Cell phones make bypassing weigh stations a whole lot easier

Cell phones make bypassing weigh stations a whole lot easier

We take cell phones and smartphones for granted. While they help everyone from truck drivers to fleet managers stay connected, they also offer a new way of doing business.

It wasn’t that long ago that all phone calls were made from stationary phones in your home or office—hard wired. Today, we take cell phones and smartphones for granted. While they help everyone from truck drivers to fleet managers stay connected, they also offer a new way of doing business.

“We call it commercial mobile radio service [CMRS] transponder technology,” said Brian Heath, president of Burlingame, Calif.-based Drivewyze. “Through our Drivewyze weigh station bypass service, it’s a game changer for the trucking industry. Traditional transponder technology—expensive poles with short distance radio transmitters—began more than 20 years ago; that’s akin to a hard-wired telephone. It was the only way you could do bypass back then. Today, CMRS transponders are unique from traditional transponders.  They do not require any roadside hardware to work and instead communicate using cellular data connectivity.”

According to Heath, Drivewyze is a transparent, neutral platform that allows state agencies to reward safe truck companies (as indicated by CSA scores), with bypass opportunities.

“This frees front-line inspection officers to focus their attention on the trucks that need inspections,” said Heath. “A secure interface inside the weigh station displays the results of each bypass request after it has been automatically processed. Based on carrier, vehicle and driver-level data, and a state’s bypass criteria, trucks are told to either bypass or report to the weigh station. Aside from a 2% random inspection, most fleets with high safety scores can enjoy bypass rates of up to 98%.”

Heath said Drivewyze PreClear is the nation’s only mobile-based commercial vehicle subscription service for weigh station and roadside inspection site bypass. The service runs on permanently installed in-truck devices, as well as mounted tablets and smartphones. “A FMCSA study showed that a weigh station stop, made for as little as five minutes at a time, costs the operator $8.68 in fuel and lost time,” said Heath. “The ROI for Drivewyze PreClear is one of the best in the industry.”

Thanks to working with partners such as PeopleNet, XRS and Zonar, Heath said the future is exciting. “We started by having our technology available on smartphones—downloaded from app stores. But for fleets that have onboard systems, we’re integrating Drivewyze with their tablets and systems so they can literally ‘turn on’ and register Drivewyze for bypass opportunities.”

According to Heath, Drivewyze provides “proof in the pudding” about the value of bypassing. “Each month we provide a full, easy-to-understand report that shows the ROI for our customers. One smaller fleet, running eight trucks, was shown it had 162 bypass opportunities over a month’s time and was granted 157 bypasses (a 97% bypass rate). Those trucks and drivers saved 13.1 hours, and 62.8 gal. in fuel, which was calculated to save the company $1,362. We even showed the benefit to the environment—bypassing reduced CO2 emissions by 1.9 tons. The cost for the service? Just $15.75 for multi-state bypass coverage with volume discounts available.”

The Drivewyze bypass program currently is offered by 16 state agencies at 223 locations. Heath said new states continue to adopt the Drivewyze program and service site locations are being added each month with a goal to have full national coverage in 2014.

“With the advent of what we’re doing with GPS-connected devices and the $380 billion infrastructure investment that wireless cellular carriers have made in providing data coverage, bypass services can now be deployed to all fixed and mobile enforcement sites across the country without any installation costs,” Heath said. “This represents a significant leap in vehicle to roadside communication capabilities at significantly lower costs for both states and the fleets that utilize the bypass system.”

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