HDT Talks Trucking

Truck drivers' lifestyles and work environments don't always compliment their need for restful and restorative sleep. In an industry where much of the focus on sleep and fatigue is related to compliance, sometimes the need for proper sleep takes a back seat to the rules. This episode is about the importance of sleep. Sleep specialist and best-selling author, Dr. Chris Winter, explains why we need...

Decades will pass before diesel disappears from our vocabulary. Despite what you may have read on the internet, no single alternative energy source will dominate the way diesel fuel has for generations. As we move closer to wide-scale adoption of alternative fuels, it's becoming clear that trucks will need a little bit of everything to keep all its wheels turning as greenly as possible. Join Debor...

We know there will be challenges integrating electric trucks into traditional fleets, but until recently we haven't had many real-world examples from which to learn. Penske Truck Leasing has had a trial and evaluation project underway in southern California since 2017. They are trying to understand everything that would go right and everything that could go wrong. From dealing with the utility com...

Rumors surrounding the death of diesel are, as Mark Twain once said, greatly exaggerated. While some people can't wait for the last puff of smoke from an internal combustion engine, Allen Schaeffer isn't among them. He's the head of the Diesel Technology Forum, and one of diesel's greatest proponents. If you're worried about the sustained attacks on trucking's fuel of choice, Allen Schaeffer expla...

The search for cleaner energy sources for transportation is taking trucking in some interesting directions, but one source is often overlooked or even dismissed: renewable natural gas. RNG is methane gas produced by decomposing organic matter from sources such as landfills, dairy farms, and wastewater treatment plants. It can be economically collected and used to power trucks. It's already a sourc...

Truck accidents usually bring tragic results, but some good can come from the follow up investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board doesn't investigate every truck crash, but digs deep into some for insight that could help prevent future crashes of a similar nature. Robert Molloy, a transportation research analyst and the director of the Office of Highway Safety at NTSB explains why it...

Season 4 rounds out our first year of podcasts, and what an interesting year it's been. This season we look at the future of fuel, including battery electric and renewable natural gas, and our tried-and-true diesel engines. We also have one special episode  that's bound to put you to sleep. Our guest list includes Alan Schaeffer of the Diesel Technology Forum, Hugh Donnell of Cummins Westport...

AUTONOMOUS TRUCKS SPECIAL REPORT: There are only a few dozen autonomous trucks on America's highways today, but the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance is already thinking about how to police them. They aren't above the law. It's up to people like our guest, Will Schaefer, the Director of Safety  Programs at CVSA, to figure out how trucking's safety rules can be applied to trucks that have no...

AUTONOMOUS TRUCKS SPECIAL REPORT: Mary “Missy” Cummings calls herself a techno-realist. By day, she's a professor at Duke University and the director of Duke's Humans and Autonomy lab. Her day-to-day work is in artificial intelligence and robotics, and she’s quite skeptical about some of claims of autonomous driving’s current practitioners. Although she says she's 100% behind robotic trucks in the...

AUTONOMOUS TRUCKS SPECIAL REPORT: Vijaysai (Vijay) Patnaik helped start and is now the Product Lead for Waymo’s self-driving trucks program. He says he’s confident the company will be able to safely and responsibly deploy this technology on public roads. Since Waymo began work on autonomous cars more than a decade ago, the company’s cars and trucks have logged more than 20 million real-world miles...

Staying healthy while living in a truck is a tough thing to do at the best of times. Staying healthy and positive becomes doubly difficult living under the stress of a pandemic. In this COVID-19 Special Report, trainer, nutritionist and holistic health coach Sergio Rojas shares some great ideas on how to up your wellness game. He has worked with celebrities and professional sports teams like the C...

Stefan Seltz-Axmacher created and ran Starsky Robotics, billed as the first venture to operate a truly driverless truck on a public highway. The company started in 2015 but closed its doors five years later, when, as he put it, the downpour of investor interest became a drizzle. He says investors were not prepared to fund the “last mile” of the project – honing and perfecting the artificial intell...

