DOT compliance, driver productivity and data accuracy

We have been very busy here at Cadec lately working on the first release of our brand new PowerVue platform. Of course we build on the thirty years experience of mobile computing and many generations of DOT-compliant software within the company. The top priority is to capture all the driver activity correctly and make sure the system computes hours-of-service correctly depending on the DOT-rule in effect.

In order to collect the information form the driver most systems rely on manual driver input for things like duty status changes. This is true for the Cadec Mobius TTS system which we are improving on now with PowerVueTM. During the design of PowerVueTM we’ve found several ways to reduce manual input of the driver and improve accuracy at the same time. A good example is how we now handle stops. If a vehicle is in motion (automatically detected from the ECM) the driver has to be in DOT-drive status. When the vehicle stops we now wait a configurable period of time, say 5 minutes, and if we do not get any interaction from the driver during that period of time we prompt him for his activity. This way we remind the driver to register his activity correctly and when he does we can safely change his DOT-drive status from the beginning of the stop to DOT-On-Duty status associated with the particular activity. His DOT-drive hours are thereby minimized, we collect the correct timestamps without relying on the driver to push a button at a certain time and register the correct activity for payroll and/or data-mining.

Now a driver doing a delivery at a customer site can jump right out of the truck when he arrives and begin his delivery. When he comes back the on-board computer waits for him with a prompt for his activity, which he can then register just before leaving for the next stop. If he does not even bother registering the activity he only has to confirm his DOT-location and take off. In this case PowerVue will register his activity as an unknown stop and as we know his precise location we can later change that on-duty activity to a delivery at the customer in question but the drivers hours-of-service are correct and he is completely legal all the time.

Author: Heimir Sverrisson