The dawn of a new hours-of-service compliance regime is set to begin in Canada for federally regulated trucking companies this June.
The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA) has established a committee to develop a progressive enforcement strategy to deal with the implementation of the federal mandate and the coming of age of certified ELD devices.
“In February, CTA submitted a 12-month progressive enforcement strategy to CCMTA that would allow the enforcement community to deal with carriers operating paper logs; ELDs, separately, certified and non-certified, as the mandate takes shape starting in June,” said CTA president Stephen Laskowski. “CTA looks forward to when industry and government can exchange dialogue in the near future on the final elements of the 12-month progressive enforcement strategy.”
As these industry-government discussions are set to take place, the third-party system to certify ELD devices for the Canadian market is entering high gear with over a dozen vendors engaged in various stages of the certification process. Some vendors in the process have even submitted multiple devices for certification, guaranteeing carriers operating in Canada have a plethora of certified devices to select from as the mandate approaches.
A number of ELD vendors have issued public statements describing their organization’s readiness for the June mandate. There are now many more vendors engaged in the certification process. CTA strongly encourages federally regulated carriers currently not operating ELDs to begin meeting with ELD vendors to complete their due diligence on various operating systems. Once these systems are certified, carriers can make informed decisions in a timely manner for their onboarding process.
“Many resources are available on the internet for carriers on the types of questions they should be asking ELD vendors as devices are completing or undergoing the process to be certified,” said CTA Senior VP Geoff Wood. “To build on existing materials already available, CTA will be organizing a free webinar with its Team Canada Elite ELD vendors to help assist carriers with questions carriers can be asking vendors engaged in the Canadian process and their plans for certification to meet the requirements of the Canadian ELD mandate.”
To register for the Microsoft Teams meeting to be held April 1st in either English or French call please click here.
On a related matter, FreightWaves recently published an article highlighting the significant safety benefits of the third-party certification system.
“CTA believes this type of carrier behaviour described in the report will be eliminated under the Canadian system,” says Wood. “CTA once again applauds Transport Canada for its leadership in creating the third-party certification requirement in the Canadian regulation.”