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Penske Truck Leasing has launched a technology consulting group and said it plans to begin offering portable electronic logging devices for its rental trucks later this year.
The company’s new consulting service is aimed at helping its truck lease and rental customers understand, evaluate and implement onboard systems, a task that has become more difficult as technology options expand and evolve.
“Many fleet operators simply cannot keep up with the rate of change,” said Art Vallely, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Penske Truck Leasing. “Our goal in creating this expert team is to provide customers with an objective, fact-based view of the various onboard technologies such as telematics, ELDs, in-cab cameras and other emerging technologies going forward.”
Meanwhile, Penske’s plan to provide ELDs for its rental trucks would help address one of the trickier issues surrounding the ELD mandate, which requires nearly all carriers using paper driver logs to move to e-logs by Dec. 18.
Even when using rental trucks as temporary replacements for vehicles that need repairs, carriers still will need to use ELDs to record drivers’ hours of service.
“We’re going to have to be able to help them log electronically or they’re not going to be able to run,” said Bill Combs, director of Penske Truck Leasing’s connected fleet business.
Rental trucks present a unique challenge for ELD implementation because of their short-term use and the fact that many of the existing e-log systems are not easily portable.
“They’re not going to be able to install and uninstall one of those hardwired systems… so we’ve got to have a technology solution that can work basically on the fly for those operators,” Combs said.
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