Supply chain management is an integral part of streamlining the logistics of every business. If you own a business that constitutes logistics services, transportation, shipping goods, or in general, maintaining a team of drivers, you must already be aware of the talk of the town – the Canadian ELD mandate. Transport Canada created quite the buzz globally when they rolled out an ELD mandate on June 12, 2021, which is set for full enforcement and penalty on non-compliance from June 12, 2022.
Every business that relies on logistics and transportation of its products and services is backed by an efficient team of drivers. Just as important as it is to construct a flawless supply chain model for timely delivery and customer satisfaction, ensuring the wellbeing of your driver fleet holds great significance too. In view of this, the ELD mandate in Canada is designed to improve road safety and minimize driver fatigue.
What is the Canadian ELD mandate?
Most truck drivers belonging to diverse businesses maintain Record of Duty Status (RODS) and paperwork based on their Hours of Service (HOS). According to the Canadian ELD mandate, all supply chain and transportation businesses will have to comply with and implement Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) for their commercial drivers to log their daily service details, digitally.
The Canadian ELD mandate is very synonymous with the U.S. ELD mandate released in 2017 to ensure smooth cross-border transportation. However, unlike the U.S. ELD mandate which accepts ELD providers to self-certify, the Canadian mandate requires all implemented ELDs to be certified by an accredited third-party as per the Canadian standards.
To simplify the nationwide adoption of the new ELD mandate and save businesses from the hassle of investing in dedicated ELDs, the use of smartphones, tablets and rugged handheld devices as ELDs is permitted, provided they are certified fit for use by the third-party providers.
What are ELDs?
The Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) are hardware devices connected to the vehicle’s engine control module which help gather crucial data to streamline workflows and ensure drivers’ safety. It simplifies record keeping and fleet management with precise digital records of the drivers’ working hours, locations and other tour details.
ELDs log the following details periodically to generate comprehensive diagnostics;
- Date & time
- Locations and route details
- Engine hours
- Engine power on/off status
- Miles traveled
- Drivers’ identification details
To whom is the Canadian ELD mandate applicable?
All the Federally regulated carriers in Canada, as well as the U.S.-based carriers operating in Canada, must comply with the ELD mandate rules. The main aim of this mandate is to improve road safety for the drivers and the overall operational efficiency for businesses.
Exemptions of the Canadian ELD mandate:
- Drivers with a permit or statutory exemption
- Commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) rented for 30 days or less
- Driving CMVs that have been manufactured before the year 2000
- Vehicles with a gross weight less than 4500 Kgs
- Buses with a seating capacity of less than 10 (including the driver)
- Trips within 160 km from the base station
If you have not implemented ELDs for your fleet of drivers, then you must! However, if you already have ELDs in place, you need to ensure that their certification has been completed.
Benefits of the ELD mandate
Canada’s ELD mandate aims to improve logistics efficiency for businesses while ensuring their drivers’ safety and performance. Not only does this automate and digitize manual records and help authorities keep track of their shipment, but also ensures that your drivers focus more, spend their assigned working hours productively, as well as, minimize fatigue owing to excessive working hours.
What are the major benefits of abiding by the ELD mandate?
- The use of a digital platform reduces the need to carry and maintain excessive paperwork.
- Helps managers, dispatchers and all units involved in the supply chain to track the shipment.
- Helps businesses gain insights into the driver’s behavior and vehicle usage along with telematics.
- Accurate and constant data to generate driver vehicle inspection reports (DVIR).
- Smartphones, tablets, rugged and handheld devices can be turned into ELDs with the right solutions.
- Automated real-time driver and shipment statuses without having to take manual updates.
- Productivity tracking or your fleet of drivers including miles driven and working hours.
Scalefusion: A Comprehensive Solution to Manage ELDs
Scalefusion is a device and endpoint management software that offers a plethora of features to effectively monitor your on-the-move device fleets. Scalefusion stands out with its unified console that helps businesses monitor device vitals, driver locations and features designed specifically for the logistics industry. Businesses can instantly convert their diverse devices including smartphones, tablets, rugged devices, handheld devices, vehicle-mounted devices into effective ELDs with Scalefusion.
Let’s understand why Scalefusion is one of the best solutions to manage ELDs used in your logistics business:
1. Real-time location tracking
One of the major purposes of ELDs is to constantly monitor the locations of the vehicles on the move. With Scalefusion MDM, businesses can track their dispersed on-the-go shipments in real-time with GPS or IP-address-based location tracking. This not only ensures compliance with the ELD mandate but also helps businesses a great deal to obtain a constant overview of their shipment, drivers’ locations, time spent at every pitstop, as well as the details of the route and detours.
