TMC Transportation, Inc. - Des Moines, Ia.

So what myth are you trying to dispell?

 

the way things are going and the rates are dropping like a rock i'm afraid it's gonna get worse. Some of these companies are moving freight for cost plus 2%. This aint good skippy

 

..not only that fuel prices are starting to climb again & that's bad news for drivers who cant meet or beat the MPG avg. these companies expect from you..

 

there is no reason not to meet mpg of the company. drivers need to do their job better. quit leaving the truck running for no reason and learn how to shift properly. i avg 6.6mpg in tmcs truck and run west with 45000+ on the deck! the bad mpg is not the companys fault it is the fault of the driver of the truck. now some trucks are different but at tmc they are almost the same. i cant tell you how many tmc trucks i see running in the truck stop while the driver is inside eating dinner. why would a driver leave the truck running while loading or unloading? these are why mpg goals are not met.

 

While I wholeheartedly agree with you bangn that trucks are constantly idling when it isn't necessary and for some incomprehensible reason some are even high idling, 6.6mpg in a TMC truck is difficult to picture. The fleet average for TMC is 5.7, I'm averaging 6.15 and that's pulling a lot of freight out west. My idle while not great isn't bad at 25%. One thing I've noticed about idle % at TMC is that they figure it with a completely BS equation. Instead of your idle % actually being the % of time your truck is running that is idle they take your MOVING time and figure your idle as a % of that. It totally skews the %. The point you were making though is right on, people tend to idle their trucks when it's totally unecessary.

 

i dont know where you get your info but your total idle time is from the ecm download. it is not figured by tmc, now your miles per gallon is but the idle time is from an ecm download that you get at your service

 

Correct, and the formula it uses is the one I just gave. It takes the time you are idling and divides it by the time you are moving instead of the ACTUAL idle time which would be the time you are idling divided by the time your truck is running. Also, if anyone here has an issue with their idle time not jiving with what they think it really is you should look into it. When I swapped trucks out a month ago I watched them download my ECM and went over the numbers with the shop manager. My idle time was 25%, the next day I got a call from my FM telling me I needed to talk to the team leader about my high idle time of 45%. I said there are some crossed wires somewhere because I saw my idle time and it was 25%. So he got his team leader on the phone who could not have been a bigger dick if he tried and we left it at "I'll call the shop and find out why they would want to send us the wrong numbers" which was his way of saying I was full of crap. Never heard back so I called the next day and sure enough my FM told me they got the wrong numbers from the shop and that somehow it was the driver before me's fault. So, point is sometimes they do get the numbers wrong, if you think they are ask about it.

Also, if any of you have hauled HazMat for TMC you might want to go through your pay settlements and make sure you were paid for it. I read through the minutes of the last driver issues meeting and it turns out they say they only pay HazMat to a driver if the customer pays them for it same as detention. I went back through my settlements and it turns out I have never been paid once for a single load of HazMat I've hauled for them. After some heated discussions with my FM he asked for the pro#'s for those loads which I was able to dig up with one exception. He looked into it and told me they were going to put the pay on my next settlement. Not sure if they will but I've got my fingers crossed. At any rate, for the small fraction of TMC drivers that pull HazMat it might be worth looking into your settlements to see if you have been paid for your work.

 

well i dont know where you got that info from but i have had 3 ecm downloads and the idle time on the dash is right on with what is on my snapshot and pay.....dont know what to tell you

 

What info are you talking about? The way they calculate idle or that they mixed up my numbers on the last download? I don't think I could have been more clear although it was a bit of a long post. I'd be happy to clear it up.

 

they dont work the numbers it is taken right from the truck's ecm.....the shop does it and sends the info in. You are wrong on this maybe they messsed up and sent in the wrong numbers on your truck but if you look at the idle time on the cat screen before your download that is what the idle time will be as long as you did not reset the screen in between pm's