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Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao

Transportation officials nationwide who are seeking a federal boost to help advance major freight or highway projects may find it in the form of a federal grant.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced this week that slightly more than $900 million has been made available for the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America, or INFRA, grants.

Applications for the grants will be accepted through Feb. 25. Entities interested in vying for a grant are asked to emphasize national and regional economic vitality, a strategy for attracting nonfederal sources of funding, innovative technology and accountability.

“The nation’s industry depends on the transportation network to move the goods that it produces, and facilitate the movements of the workers who are responsible for that production,” according to a Notice of Funding Opportunity the department unveiled Jan. 13. “When the nation’s highways, railways and ports function well, that infrastructure connects people to jobs, increases the efficiency of delivering goods and thereby cuts the costs of doing business, reduces the burden of commuting and improves overall well-being.”

The grants are designed to assist various aspects of an infrastructure project. Eligible projects include highway freight corridors on the National Highway Freight Network, highway or bridge projects on the National Highway System, projects that would increase capacity on the Interstate System and an intermodal or rail project. At least a quarter of the grants would be provided for rural projects, according to DOT.

“The department will invest more than $900 million in major projects that will improve transportation infrastructure, economic productivity and quality of life across our nation,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao indicated.

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The FMCSA admits that fatal crashes involving large trucks have increased by 5.7% over the last three years.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced a major new study into the underlying causes behind fatal large truck crashes.

In a Request for Information document to be published in the Federal Register on January 15, 2020, the FMCSA announced plans to begin a groundbreaking new study into the causal factors in large truck crashes — dubbed the Large Truck Crash Causal Factors Study (LTCCFS).

The FMCSA pointed to a rise in truck crash fatalities as a reason for the study: “Over the last three years (2016- 2018), fatal crashes involving large trucks increased 5.7 percent. This study will help FMCSA identify factors that are contributing to the growth in fatal large truck crashes, and in both injury and property damage only (PDO) crashes. These factors will drive new initiatives to reduce crashes on our nations roadways.”

The FMCSA says that they “seek information on how best to design and conduct a study to identify factors contributing to all FMCSA reportable large truck crashes (towaway, injury and fatal).”

The agency says that the purpose of the study is “to yield information that will help FMCSA and the truck safety community to identify activities and other measures likely to lead to significant reductions in the frequency, severity, and crash rate involving commercial motor vehicles.”

The FMCSA laid out three specific goals for the LTCCFS study:

1. Evaluate crashes involving large trucks and identify emerging trends;
2. Monitor crash trends and identify causes and contributing factors; and
3. Develop effective safety improvement policies and programs.

The announcement of the LTCCFS comes just months after worrisome new statistics showed an uptick in fatal crashes involving large trucks in 2018 that corresponded with the first full year that the Electronic Logging Device Mandate was in effect for most truck drivers.

In October 2019, the NHTSA released a report on crash fatalities in 2018 — the first full year since the FMCSA required most truckers to start using ELDs to track Hours of Service compliance in December of 2017. The FMCSA promised that the ELD Mandate would “help create a safer work environment for drivers.”

While there was a 2.4% decrease in crash fatalities for all drivers, the NHTSA data showed that fatal crashes involving large trucks actually increased by 0.9%.

During a similar study conducted by the FMCSA in 2001 — 2003, the FMCSA said that “a primary finding of the study was that in the vast majority of crashes where the critical reason for the crash was assigned to the large truck, it was attributed to a driver-related action or inaction.”

The FMCSA will be accepting public comments on the study for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. For more information on how you can submit your comments once the comment period officially opens, please click here.

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Starting this summer, Massachusetts will begin renumbering exits on interstates and other freeways based on milepost numbers.

The state’s Department of Transportation says the new system offers several advantages including:

• allows drivers to quickly determine distances to destinations
• miles traveled can be calculated more easily
• more accurate emergency response
• same exit numbering scheme as almost all other states
• easier to add future exits without renumbering entire corridor

In addition to new numbers, exits will also have “Old Exit” signs displayed for at least two years, according to MassDOT.

You can see an interactive map detailing existing exits and what their new numbers will be on a website with details about the project, which is expected to cost $2.8. You can also make comments about the program online. MDOT is also holding numerous public meetings to explain the program.

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Man charged with first-degree murder of driver on I-269 outside Memphis after authorities circulated chilling photos captured by camera inside tractor-trailer.

Photos of the suspect captured by the in-can cab in slain trucker Dajuante Stuart

A man was charged Thursday with shooting a truck driver on I-269 outside Memphis, Tennessee, after an in-cab video captured the suspected killer, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said.

James Huddleston, 27, was arrested after his father identified him as the person in images captured by an in-cab camera in Dajuante Stuart’s tractor-trailer, WKRN news reported, citing court documents.

Stuart, 30, was found shot to death in his tractor-trailer on Wednesday. Authorities subsequently released images of a person of interest from video recorded on Stuart’s in-cab camera.

