J.B. Hunt Announces Wyze Move in Bypass Service

Leave it to a trucking company to provide the latest example that mobile technology is the future of everything.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell, the third-largest trucking operator in the country according to industry source Transport Topics, recently switched over its fleet of company-owned trucks from a transponder-based weigh station bypass service to a mobile-based service.

On April 7, the company announced it was adopting a service called PreClear, which uses cellular technology and the Internet to add transponder-like functionality to electronic logging devices (ELDs), smartphones and tablets, rather than dedicated short-range communication transponders and transponder readers. The application can be used on Android and iOS-based systems.

The technology will also be accessible through J.B. Hunt’s existing in-cab ELDs that operate through the PeopleNet platform, a leading provider of mobile technology in trucking fleets.

The PreClear mobile application is offered by California-based Drivewyze Inc., a division of Intelligent Imaging Systems, founded in 2003 in Alberta, Canada. The service combines a cloud-based software system used by law enforcement with a mobile app used by truckers.

The company, launched in 2010, has been growing at a rapid rate. Less than two years ago, the bypass service was offered at 217 inspection sites in 15 states. Today, Drivewyze said the service is available at 567 sites in 35 states.

Drivewyze spokesman Gregory Van Tighem said that makes the company the nation’s largest weigh station bypass provider, but declined to say how many accounts or how many trucks are enrolled in the service. 

“Thousands of truck drivers currently use Drivewyze PreClear installed on smartphones, tablets and ELDs,” Van Tighem said. “There are 4.5 million trucks required to report to weigh stations in North America, and it’s estimated that only 10 percent are using any kind of a bypass solution. So it’s a large market and a lot of opportunity.”

 

Data-Driven Decision

Greer Woodruff, J.B. Hunt’s vice president of safety, security and driver personnel, said the company’s decision to adopt the Drivewyze technology was data driven. He said the company activated Drivewyze’s free analytics tool last year on more than 8,000 of its company-owned trucks to determine if adding the Drivewyze service on their ELDs would be a benefit.

Because of Drivewyze’s growing presence across the country, Greer said J.B. Hunt drivers will experience increased bypasses, which will save the fleet time, fuel and money.

It works like this. Two miles from a weigh station or inspection site, Drivewyze customers will receive a visual alert on their smartphone, iPad or previously installed company tracking device, accompanied by an audible tone. One mile from the site, a second screen will pop up, followed by a command instructing the driver to either bypass the site and keep driving.

Essentially, it’s a reward for drivers and companies who maintain safe and properly weighted vehicles. The Drivewyze system’s servers contain identification information about the carriers, and when a truck’s ELD or the driver’s smartphone sends a request for a bypass, the carrier’s identification is used to check against the law enforcement databases. The Drivewyze servers also contain the criteria that each state has established for a bypass. 

So, for example, if a truck were to request a bypass at one of the 11 Drivewyze-enabled weigh stations in Arkansas, a unique and randomly generated identifier (for security reasons) would be transmitted to the Drivewyze server, and the server would translate that identifier and request information about the corresponding carrier from law enforcement databases. The server would check that information to see if the carrier meets the criteria established by the Arkansas Highway Police. If the criteria are met, the Drivewyze server signals a bypass to the truck’s driver through the truck’s ELD or the driver’s smartphone.

“Delays affect both the driver and the fleet, having a significant impact on drive time, operational costs and productivity,” Woodruff said in a statement. “PeopleNet and Drivewyze offer us a simple, fully integrated solution with a 98 percent bypass rate, all while eliminating the costs and management of transponders.”

Woodruff would not disclose what type of bypass system J.B. Hunt was using prior to adopting Drivewyze. However, the company is still listed as a customer on a testimonials page at the website for PrePass, a transponder-based weight station bypass.

Van Tighem said the two services are very different. Drivewyze, he explained, uses commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) technology to accomplish weigh station bypass. Essentially, the same technology that delivers calls and data through smartphones and other mobile devices.

PrePass uses dedicated short-range communication technology, which requires the use of separate transponders (RFID tags) and transponder (RFID tag) readers installed at fixed weigh stations.

“By employing the $380 billion dollar 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,” Van Tighem said.

 

Measuring ROI

The Drivewyze service is subscription-based and starts at $15.75 per vehicle per month, with volume discounts available for fleets. Using J.B. Hunt’s company-supplied figure of more than 8,000 company-owned trucks using the service, that equates to an investment of roughly $1.51 million annually.

A federal study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has estimated it costs $8.68 every time a truck pulls into a weigh station, meaning just two bypasses per month would cover the investment.

Trucking companies and fleets can measure their return on investment each month through a simple report available to all Drivewyze customers.

One ROI example showed that a smaller fleet (eight trucks) had 162 bypass opportunities in one month’s time, and was granted 157 bypasses — a 97 percent bypass rate.

Those bypasses saved the fleet 13.1 hours in driver time and 62.8 gallons in fuel, giving the company a monthly savings of $1,362. That’s $16,344 for the year — for a fleet of just eight trucks.

Drivewyze president and CEO Brian Heath said bypass rates are based on a variety of things: carrier registration, tax compliance and Inspection Selection System (ISS) safety score. According to the FMCSA, some roadside inspections are based solely on random selection, but most are done as a result of the ISS recommendation.

He also added that for owner-operators who operate under their own authority their ISS scores will determine their bypass rates. For owner-operators and drivers who operate their trucks under their carrier’s authority, their carrier’s ISS score determines their bypass rate.

On average, Heath said Drivewyze users are getting bypasses at least 80 percent of the time.

“Barring a random inspection, which seldom happens, those with the best scores get a free pass 98 percent of the time,” he said. “Even those whose ISS scores are a work in progress can expect bypasses 50 percent to 70 percent of the time, provided taxes and registration are in order.”

 

Alleviates Congestion

So why do law enforcement agencies even provide trucks with a bypass option?

Weigh station stops are important, and a critical enforcement process to keep unsafe vehicles and drivers off the road, but with nearly 4.5 million trucks on the road, and limited resources, weigh stations are often congested.

To alleviate some of the traffic, most states use electronic bypass systems.

“Our bypass service allows inspectors to focus their attention on unsafe drivers, vehicles or fleets,” Heath said. “They trust us to use their own criteria to determine whether a vehicle should receive a bypass.”

Heath said the Drivewyze system uses information contained in government databases to make a bypass decision. That decision, he said, is based solely on the criteria established by the local state vehicle enforcement agency.

“Law enforcement trusts the bypasses our system provides,” he said. “We maintain all bypass data within our systems and we don’t share it with the law enforcement. We only tell them if the data meets their criteria for granting the truck fleet or operator a bypass.”