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Electronic parking brakes have started replacing hydraulic e-brakes across the automotive industry, but the technology has not yet found its way into light trucks.
The 2018 Ford F-150 will be the first to change that. The new full-size pickup features an electronic park brake, or EPB, made by supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG, the first heavy-duty EPB in the world for a light truck.
A panel of owner-operators and drivers on the final day of the Great American Trucking Show in part illustrated a shift that’s been noted by many carriers and drivers in the past who’ve made the switch from paper logs to today’s e-log platforms for hours of service recording. Overdrive reporting on the mandate has discussed the dynamic before; it’s one encapsulated by a couple sentences in the April installment in the E-log Shift series:
The future of trucking and transportation will involve three main elements: connectivity, electromobility and automation. Each one is evolving in its own right, but the forthcoming convergence of the three is what will create a paradigm shift in the world of transportation.
That’s the belief of Volvo Group Chief Technology Officer Lars Stenqvist, who hosted a roundtable discussion with media at the House of Sweden in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.
Many cities around the world are sketching new roadmaps for moving citizens and commuters around streets and neighborhoods, driven in large part by concerns over unmanageable traffic congestion and vehicle emissions.
Far fewer are actively addressing an equally serious issue, ensuring that goods freighted by delivery fleets and logistics services are part of the masterplan for a more sustainable transportation system.
And that looks like a big oversight.
The former head of a Tucson truck-driving school is facing 16 felony counts, accused of embezzling nearly $1 million from students and his ex-employer.
Robert Alan Knapp, fired in 2015 as director of HDS Truck Driving Institute, was indicted by a grand jury last month on 10 counts of bank fraud, five counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of federal student-aid fraud.
Knapp, 69, who ran the school for more than 10 years, pleaded not guilty at his Sept. 1 arraignment in U.S. District Court in Tucson.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association filed a petition Tuesday with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration pointing out that 26 states have not yet incorporated an electronic logging regulation into state law and are not authorized to enforce the rule until they do so.
OOIDA supports a proposed delay to the mandate because of what it says are a growing number of reasons including the lack of preparedness of all law enforcement agencies nationwide.
A U.S. Senate committee is considering whether legislation dealing with the future of self-driving cars should also pave the way to self-driving trucks, considering the impact such technology could have on millions of workers.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing Wednesday on automated vehicles focusing on the future of self-driving commercial trucks and 3.5 million commercial truck drivers nationwide.
Spot rates for shipping goods are on the rise as efforts begin to rebuild the areas of Texas and Florida that were hit by the recent hurricanes.
Industrywide, rates could rise by 5 to 7 percent in the next few weeks as trucks strain to get everything from food to roof trusses into parts of Houston and the Southeast hit hardest by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Difficult to reach areas could push rates in select circumstances up as high as 50 percent.
Nearly 60 years ago, a twist of fate detoured James 'Jim' Haslam from a football coaching career into running filling stations. And that detour sparked the rise of what is today the Pilot Flying J truck stop network.
To say that James Arthur Haslam II loves football is a little like saying Mount Everest is a big hill.
Indeed, for most of his young adult life, all Haslam did was live and breathe football 24/7.
When a passenger jet takes off from a U.S. airport, virtually every rule and regulation governing its flight is in place regardless of where the domestic flight lands.
But when a truck leaves a port or distribution center, it can encounter a patchwork of regulations that govern how much the driver will be paid, the big rig's total weight and its emissions. Unlike air transport, states can determine many rules that govern a semi-truck's operation.