ELD Glossary

An electric, electronic, electromechanical, or mechanical device capable of recording driver's duty status information accurately and automatically. The device must be integrally synchronized with specific operations of the commercial motor vehicle in which it is installed. At a minimum, the device must record engine use, road speed, miles driven, the date, and time of day. Although still used, the term is being phased out to make way for FMCSA-compliant Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) as mandated in the ELD Final Rule.

The trucking company or driver can use their own cellphone or tablet as the ELD’s display. ELD regulation still requires a hardwired connection to the truck’s engine, so the smart phone or tablet connects wirelessly to another piece of hardware that’s connected to the ECM.

Any self-propelled or towed motor vehicle used on a highway in interstate commerce to transport passengers or property and meets at least one of the following criteria: weighs more than 10,000 pounds, has a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds, transports 16 or more passengers not for compensation or nine or more passengers for compensation, or transports hazardous materials in a quantity requiring placards.

The Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program is a Department of Transportation initiative that allows the FMCSA to track and evaluate carriers based on compliance and crash history. Carriers that do not score well in the system can be investigated and warned by the FMCSA.

Also called Record of Duty status or driver log, duty status is the document used by a driver to record his/her driving time. There are four different status activities, namely “Off duty” or “OFF”; “Sleeper berth” or “SB”; “Driving” or “D” and “On-duty not driving” or “ON”.

See ‘Duty status’.

Daily report of any maintenance defects in the vehicle. Many ELDs include a DVIR form in their daily HOS process for the driver.

Short for electronic logbooks, which are records of driving hours that are captured and stored electronically using an on-board recording device.

A device that stores engine data, fault codes and hard-braking and stopping information.

An Electronic Logging Device, or ELD for short, is a device that automatically records driving time and facilitates the accurate recording of Hours of Service (HOS).

An outdated term that replaced AOBRD. This term has been replaced by ELD.

See ‘ELD Mandate’.

Also known as the ELD Final Rule, the ELD Mandate was instituted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in December 2015 and requires commercial motor vehicle drivers to track their Record of Duty Status electronically, using compliant ELDs versus paper Records of Duty Status (RODS).

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, whose primary responsibility is to prevent commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries. See www.fmcsa.dot.gov.

An action by a motor carrier towards one of its drivers that the motor carrier knew, or should have known, would result in the driver violating the HOS rules.

Hours of Service (HOS) regulations are issued by the FMCSA and govern the maximum hours all motor carriers and drivers can operate a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) in interstate commerce in the United States.

The International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) is an agreement between the lower 48 states of the United States and the Canadian provinces, to simplify the reporting of fuel use by motor carriers that operate in more than one jurisdiction.

Location data, in the context of vehicle tracking, is information provided by an on-board device about its current position in space. For the purposes of an ELD, geo-location must be derived from a database that contains all cities, towns, and villages with a population of 5,000 or greater.

Logging software programs are used by certain drivers to help them prepare RODS, but the computers, tablets, and smartphones with such software do not meet FMCSA’s requirements for automatic on-board recording devices (AOBRDs).

See duty status.