NEW YORK, (Jan. 5, 2005) — Wireless service provider Nextel Communications and Silicon Valley-based software company Xora Inc. are diving into the ongoing hours-of-service issue by asking the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to allow the companies to supply a system where driver logs can be accessed through cell phones.

The companies have petitioned the FMCSA separately. Nextel’s plea was delivered in response to the agency’s recent call for comments on mandatory electronic on-board recorders. “Nextel asks that the FMCSA clear the way for wireless handset-based solutions for compliance with hours-of-service rules,” the company said in its comments.

Xora, meanwhile, has asked for an exemption similar to that granted to truckload carrier Werner Enterprises, which developed its own automated log system. Werner’s system keeps logs otherwise acceptable to regulators, but in a form that does not quite meet rules outlined in Section 395.15 of the FMCSA rules. The FMCSA has exempted Werner from those rules.

The Nextel-Xora system would require a GPS-equipped handset with enough computing power to run the application and would resemble Werner’s system, at least in part. The Werner system sends log data over the truck’s in-cab system to a central server, which processes the data. The server can send log pages back to the truck and display them on the driver console.

The Xora software called Xora DOT Logs would send some information back to a Xora server, but process and retain much critical data in the handset itself. That would allow the application to function even when out of transmission range, alerting the driver to potential violations, for example.

— from Truckinginfo.com