MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — One developer of Global Positioning System (GPS) software has come up with a time-tracking system that would let truckers use a cell phone to log their Hours of Service.

One catch is that the U.S. Department of Transportation requires tracking systems for HOS purposes to be connected to the truck’s engine. Xora, a Mountain View, Calif.-based developer of wireless technology software, has asked the DOT to grant them a waiver.

According to data on Xora’s Web site, some carriers are interested in using such a system to let drivers go “paperless” as an alternative to Qualcomm or black boxes. Xora spokesmen say it would be a simpler solution for truckers, since more than 90 percent of them use cell phones already.

“Customers wanted to know if we could do DOT logs on the phones,” stated Ananth Rani, vice president of products and services at Xora, on the company’s Web site. “The problem is that we needed an exemption from [the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration].” Their rule “is that it needs to be connected to the engine. When we put it on the phone, clearly, we could not be connected to the engine.”

The deadline for the 30-day comment period on the waiver request was July 8.

DOT officials are now considering the comments before making a decision.

In the meantime, Xora is going ahead with its software prototype, called Xora DOT Logs. The product became available July 1. If the waiver is declined, the software still can be used in adjunct with a paper log or a black box, Rani told The Trucker.

Kevin Wolf, a company spokesperson for Xora, claims the cost to fleets for the cell phone-enabled service is “one-tenth” of the cost of black box technology.

He estimates that about 40,000 persons already use Xora’s GPS TimeTrack software, a very similar application, with about a quarter of those being in the trucking industry.

The difference is that the DOT Logs application is specifically tailored for truckers, Wolf said. This particular technology may be used by carriers to map driver location and to monitor how fast a truck is traveling, among other things.

Xora’s software links software in the phone to software on the carrier’s office server via wireless connections and satellite signals, so that a driver could log in as on-duty, off-duty and driving, or off-duty and in the sleeper. The phone would communicate with the GPS satellite every two or three minutes. After the tenth hour a text warning would display on the phone’s screen, and emit a beep. The carrier would get the same report. All this time, the driver would not have to touch the phone.

According to Xora’s Web site, the DOT logs would cost $22 per month, per phone with cost of phones varying.

The concept primarily has been marketed to fleets for use by company drivers. If the data logged via phone was needed in case of an accident, it would be requested of the carrier, not the driver, Rani told The Trucker. “The customer [in this case the carrier] owns the data,” he said.

There are benefits to them [drivers in that] there’s no more paper logs. [It’s a] more efficient solution, [and the] accuracy is more dependable. You could log in loading and unloading,” said Wolf.

However, as one driver commented on FMCSA’s Web site about the Xora waiver, drivers’ working conditions still are determined by carriers, shippers and receivers, regardless of the efficiency of the technology.

The trucker stated that he had forwarded the information about the capability of logging HOS via cell phone to his company. But he added that the key is paying drivers regardless of miles driven so that they “wouldn’t be forced to violate the law to make a decent living.” Also, the trucker suggested in his comments that shippers and receivers be made “liable for the schedules they force the trucking companies to comply with.”

Xora’s new DOT Logs application can alert drivers and carriers when they’re approaching HOS limits. Wolf noted that the device would be a boon to “responsible” companies and drivers.

Rani said the technology could be used to “reward best-performing drivers.”

Driver comments, however, stated that some companies “preach” safety as their official policy while the actual policy is to “get the job done and make it ‘look’ legal.”

Another driver commented that the technology should be treated as “a methodology not a specific system design” and applied “to any device with access to a Global Positioning System.”

Could a technologically savvy terrorist hack into the system?

Xora officials say no. Rani said the “data is very discreet” and has the same “encryption” or “scrambling codes,” as used in on-line banking.

--The Trucker