The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

There really is an app for everything. The long list now includes an iPhone application for long-haul truckers to help manage their hours on the road.

Washougal-based startup iCooper has released iDDL (Drivers Daily Log for the iPhone) as the first in its suite of specialized cell phone applications targeted to service businesses.

By law, truck drivers must keep a log book that tracks their hours of service and safety record and must produce it on demand every time they weigh in to ensure they haven’t driven too long without sleep.

“It’s a pain for many of these truck drivers to keep a paper log,” said Chris Clark, a spokesman for iCooper, which employs 13 at its office at 82 15th St. in Washougal. “We’ve taken an iPhone app that uses some of the GPS features within the iPhone to drop pins on the map and automatically creates the log for them.”

Though iCooper declined to disclose total sales of iDDL so far, the $19.99 app has seen a steady number of downloads, with the first two weeks of December far outselling those in November, according to the company.

Drivers can log on to the app to update their status — on-duty, off-duty, sleeping or driving — and the software records the time, date and location of the activity on a map. Users can track their hours over time and create graphs to make sure they stay in compliance with federal hours of service regulations.

Truckers are allowed to work 14 hours per day, including no more than 10 hours of driving, before they’re required to take a 10 hour break, according to the Washington state Department of Transportation.

Paired with a Web services subscription that costs $9.95 per month, the application also lets drivers use the phone to create compliance reports and conduct safety inspections, using the phone’s camera to take pictures and embed them in the report.

The phone’s camera can also help document heavy traffic, accidents or other conditions that may affect their delivery schedules.

“There’s other software that does this on a laptop, but nothing quite as convenient as doing it right on the iPhone,” said Clark.

Lowering costs

Electronic log books are not a new concept. Large fleets often manage their operations with onboard recorders that send a truck’s location and hours of operation via satellite to a home office for dispatchers and managers to oversee.

“Contrary to what a lot of people think, truckers are fairly sophisticated when it comes to this stuff,” said Dale Tabat, truck freight programs and policy manager at the WSDOT. “They’re not a bunch of rednecks from the hills.”

But such “black box” units can cost up to $2,000 per unit to install, said Tabat. An iPhone application brings down the cost of electronic log books considerably compared to a satellite unit and could potentially lead to a much wider adoption of the technology, he said. That, in turn, could help further improve safety on state and federal highways.

Some 14 percent of large trucking companies use electronic log books to track their drivers’ hours, according to a 2007 report by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. But 94 percent of the firms had at least some of their drivers using cell phones.

Electronic log books are part of the increasing role of information technology in all types of service-oriented businesses.

iCooper recognizes this trend and plans to roll out a similar iPhone management tool, called Mobile Warrior, that can be customized to any type of business.

“The birth of our company came from a truck driver who was an iPhone junkie and thought there was a better way to do it,” said Clark. “While we were exploring and developing the software, we realized many other people have the need to track activities for tax and accounting purposes. That will be a platform technology we’re very close to finishing.”

Print this article