The Effects of Technologies on Commercial Vehicle Company Safety and Service: A Supply Chain Perspective

Because of the importance of safety, and the potential benefits for both the general public and the commercial vehicle industry of improving safety, the main goal of this project is to identify those commercial vehicle-related technologies that, through successful adoption, have had a positive impact on the safety of motor carrier companies. This is examined through two perspectives—one simply examining the effect of a technology implementation on safety and the second identifying the effect of a successful adoption of a technology on safety. It is hypothesized that technologies with factors that lead to successful adoption will have a greater safety impact. Negative binomial regression models with the dependent variables of three separate measures of safety are utilized to test each technology, and the overall results are mixed. The models for onboard safety monitoring technologies (that did not rate high on average for any adoption factor) illustrate no significant effect on safety; however, the models for technologies in both the freight mobility area and the electronic clearance area illustrate a negative effect on safety. In addition, the results for two specific technologies reveal that the companies that implement these technologies and rate the adoption factors higher (e.g., successfully adopted the technology) are likely to have fewer accidents than companies that implement these technologies and rate the adoption factors lower. The main implication of this study for both commercial vehicle companies and government agencies is that simply implementing a technology, or advocating implementing a technology, may not give a desired result, and in some cases may even result in a negative impact on safety. The company needs to take the time to learn the technology and integrate it fully into the company in the right way for it to have a positive impact. Similarly, government agencies should examine companies have successfully implemented certain technologies and that have a good safety record to determine the steps they took during the implementation. Providing this information to other companies examining implementation of a technology could prove very useful and assist toward a positive safety impact from the technology.

• Record URL:
  https://www.ugpti.org/resources/reports/details.php?id=570
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  Pennsylvania State University, University Park

  College of Business Administration
  University Park, PA  United States  16802

  Mountain-Plains Consortium

  North Dakota State University
  Fargo, ND  United States  58108
• Authors:
  • Lantz, Brenda M
• Publication Date: 2006-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Thesis
• Features: Appendices; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 97p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automated clearance; Commercial vehicles; Government agencies; Highway safety; Regression analysis; Supply chain management; Technology
• Uncontrolled Terms: Freight mobility
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Freight Transportation; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01053572
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: MPC Report No. 06-186
• Files: UTC, TRIS
• Created Date: Jul 18 2007 3:36PM