Much to do before new ELD enforcement date

The Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC) has worked in collaboration with federal, provincial and territorial regulators for more than 10 years, to shape an electronic logging device (ELD) mandate that will improve safety for the general public, as well as compliance with regulations.

Working together, we learned from the mistakes made in the U.S., and introduced an independent third-party certification process to ensure ELDs go through a rigorous process to ensure they are compliant with the regulations.

In March 2021, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canda and the provinces and territories all agreed to delay full enforcement of the federal ELD regulation until June 12, 2022. This change had to be made, in part, as there were no certified devices that existed at the time.

While we hoped the delay in full enforcement would allow enough time for a fulsome list of devices to be approved – as well as solve other compliance and enforcement related issues – the fact is we still have many items to address. The PMTC was pleased to hear of a further delay in enforcement until Jan. 1, 2023. We believe this was a prudent and responsible decision to allow enough time for issues to be rectified and provide a smoother roll out of full enforcement.

Saturation of approved devices

As of March 15, we have 25 certified ELDs in the marketplace, from 14 different suppliers. While still more will be needed to provide a good saturation and options for carriers to select from, we believe the extra time provided allows ELD providers with enough time to get their devices submitted for approval in advance of the new date and allow carriers to select from a fulsome list and transition to ensure compliance by January of 2023.

The PMTC is not in favor of any further delays in enforcement as a result of a lack of devices. We believe, with this most recent delay in full enforcement, enough time has now been provided for suppliers and industry.

Remaining items

Currently, a total of eight provinces and territories have regulations in place or will have them in place in time to enforce the federal regulation on Jan. 1, 2023. As national uniformity in enforcement is important, we believe the remaining jurisdictions need to take the steps necessary to ensure they can enforce the mandate by Jan. 1 as well.

While we believe uniformity is important, regardless of the readiness of the remaining jurisdictions, we believe we must move forward with enforcement for those that are ready by January, 2023 with no further delays.

To ensure a driver’s Record of Duty Status (RODS) is securely transmitted over the air from the truck to law enforcement, a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is required. We have learned that Transport Canada just recently selected a vendor to develop and implement a system that allows an encrypted ELD output file to be transferred securely from truck to the officer, as required by the technical standards to decrypt the message and allow the content to be viewed. 

The vendor now must ensure the system is in place in a timely fashion to ensure the system is functional and understood well in advance of the new full enforcement date.

We have heard from concerned parties that analyzing RODS at roadside to verify hours-of-service compliance is going to be very challenging. The ELD output file is required to provide a driver’s RODS in two standard file formats: PDF and CSV.

Currently Canada does not have a method like the U.S. ERODS system for translating the CSV file to a format usable by enforcement. S, to verify 15 days of RODS, enforcement is currently limited to reviewing the PDF, which can be 50 pages or more in length. 

In addition, certain ELD event codes such as Event Record of Origin and Event Record Status, are not explained in words, but remain in code format otherwise found only in the tech standard.  

This means enforcement officers need to understand the meaning of codes wherever such code appears in the PDF. There is a significant concern that if RODS verification is too time-consuming and difficult to understand, enforcement may simply look at the graph grid on the display and make assumptions regarding a driver’s HoS compliance without looking at event details.

We need to ensure these issues are rectified, and significant enforcement training of the items in the technical standard displayed on the device and in the PDF occurs well in advance of full enforcement taking hold.

We also need to ensure ELD violations are applied onto a carrier’s provincial safety rating no matter which jurisdiction they are based out of or charged in. As we understand it, currently no such system is in place with ELD violations to ensure this occurs.

Ontario has a robust exemption for drive-away/tow-away operators, which are also exempt in the U.S. federal regulations. Quebec is also indicating they may exempt this. PMTC has learned through discussions with regulators and drive-away/tow-away operators that it appears the remaining provinces and territories will not exempt this, which will lead to massive confusion and harm. Can Transport Canada adopt this exemption in the federal regulations, or address it in another manner to ensure we have uniformity across jurisdictions?

The PMTC and its members are appreciative of the common-sense approach to this delay in full enforcement. We know significant pressure existed to move forward with the June 12enforcement date, however we are in full support of the delay and believe it was the only decision that could be made to ensure a smooth rollout.

At the same time, we need to ensure this extra time is not wasted, and work needs to begin immediately to remedy the issues raised above to ensure we have everything in place and are prepared for full enforcement well in advance of what we hope is the final delay that will be required.