An arrest warrant states that the video shows the man talking with Stuart before entering the cab, WKRN reported. After a gunshot is heard, the man drags Stuart and shoots him again, the warrant states, according to WKRN.

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New York Express and Logistics will shut down after losing a contract with DHL, the company said in a filing in New York state.

The company completed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act filing in New York, citing the loss of a contract with DHL as the reason for the shutdown of New York Express and Logistics in Latham, New York. In all, 48 employees will be affected as of March 31, 2020. The filing, entered into the New York WARN database Dec. 30, 2019, says locations in East Syracuse, Rochester and Depew, New York, will all be affected.

It is unclear from the WARN filing what services New York Express and Logistics provided DHL, and the company does not appear to have an active website.

New York Express and Logistics is a subsidiary of North East FreightWays, based in Hooksett, New Hampshire. North East does business under Land Air Express. Land Air is a large provider of less-than-truckload and truckload direct next day services in the Northeast.

Chris Kalavantis, operations manager, declined comment on the filing, referring all questions to North East FreightWays. The phone number for North East is managed by Land Air. A request for comment left with Bob McDermott, vice president of Land Air, was not returned by publication.

Companies are required to file WARN Act notices when laying off 25 or more employees or closing a plant that affects more than 25 employees. The filing must give 60 days’ notice prior to any formal layoffs.

Economic conditions, insurance liability increases and a general overcapacity in the marketplace after some fleets expanded to meet 2018 demand led to many high-profile closures of carriers in 2019.

Celadon, New England Motor Freight, Falcon Transport and LME are among the companies that closed in 2019. In all, it is expected that carrier closures led to more than 50,000 power units being removed from the marketplace.

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A Breakdown of Hub, Practical and Short

The trucking world can be confusing at times and no where else is this more obvious than the trucking world’s use of the term mile.

Since the default pricing variable for trucking is the mile,  it has always been in the carrier’s best interest to line up their expenses (or inputs) to match this variable. The largest expense for trucking companies is driver compensation. For those people outside of trucking, it would be natural to assume that:

1)      Driver picks up load; and

2)      Drives X miles to deliver load; and

3)      Gets paid for all of those miles. The end.

Here is where it gets confusing, a ‘mile’ at one company does not necessarily equal a ‘mile’ at another. In fact, there are three main types of mileage calculations utilized by trucking companies, and the differences between them, depending on origin and destination can be significant. This has long been a point of frustration with drivers, making it difficult to not only understand what they will be paid, but it also makes it difficult to compare compensation amounts between companies.

Let’s start with the most accurate mileage type first – Hub miles. The way to think of Hub miles is simply the total miles the truck is driven in the process of delivering a load. The word ‘hub’ is a reference to the hubodometer, a measurement device which was installed on a truck’s axle back when odometers were not considered reliable instruments. Today, that’s not the case, and the odometer is considered the source of truth for reporting hub miles. The miles travelled are stored in the tractor’s ECM and transmitted to various databases used by trucking companies via various wireless and manual methods. In recent years, there has been a growing trend of companies starting to pay drivers based on hub miles, as the competition for experienced, professional drivers has increased.

The next type of mile on the spectrum of accuracy, are Practical Miles. The starting point in the calculation of practical miles is locating the nearest U.S. Post Office for both your origin and destination locations. Using the base information, services such as PC Miler (Trimble) or Intelliroute (Rand McNally) calculate the most likely (or practical) mileage based on truck-specific/designated routes. Practical mile calculations place a higher priority on interstate highway routes over toll and secondary highways. Progressive fleets have been using practical miles for decades, for the purposes of calculating driver compensation. Using practical miles as opposed to hub miles, allows carriers to establish a benchmark target or standard for each load, and a natural incentive not to deviate from that target.

The final and oldest mileage type (for the purposes of freight hauling) are Short Miles. Short miles, otherwise known as HHG (Household Goods) miles are still used today by some carriers, even though the mileage deviation from hub miles can be as much as 15%. HHG miles were originally developed by the Department of Defense, as a way of establishing an upper limit on the cost of moving servicemen and women across the country. Short miles are similar to practical miles in that the base calculation starts with the distance between the nearest post offices within each zip code area. However, this is where the similarities end. With short miles, the calculation to determine mileage does not take into account the most efficient (interstate highways) route for getting from origin to destination. It simply provides a low-end benchmark for the least number of driveable miles between two points, regardless of infrastructure or typical congestion.

Since driver payroll is a multi-variable calculation, it is possible for a driver to make more money, while being paid based on short miles. Likewise, it is possible that a driver could get paid less with hub miles, relative to other carriers on the same routes. Drivers must understand their base rate per mile, the mileage type, plus any bonuses, per diem pay, and benefits to truly evaluate or benchmark their compensation with other carriers. Conversely, it is in the carrier’s best interest to educate their drivers on their ‘effective’ compensation rate per mile.

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