2. Obtain comprehensive reports and device diagnostics
Another crucial purpose of implementing ELDs is to obtain extensive reports of the voyage. With Scalefusion, businesses can leverage the most detailed reports based on device usage. Scalefusion categorizes reports based on various device vitals including data usage, battery statuses, device inactivity, location reports and geofence logs, device unlock attempts, WiFi connectivity history, SIM swaps and much more, to help you analyze your drivers’ performance and device usage throughout the trip. You can also generate scheduled reports for a defined time and frequency to obtain report repositories to analyze usage and compliance patterns.
3. Prevent distractions with Kiosk Mode
With an aim to boost drivers’ focus on the road, Scalefusion’s Kiosk mode enables businesses to lock ELDs in a single-app mode. With this, drivers are not drawn towards accessing other appealing device utilities such as games and other entertainment apps. The single-app kiosk mode turns any device into a dedicated electronic logging device. Similar to the single-app mode that allows only one application to run, businesses can also leverage a multi-app mode, which will ensure access to only the permitted apps on the device.
Smart devices are one of the major sources of entertainment, as well as distraction. Enabling the Kiosk mode from the Scalefusion dashboard ensures that your drivers do not fall prey to such distractions.
4. Speed-based locking
The supply chain is a demand-based industry. The whole ball game revolves around timely and safe pickup and delivery of products and services. It is because of this inherent nature of the industry that truck drivers often find themselves in a fix between maintaining safe speed limits and on-time deliveries. According to a 2021 report, there has been a 52% increase in truck accidents in the United States in 2009. The report also states that cargo truck accidents will become the 5th largest cause of deaths by 2030.
Addressing this great concern, Scalefusion offers Speed-based device locking capabilities that help businesses set ideal driving speed limits for their drivers and lead to their devices being locked in case of non-compliance. Since on-field operations are heavily dependent on smart devices, it urges the drivers to comply with the enterprise-based speed limits and safer tours.
5. Effective compliance monitoring
Speaking of compliance, businesses can set compliance alerts not only for speed limits but also for a variety of other actions from the Scalefusion dashboard. Device battery compliance, data usage compliance, Geofence-based compliance and compliance for security incidents. With this IT admins of organizations can be alerted on compliance being overpassed and take quick actions to remedy the situation.
6. Over-the-air deployment
Truck and heavy-vehicle drivers are often involved in jobs that are remote, on-field and constantly mobile. In such situations, over-the-air deployments prove especially time-effective and cost-effective too. Organizations can push business-related apps and resources on their drivers’ devices remotely and at once from the Scalefusion dashboard. Not only apps but also business-critical documents such as vehicle registration certificates, insurance documents, driving licenses and related permits can be exchanged over-the-air, instantly.
7. Remote support
Complying with the Canadian ELD mandate requires drivers to upgrade their processes from bulky traditional paperwork to digital records and documentation. This, however, requires drivers to be trained in order to be tech-savvy enough to operate the ELDs. Despite efficient training, drivers may sometimes experience device errors creating confusion. In such cases, supply chain operations need not come to a halt. With Scalefusion, organizations can extend instant connectivity with their IT teams to offer technical help and resolve device issues faster.
Scalefusion offers remote cast & control capabilities that let IT admins of organizations mirror their on-field drivers’ screens on their dashboard and resolve system errors virtually.
8. High-performance solution
Scalefusion brings a variety of extensive device management, fleet monitoring and data security features to the table via a single comprehensive console. Organizations naturally benefit more from a single solution with multiple capabilities, rather than multiple solutions offering limited capabilities. Businesses can leverage centralized management of their bulk and dispersed device fleets no matter what their device type or which operating system they belong to including Android, iOS and Windows 10.
Closing lines
Canada’s ELD mandate offers a myriad of benefits for both businesses, as well as drivers. Aimed at optimizing fleet management and logistics efficiency, the mandate sheds light on crucial factors including vehicle usage and condition, fuel efficiency, improving driver safety, monitoring risky driver behavior, and much more. As the mandate comes into effect in 2022, all supply chain businesses operating in Canada need to ensure compliance. Picking the right ELD management solution can go a long way in streamlining operations as per the emerging regulations.
Know more about Scalefusion’s ELD management capabilities, here.
