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Article Excerpt
Abstract
This article reports results of an investigation of safety technology adoption practices among the largest firms in the U.S. motor carrier industry. A national survey was conducted to determine firms' adoption patterns of available and leading-edge safety technologies. It was found that, in general motor carrier firms are at the early stages of safety technology adoption. Further, it was discovered that the larger firms, with a broad geographic scope of operations, are the leaders in safety technology adoption. It is the authors' hope that the article will stimulate increased interest in the pursuit of research on this important topic.
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At approximately 2:45 p.m. on January 13, 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland, a fuel-tank truck was traveling at excess speeds on an overpass of Interstate 695. When the fuel tank driver lost control of his vehicle, it plunged into a Jersey barrier-shaped concrete bridge rail and then rolled over the rail onto Interstate 95, the highway underneath the overpass. As the truck came to rest on Interstate 95, oncoming traffic collided with it, and it subsequently burst into a ball of flames (Buck et al. 2004). This incident had many devastating implications. First, there were a total of four fatalities, each of which entailed a high personal and societal cost. Second, the crash caused immediate impacts to the tank truck company in terms of lost revenues for the undelivered load and loss of the equipment involved. In addition, the company faced a series of lawsuits from relatives of the deceased and a bill for the environmental clean-up necessitated by the vehicle crash and subsequent damage. In a highly competitive industry with narrow profit margins, losses of this magnitude could threaten a firm's ability to continue as a going concern. As a result, firms within this industry recognize the importance of initiating management practices that will minimize the number and severity of their crashes. Third, there are numerous supply chain implications of severe crashes like the one under discussion. For example, on Interstate 95, there are over 200,000 vehicles that travel between Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. on a given day (Buck et al. 2004). When a catastrophe such as the one just described occurs, many firms are impacted in terms of their ability to route products and services to their customers. In the above scenario, it took authorities about twelve hours to return the I-95 and I-695 corridor back to normal. As a result, supply chain services were directly and adversely impacted. Annually, in the United States, there are over 400,000 motor vehicle crashes resulting in over 100,000 injuries and fatalities (U.S. Department of Transportation 2006). In addition to the obvious tragic loss of life, which all too often accompanies motor carrier crashes, there is the important issue of efficiency in the supply chain. From the carrier's perspective, there are significant direct costs associated with motor carrier accidents (Weber and Weber 2004). Poor safety performance also has negative consequences in terms of higher insurance costs, financial liabilities to the victims of the accidents, and loss of corporate goodwill (Corsi, Fanara, and Jarrell 1988).
In the aftermath of motor carrier deregulation, in particular the 1980 Motor Carrier Act, a steady stream of research has investigated the relationship between deregulation and motor carrier safety (Corsi, Fanara, and Jarrell 1988; Corsi and Fanara 1988; Kraas 1993). In addition, a body of recent research has explored various factors that might contribute to motor carrier safety performance. Studies by the federal government have examined both the role of government vehicle inspection programs on motor carrier safety as well as the impact of driver training programs and strategies on overall carrier safety performance. Mejza and Corsi (1999) and Mejza, Barnard, Corsi, and Keane (2003) provide evidence on the role of a range of motor carrier management practices in enhancing carrier safety performance. Crum and Morrow (2002) developed a model of truck driver fatigue and studied the impact of carrier scheduling practices on fatigue as part of an overall effort to link greater driver fatigue with a higher likelihood of crashes.
One important way to enhance a firm's safety performance, which has received relatively little attention in the motor carrier literature, is an investment in safety technologies. Safety technology is defined as physical resources that may be used to monitor and alert the firm to uncertainty in the external and internal operating environment. Examples of safety technology in the trucking industry include onboard computers, anti-rollover technologies, and collision-avoidance devices. Safety technologies can be applied to several application areas, including managing the maintenance and use of the firm' s physical equipment, monitoring employee behavior, and improving safety management decisions. Safety technologies may also be used to facilitate increased information accuracy, visibility, and accessibility. Increased information accuracy, visibility, and accessibility can enable a firm's safety managers to become aware in real time or near real time of operational metrics and the status reports of a firm's equipment and personnel. Therefore, if the firm' s equipment and personnel are in danger of performing below acceptable safety limits, the firm's managers can quickly become aware of these undesirable behaviors. Another key way to improve firm safety performance is through the enablement of alerts for out-of-control conditions. Any time deviations in the firm's safety performance occur, alerts can enable the firm to take rapid corrective action. Therefore, through both increased information sharing and alerts, the firm may be able to proactively take appropriate action to improve its safety performance. In sum, there are many potential benefits that can be derived from safety technologies.
Although there has not yet been a comprehensive study of motor carrier safety technology, research to date has studied various aspects of motor carrier technology. Manrodt, Kent, and Parker (2003) provided survey evidence regarding motor carrier implementation of mobile communications technology. Rishel, Scott, and Stenger (2003) studied the use of satellite communication systems in the U.S. motor carrier industry. Hubbard (2003) focused specifically on on-board computers and their role in enhancing motor carrier productivity. Giaglis, Minis, Tatarakis, and Zeimpekis (2004) examined vehicle routing technologies and their role in distribution management.
This study contributes to the literature on motor carrier safety by providing results of a comprehensive survey of safety technology adoption in the U.S. motor carrier industry. With the assistance of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration within the United States Department of Transportation, survey responses were obtained from more than 400 carriers across the country. This article proceeds in the following section with details of the survey methodology. The main body of the article reports adoption rates of safety technologies dealing with five operational categories: driver communication, vehicle communication, driver performance, vehicle performance, and vehicle maintenance. In a subsequent section, the article examines the linkage between technology adoption and firm characteristics, including size, geographic scope, commodity carried, and load type.
METHODOLOGY
Research Context
The empirical context for this study is the U.S. motor carrier industry. Specifically, this research setting focuses on trucking companies and their adoption of safety technologies. The specific unit of analysis for the study is the motor carrier firm and its safety technology adoption pattern. As discussed in the introduction, the U.S. motor carrier industry was selected for this study primarily because of the importance of safety technology adoption to the firms in this industry, across a wide range of technologies and carrier operations. Trucking firms, constantly under public scrutiny to identify new ways to manage safety (Corsi and Fanara 1988), increasingly recognize that safety technologies offer concrete safety performance improvement possibilities.
Questionnaire Development
To develop the questionnaire, we solicited input and feedback from academic, government, and industry professionals who are experts in the area of safety technology management. Additionally, a review of the government, academic, and industry safety technology adoption literature was conducted to identify relevant safety technologies. On the basis of the feedback that we received from the safety experts and a review of the safety management literature, a preliminary version of the respondent-friendly questionnaire was developed based upon the approach that Dillman (2000) recommends. When it was possible, existing items were used.
The questionnaire was also pre-tested to verify the appropriateness of the terminology, the clarity of the instructions, and the response formats. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of seven vice presidents of safety of motor carrier firms that operate either in the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. Five questionnaires were returned. Respondents indicated that some of the questions were ambiguous. These questions were reworded to resolve any issue of ambiguity. We used the "think-aloud" cognitive interview pre-testing technique as recommended by Dillman (2000, 42) and Tourangeau et al. (2000, 326)...
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