EOBR Symposium
Symposium Provides International Hands-On Perspective to Hours Of Service and Compliance, Electronic On Board Recording Devices
CVSA’s first ever symposium dedicated exclusively on electronic on-board recorders (EOBR) December 1-3, 2008 in Minneapolis, MN provided nearly 200 participants with an international perspective on the use of electronic Hours Of Service (HOS) devices to through a mixture of presentations, working sessions and hands-on demonstrations all aimed at initiating discussion and addressing the challenges both industry and enforcement face.
CVSA President Darren Christle said that as a product of the symposium, CVSA hopes to educate regulators, law enforcement, drivers, suppliers, safety directors, insurers, fleet managers and others on what these devices can do, what they can’t do, how they benefit those who use them, what the regulatory and deployment status is of these technologies in various parts of the world, and to identify, document and prioritize the key issues and concerns relative to their successful deployment in the U.S. and Canada.
“Clearly, as a community and as advocates for safety we need to be doing more to address this issue, which is a major reason why CVSA put this symposium together,” said Christle.
The symposium provided perspectives on electronic HOS devices from other parts of the world and in particular, what the history has been in Europe, as well as discussing future issues/needs for both industry and enforcement. There was a good mix of fleets, suppliers, software developers, enforcement, regulators and safety directors. In addition, 14 EOBR vendors and suppliers were on hand with their devices to provide direct interaction and discussion with users.
“There was a lot of good interactive dialogue that included working sessions to answer key questions and identify top issues of concern,” said Stephen Keppler, CVSA’s Director of Policy and Programs.
The information presented below is the result of one of the breakout sessions at the end of the EOBR Symposium where the attendees were asked to identify the top three issues/concerns regarding EOBRs. Once the top three issues were identified attendees individually voted on them in their order of importance. The votes were not on whether they supported or did not support a particular issue; rather, it was whether that issue/concern was important to them generally. The “Top Ten” issues are listed in order of priority with the total number of votes identified in parentheses.
- Standardization regarding EOBR inspections at roadside (73)
- The EOBR should positively identify the driver (63)
- Should EOBRs be required to be integrally synchronized with the vehicle? (55)
- Should EOBRs be tamperproof? (55)
- Make EOBRs mandatory on all CMVs (48)
- Standardization (48)
- Law Enforcement’s ability/mechanism to transfer hours-of-service (HOS) data from the EOBR (44)
- EOBRs and back-end systems should be able to track edits, repairs, system changes and failures (37)
- Keep things simple, don’t reinvent the HOS process (33)
- Timeliness of the delivery of HOS records to an enforcement official (27)
To access information from the symposium, login below if you are a CVSA member.
If you are not a CVSA member but attended the conference contact our office by phone at 202-775-1623 or email cvsahq@cvsa.org for a temporary ID and password.
