Passenger vehicles are sharing busier and busier highways with more commercial vehicles – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in varying road conditions. While the importance of improving road safety is obvious, putting plans and rules into place that the transportation and logistics industry can easily adopt is a significant challenge.
Now that ELDs will be mandatory as of January 1, 2023 you will be pleasantly surprised to learn that it may help you run your operation more efficiently. Most ELDs on the market can minimize dangerous driving by sending reports of location and speed aswell as, tracking daily inspections to let you know of any potential problems that could become a safety issue. ELDs also provide a comprehensive solution to the electronic logging needs of the driver and fleet managers. Drivers and managers can use information from the ELD for better location tracking and better route management. Any Canadian certified ELD has been designed and tested to be fully compliant with government requirements.
Getting a head start on installing your ELD will give you an advantage in the industry with more time to learn and for training your drivers on the ins and outs of your new ELD system. Waiting for the deadline will mean fighting the potential backlog at the service facilities, so it may be best to beat the rush and find a facility that will install your equipment as early as possible.
Having a ELOG/ELD system installed and connected to your commercial vehicles can increase your productivity, by removing the headache of administrative work, providing options to monitor the status of your drivers and more. Automated records leave fewer issues for the driver to think about so they can focus on driving instead of trying to remember the last time the log was maintained or how many minutes are left on the clock before the next required rest stop or shift reset.
Improving safety for commercial drivers is the primary objective of the ELD mandate. With the mandate in place, the goal is to reduce driver fatigue, and accidents and manage Hours of Service (HoS) considerations. ELDs will make driving safer for everyone on the road. They accomplish this in more ways than the obvious benefit of helping to enforce a limit on the number of hours CMV drivers spend behind the wheel. The system keeps accurate records of the hours spent driving to ensure your drivers aren’t fatigued in order to keep them safe and compliant. Keeping records digitally minimizes the risk of data loss, as well as minimizing your cabinet filing space.
The ELD mandate applies to federally regulated carriers, which means over 250,000 commercial vehicles. This means that transportation businesses that operate across more than one province will lie under federal jurisdiction; meanwhile, operations within one province will classify as provincial jurisdiction. Many provinces now require the use of an ELOG/ELD.
The Canadian ELD mandate requires non-exempt commercial vehicles to use a certified ELD. There are limited exemptions in place, such as vehicle models dated 2000 or earlier due to the fact that they are not equipped with engine control. Currently, provincial regulations are left up to each province to decide if they want to implement the hardware into their commercial vehicles.
