories—even those who aren’t in Ukraine—should develop a risk plan with at least two contingencies for sources and logistics, said IPSM CEO Maryna Trepova, whose consultancy is based in Kyiv.
Risk assessments should be ongoing “because geopolitical factors are constantly changing,” Trepova said. She emphasized the need for agility: “While coronavirus forced us to pay more attention to our local markets, Ukraine is now facing the opposite situation. Sourcing locally is a good thing. But we must find the balance between local market approaches and worldwide approaches and be able to swiftly switch.”
Holiday roads
Who wouldn’t want a fuel-tax holiday? Truckers, apparently, who say temporarily suspending diesel fuel taxes would only help fuel suppliers and mean less money to maintain roads.
“I don’t think they’re going to do anything for the trucking industry,” said Lewie Pugh, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, referring to a tax holiday. “No matter where they bought fuel, they still have to pay the tax in each state for the miles they run.”
Fuel taxes are typically collected at both the federal and state level. At the federal level, 18.4 cents per gallon for gas and 24.3 cents per gallon for diesel goes to the federal government. A suspension of the federal gas tax for the rest of the year would likely cost the Highway Trust Fund $20 billion in revenue.