4 Tips on Preparing for the Canadian ELD Mandate

Oh Canada! Where does Canada stand on the ELD mandate? When does the eld mandate take effect? As of today, the Canadian Government has not finalized the Canadian ELD Mandate. However, fleets should prepare today because we expect the final ELD deadline to be within the next 2 years.

In this guide, we’ll share 4 tips to prepare for the Canadian ELD mandate, based on our experience with the American ELD mandate.

1 – Encourage Better Driving Habits

Before even investing in electronic logging devices, fleets should encourage better driving habits. The biggest reason why some fleets struggled with the American ELD mandate was that some of them relied on skimming hours. For instance, drivers commonly drove overtime by cheating hours on the paper log. These drivers tend to struggle with ELDs because they cannot “fudge” their Hours of Service on ELDs.</>

What can Canadian fleets do differently for the Canadian ELD Mandate? We recommend fleets to educate drivers on how to drive efficiently within their hours of service. In turn, drivers do not have to rely on skimming hours and will not experience major changes with ELDs.

2 – Introduce Technology Early

Another challenge is getting drivers to adapt to ELDs. “The ELD mandate was a bit hard on the veteran drivers,” said one fleet manager. “Some drivers only knew how to use a flip phone or didn’t have a phone at all. The ELD mandate forced them to learn how to use phones, tablets, and Garmins.”

In turn, our next recommendation is to introduce technology in phases. For instance, in order to prepare for ELDs, a trucking fleet started installing tablets in every truck to display route maps.

The company found that veteran drivers quickly learned how to use their new tablets. Afterward, when the fleet installed ELD devices, the same drivers were able to easily use their new ELD app because they had experience using tablets.

3 – Sign Up for Industry News

Our first two recommendations – driving habits and technology – focused on the driver. However, fleet managers also need to adapt to changes in a Canadian ELD Mandate.

Our biggest recommendation is to sign up for industry news. In the US, we found that over 50% of fleet managers did not know enough about the ELD mandate. The other fleet managers, however, were better prepared because they attended industry webinars and read white papers.

Thankfully, GoFleet has you covered! Over the next few months, we are hosting live webinars where you can learn about the Canadian ELD Mandate and get answers on your ELD questions.

4 – Start Early

Seriously, start early! This is something that a lot of fleets did not do for the US ELD mandate, and that led to some serious issues.

Some of the issues with buying ELDs in the last minute include:

• Shipping delays due to low stock, resulting in missing the ELD mandate.
• Drivers do not get time to learn how to use the ELDs. In turn, some impatient officers decided to fine drivers with ELDs if they didn’t know how to show their ELD logs.

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