Europe provides example for EOBRs, but important differences remain

The U.S. Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration hopes to take the next step on driver compliance within the next year or two, pushing for the adoption of electronic on-board recorders to track drivers' Hours of Service.

But the U.S. trucking sector has fought tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of EOBRs, arguing that the proposed rules would allow for unacceptable harassment of drivers. At the same time, Bloomberg reports that the American Trucking Associations has brought a complaint against the FMCSA to the U.S. Court of Appeals, challenging the HOS rules themselves.

Transport Topics reports that EOBRs are not this kind of a contentious issue everywhere, however.

In Europe, analog tachographs, that region's term for these kinds of monitors, have been in use since 1986. These older devices recorded the basic information about a vehicle's activity on a waxed paper disc, which was then sent away from conversion into usable data.

Starting in 2006, Europe has required the use of digital tachographs, or EOBRs, for all vehicles weighing more than around 7,700 pounds. Unlike the analog versions of the devices, these digital devices allow for the easy monitoring of HOS on a person-by-person basis.

These EOBRs make use of a personalized driver card that must be inserted into the device in order to operate the vehicle. Including an embedded microchip similar to the "chip and PIN" credit cards that are common in Europe, these cards can store a variety of information on the driver that can then be downloaded to a central location to be submitted to regulators.

The U.K.-based carrier Turners of Soham has even been developing a system that would allow drivers to upload their information remotely from their vehicles on an automated system, helping to reduce the amount of time required to manage HOS.

"It’s made management a lot easier. In the past, we had to send our tachograph discs away for analysis," Tony Christie, owner of TC Transport, told Transport Topics. "Now I just download every month, and the vehicle and driver analysis is done on an office computer. I couldn’t say that it has leveled the playing field, but it has certainly made our job a lot easier."

The systems are not entirely without flaws. Many drivers voiced strenuous objections when it was found that early iterations of the devices rounded up minutes, often leading to as much as half an hour of lost time each day for drivers with many stops.

Though that issue was quickly addressed, many others have pointed out that EOBRs require a certain degree of technical literacy that many drivers and shipping companies simply do not have.

"If your operation is staffed by drivers and administrative staff who are fully up to speed . . . then the shift to digital tachographs should not prove too onerous. But if they’re not, then you can expect problems," Graham Bellman, group transport manager at Travis Perkins PLC, told the news source. "An owner-driver friend of mine has no computer — there are people who do not have a computer at home or in their office and have no interest in doing so, either. He will stop trading when he needs to switch over to a digital tachograph. It’s very easy — but wrong — to assume more IT knowledge than actually exists."

Perhaps more importantly for the U.S. trucking industry, the news source notes that many European drivers are less likely to reach the legal HOS limits, since most drivers are paid hourly. In the U.S., where pay is often determined by mile, many more drivers approach their limit, raising the specter of harassment that many in the industry have worried over in the EOBR debate.

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