Sometime later this year the first of the GHG 2021 trucks will hit dealer lots. To meet the first round of GHG reduction targets, these trucks will be fitted mostly with existing fuel-saving technology; aero devices, low-rolling resistance tires, etc. To meet the 2024 and 2027 targets, truck makers may need to get a bit more aggressive in their use of advanced technologies. HDT's Jim Park and Mike...

What are the most important truck safety improvements in the eyes of the folks who investigate transportation accidents? The National Transportation Safety Board's 2019-2020 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements offers 268 recommendations for improving transportation safety. The list includes identifying and treating truck drivers who may be at high risk for obstructive sleep apne...

What do maintenance data, safety technology, and more efficient pup trailers have in common? They’re all tactics taken by HDT’s 2020 Truck Fleet Innovators. Heavy Duty Trucking has presented its Innovator awards annually since 2006. They recognize fleet executives for their leadership role in fostering innovation in their companies and the industry. The hunt for the winners of this year's award, s...

Driver turnover is a costly problem, but it's doubly hard to swallow when you already have good drivers, but you can hang onto them. Jim Park's guests in this episode, Jane Jazrawy of CarriersEdge along with Brad Fulton and Allyson Smith both of Stay Metrics , offer some tips that can help solve your retention problems. Driver Satisfaction Survey    Best Fleets to Drive For   Follow...

Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes, from listening to your employees for the little tweaks that make their workdays more productive, to be a test fleet for new logistics systems and autonomous platoons, to leading a digital transformation at one of the country’s biggest truckload carriers. Heavy Duty Trucking's Truck Fleet Innovator awards, presented annually since 2006 and sponsored this ye...

HDT Talks Trucking's third season casts an eye toward the future. We talk with Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, the CEO and co-founder of now-defunct driverless truck startup, Starsky Robotics, about the possible future of autonomous trucks. We'll also dig into some of the advanced fuel-saving technology we might need to meet the strict fuel economy standards imposed by Phase 2 of the Greenhouse Gas Emissio...

Kansas City-based team lease-operators Chanté and Chris Drew contracted COVID-19 in late March while on the road. For the next nine days, the trucking team made their way home, searching for decent-paying loads and places along the way to get tested. The pair made it back to Kansas City and got their tests. He tested positive, she did not – but healthcare professionals said she surely had the dise...

Meet seven drivers who live on the front line of the battle with COVID-19. They mix and mingle with shippers and receivers, other drivers at truck stops, and restaurant workers. They can't be certain they won't contract COVID-19, so stress and anxiety become part of everyday life. Many of them haven't seen a friend or family member since February. While we're cooped up at home wishing we could get...

Part II continues the discussion with seven truck drivers who are out in the wild working during the pandemic. In this episode, they discuss the steps they take to stay COVID-free and talk about how their companies are supporting them through the crisis. They share their fears about bringing the virus home, and how they deal with the isolation and loneliness brought on by social distancing. While...

Some fleets manage to do a very good job with certain maintenance tasks. That begs the question: if some fleets are so good at maintenance, why can't everyone else be that good too? In this episode, Jim Buell, the executive vice president of sales and marketing at FleetNet America shares some of the findings from the TMC FleetNet vertical benchmarking survey that shows how much better some fleets...

HDT editor-in-chief, Deborah Lockridge speaks with veteran trucking industry analyst and HDT columnist, Jeff Kauffman, who is also the managing director for Loop Capital Markets and the head of Tahoe Ventures, a transportation consulting company. Deborah and Jeff won't be trying to sort out where the economy is today, because everything is going to change. Instead, they'll be discussing aspects of...

Vehicle electrification is probably the most profound change ever to hit transportation -- and the trucking industry in particular -- but getting those trucks into widespread service will be challenging. Jim Park talks with Rick Mihelic, the director of future technologies at the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), about where we'll get all the energy to power those electric tru...

Driverless trucks are still a few years off when you talk about the long-haul sector, but they are already in play on other markets, such as drayage and terminal tractors. We are making real progress toward a time when self-driving trucks become commonplace, but there are still lots of questions: Which applications does early adoption make the most sense? How will the regulators make rules regardi...