Requirements for Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs)

According to the FMCSA’s official announcement, the ELD rule will “improve roadway safety by employing technology to strengthen commercial truck and bus drivers’ with hours-of-service regulations that prevent fatigue.” In other words, the point of the ELD rule is to increase compliance with hours of service requirements.

Roughly half of the trucking industry has not taken the steps towards the ELD. This is especially pronounced among smaller carriers. We recommend that you do not to wait until the deadline to start using the ELDs in your fleet – most current users have experienced an adoption curve when it comes to getting all their drivers and staff, compliant.

We are here to help!

When it comes to technology and staying compliant with regulations set forth by the FMCSA, it is essential to choose a partner who is willing to grow with you. Our team of experts can help you stay ahead of potential issues by bringing together telematics solutions that are easy to use with in-cab mobile connected device and help you to be compliant. Best of all, Connected Vehicles solutions are scalable – so you get what you need and add other solutions as needed.

An ELD can automatically record Hours of Service (HOS), engine hours, vehicle movement, miles/KM driven, driving time and vehicle location. All by synchronizing with and collecting data from the Commercial vehicle engine. Benefits of using ELDs over paper logs:

• You save time — You have more time to focus on your business and what matter to you. • You save money — You lower your administration costs and spend less on paper logs.
• Risk of error is reduced, significantly.
• It makes compliance so much simpler and easier – your record keeping is more efficient.

We have put together a list of FMCSA requirements for ELD to help you understand a bit more about the ELDs.

• ELDs must be securely mounted in the truck. This is simply to ensure that the ELD is sliding around on the dash or the seat or sitting in the driver’s lap.
• ELDs must be portable. It is requirement for a driver to physically hand the ELD to law enforcement and other compliance officers, so that the officers do not have to climb into the cab.
• ELDs must display specific information. An ELD must display all the relevant data including the driver’s name, carrier name and address, total engine hours, total miles for each drive period, and if there’s been any malfunction in the ELD itself.
• ELDs must be tamper-proof. Not only that, the ELDs must show if they’ve been unplugged for any reason.
• ELD must capture date and time, location, engine hours and the vehicle identification number. This is to ensure that the device is capturing the proper time from the truck that the driver is in.
• ELD must maintain the original record. An ELD’s original drive records must be preserved. A driver can make annotations if something needs to be changed but it must include the initials of the person making the change.
• ELD data must be encrypted. All information must be kept secure and encrypted.
• Anyone accessing the ELD system should be clearly identified and their usage must be tracked. This includes any who accesses the data in the ELD or the ELD itself, must be identified clearly. It may include the managers, drivers, mechanics and others.
• All drive time must be recorded in the ELD. Any unassigned drive time must be accounted for and assigned to a driver.
• ELDs must track and record all engine start-up and stop times. ELDs should be connected to the truck’s electronic control module and should record whenever an engine is started and stops.
• ELDs must record location information at specified times and intervals. ELDs must capture location either at change of duty status or at least once an hour while driving.
• ELD must be capable of showing start and stop of personal conveyance and yard time. FMCSA is considering personal conveyance and yard time in a truck to be off-duty drive segments.
• FMCSA has limited the automatic changes of duty status that ELDs can make to only two. The ELD must switch to “drive” status as soon as the truck starts rolling; also, if the truck stops moving for five minutes, the ELD will prompt the driver to see if he or she is still driving. If the driver doesn’t then interact with the device in any way, the device will kick the driver out of ‘drive’ status and into ‘on duty/not driving.

This is by no means a complete list but we hope it serves as a good place to start the conversation.