Safety and truck maintenance are some of the biggest concerns when it comes to knowing weights – but how many fleet owners consider safety and truck maintenance in their overall ROI analysis?
An Air-Weigh On-Board scale is an investment in a tool that can assist with a number of concerns, but more so it helps the bottom line and can easily pay for itself in a matter of a few trips.
Common Concerns:
- Safety: Decrease safety concerns with an Air-Weigh On-Board Scale
- The distance to stop can greatly be affected by the weight of a truck. The heavier the truck the more likely it cannot stop in time to avoid an accident.
- Handling of the truck gets worse the heavier the load is. Trucks can more easily tip in turns, loads can become dislodged more easily or the driver can experience loads shifting, causing imbalance issues.
- Overweight trucks present a huge liability issue for fleets. Overweight trucks can lead to the fleets being sued and hurting their bottom line.
- Vehicle Maintenance: Overloading causes increased stress on brakes, tires, axles and frame parts of a tractor-trailer system. Increased trips can do the same – so it’s important that every trip is optimized to not be overloaded, but not be under-loaded. Knowing the vehicle’s weight in the field can increase efficiencies for any fleet size.
- With a load of 60,000-80,000, a typical tractor-trailer will get 6.3 mpg. With a load of over 80,000 lbs. the mpg will drop to an average of 4.9 mpg. Multiply that out by 300 miles a day, seven days a week… it becomes big losses to the bottom line.
Additional top concerns reported by the ATRI – Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry – 2018*
- Driver shortage: Offer your drivers a reliable tool with an Air-Weigh on-board scale. Fleets that purchase scales provide drivers the ability to manage their loads from anywhere and at any time. Help your drivers be more efficient in the field and decrease downtimes.
- Hours of Service: Stop losing driver’s time with trips to in-ground scales, checking and re-working loads, time in truck stops, etc.
- Driver Retention: The added tool and information an Air-Weigh On-Board scale provides for your driver is a benefit to driving for your fleet over a competitor. Again, help your drivers be more efficient.
- ELD Mandate:Electronic logging has already become a big part of the industry and weight information is quickly becoming part of that in the very near future. Be ahead of the need with an Air-Weigh On-Board scale.
- Driver distraction: Overweight vehicles provide one more distraction for drivers to worry about which can lead to accidents and unsafe situations.
- Highway funding and congestion: Causes delays, so it is even more important to not be wasting time messing with legalizing the weight of a load.
*American Transportation Research Institute – Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry – 2018 https://atri-online.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ATRI-Top-Industry-Issues-2018.pdf
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