After a notice Tuesday by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that it is revoking an electronic logging device — TMS ONE’s ELD ONE — from its list of self-certified ELDs, CEO Radu Murzac says the company is working on a fix and plans to have the “final issue” resolved in less than two weeks.
“When we first came to market, the process to become an ELD provider was relatively new,” Murzac told FreightWaves. “We navigated this process with the best interpretation of the law as we could. However, we’ve come to learn that the interpretation and logic we based a few components of our platform on was not in full compliance of the mandate.”
FMCSA did not respond to FreightWaves’ request seeking comment.
Over the past few months, Murzac said, his company has been meeting with representatives from FMCSA and “diligently working to address their concerns.”
“Unfortunately, we fell short,” he said. “In working on the original issues, new issues came to light.”
Two weeks prior to FMCSA revoking ELD ONE from its list of self-certified ELD providers, the company alerted customers about problems with its platform, according to an email sent by the ELD ONE team on Jan. 11, which was obtained by FreightWaves.
“In the previous months, we’ve been working with FMCSA on several deficiencies within our system. We’re subject to the same laws and regulations as all other ELD providers and hope you understand that we are making these changes in an effort to help our clients stay compliant with the ELD mandate,” the email stated.
The company outlined two key deficiencies identified by FMCSA.
“The first is that per ELD regulation, automatically recorded Drive segments cannot be edited,” the email stated. “Effective 01/11/2023, the ability to edit automatically recorded drive time will be eliminated. We have recognized that there are times when the driver makes an error — such as forgetting to put himself in PC [personal conveyance] or shutting down the system improperly that will result in erroneously recorded drive time. We are working on a solution to this and hope to have this feature released by the end of this month.”
ELD ONE stated that the second functional change “is that logbook software (often referred to as ELog) should not exist in the same platform as ELD.”
“In fact, if you have an ELD installed you are required to operate that as an ELD even if you are not subject to the mandate. As every device we sell is an ELD, we are required to shut off the ELog functionality of the platform.”
Murzac said more than 10,000 users may be affected by the revocation. He said the company will have a platform “in full compliance with the law.”
Meanwhile, FMCSA is advising motor carriers and drivers to do the following:
- Discontinue using the revoked device(s) and revert to paper logs or logging software to record required hours-of-service data.
- Replace the revoked device(s) with compliant ELD(s) from the Registered Devices list before April 1.
Motor carriers using ELD ONE devices have up to 60 days to replace them with compliant ELDs. However, if ELD ONE corrects the identified deficiencies, FMCSA will place the device back on the list of registered devices, according to the agency’s notice.
Truck drivers who continue to use the revoked device on or after April 1 will be placed out of service in accordance with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance OOS Criteria.
More than 860 ELD providers have self-certified their devices with FMCSA since February 2016. Of that number, ELD providers have self-revoked 79 devices from the registry.
Besides ELD ONE, headquartered in Elgin, Illinois, FMCSA has only revoked two other ELDs, including Arion Tech Inc. of Mississauga, Ontario, in June and ELDorado of Miami in September.
Murzac said ELD ONE welcomes FMCSA’s assistance as it works to resolve issues to ensure truck drivers are “adhering to the law.”
“There are plenty of less-than-ethical providers in the market and we hope that with this new emphasis and level of enforcement we will see a fair marketplace, one that meets the needs of our valuable drivers and keeps them on the road moving America forward,” Murzac said.
This is a developing story.
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