A few days ago, I got a chance to read the Supply Chain
Consortium’s latest report, Domestic
Transportation: Finding the Right Balance of Volume, Capacity and Pricing.
Of course I am biased, but I thought it was a must-read for any supply chain
leader who is concerned about transportation trends and costs.
The sidebar piece on the Hours of Service (HOS) and
Compliance, Safety Accountability (CSA) proposals makes some great points about
a couple of changes that could soon be happening within the industry. I’ll talk
about CSA in more detail in an upcoming blog, but today, I wanted to focus on
HOS.
Basically, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
(FMCSA) is proposing to increase safety by decreasing the number of hours
drivers are on the road. But, at the same time, these new proposals have some potentially
devastating negative effects on the industry.
The two main proposals
being touted are:
- Reducing the length of driving time each day
by one hour, allowing drivers to be on the road 10 hours a day, instead of
11.
- Adding a component to how “restarts” (essentially
weekends) are figured. Currently, a
driver’s “weekend” is calculated as 34 consecutive hours off. In the
proposed change, the 34 hours would need to include two periods of
downtime between midnight and 6 a.m.
This means a driver finishing his week just after midnight would
need to wait up to 57 hours before being eligible to drive again.
While the industry is not
happy about either HOS proposal, the second one is most perplexing, considering
that this rule would, effectively, mandate that a large percentage of drivers
begin their day during the peak morning rush hours. This idea hardly seems
conducive to increasing safety, since there aren’t as many cars on the road at
night.
Not to be overlooked is
the first issue, reducing the length of time an individual may drive by one hour
represents an effective 9% reduction in work force. I know unemployment is
still high but, the last time I checked, people weren’t lining up to become
over-the-road truck drivers.
Still, if these changes
were being proposed to solve a chronic problem and make our roads safer, it
would be hard to argue with them (regardless of the cost or imposition). I don’t
think anyone, including me, would argue that safety on the roads is not of great
concern.
However, the number of
fatalities caused by accidents involving large trucks has declined every single
year since 2004, including last year – the lowest number on record since the
stats started being kept. With all the challenges the economy continues to
face, enacting new laws that will constrict supply and increase costs in order
to solve a problem that is already under control doesn’t seem like time
well-spent.
Or is it a policy that
should be accommodated in order to ensure even safer roads? Like the title of
the report says, it may come down to “finding the right balance.” What do you
think?
Go!Go!Go!
Jim
More Resources:
Domestic
Transportation Report
Warren
Buffett's Ride on the Rails Is Paying Off, Businessweek
article
Transportation
Management and Reducing Costs in the Supply Chain
The Tompkins Supply Chain
Consortium
Photo Credit: sheqafrica