Arka Express Provides Streamlined Service to America’s Top Retailers with the Help of Drivewyze

Arka Uses Drivewyze PreClear and Safety+ to reduce down time and operational costs while improving driver safety

If you live east of the Mississippi River, odds are you’ve seen an Arka Express truck rolling down the highway. In less than 20 years, the Markham, Illinois truckload and dedicated transportation service provider has grown from a start-up trucking operation with a few trucks to a fleet that consists of more than 650 trucks and 1,800 dry van trailers. The company works with some of the largest retailers in the U.S., including Target, Walmart, and Home Depot. Over the years, it has developed a well-earned reputation of being a reliable and safe transportation provider.

Challenge

Arka Express is a big believer in using the latest technologies the industry has to offer to make its operation run more efficiently, while reducing costs, and enhancing driver safety. For years, the company had been using weigh station bypass services as a solution to reduce the amount of time drivers spend at weigh stations along their route and to reduce operating costs associated with the downtime, such as fuel.

“Fuel is our second highest expense behind employee salaries,” said Igor Naumov, Arka Express safety director. “Every time a driver has to pull into a weigh station, idle, and get back up to highway speeds it reduces our fuel economy numbers. It might not seem like much per stop, but when you have hundreds of trucks stopping at thousands of weigh stations over the course of a month, the fuel consumption adds up, and so do our fuel costs.”

While Arka Express was happy with the time and cost savings weigh station bypass service provided, managing transponders for a 650+ truck fleet became cumbersome. “It was a hassle to swap in or out the transponders in our vehicles to get the service,” said Naumov. “We realized we needed to seek out an alternative option so we could more efficiently manage this type of service and free up more time to manage more important tasks.”

Solution

At the beginning of 2023, Arka Express made the decision to switch to Drivewyze for its PreClear weigh station bypass services. Since Drivewyze is partnered with the company’s ELD provider, Samsara, it would allow Arka Express to easily activate and manage trucks with the service online through their account since no additional hardware was needed in the cab. For drivers, it would mean they’d receive a visual and audible notification of an upcoming weigh station and whether or not they’ve been granted permission to bypass it through their ELD, rather than waiting for an audible chime through a transponder.

In addition to PreClear, Arka Express saw an opportunity to begin using Drivewye’s Safety+ service as an add-on feature to assist with its safety programs. Arka Express uses telematics data provided by Samsara and dashcams to monitor driving behavior and specifies its trucks with several advanced driver assistance systems to aid drivers on the road. Adding Safety+ to the mix of safety technologies the company uses would help provide proactive alerts to drivers through their Drivewyze-enabled ELD of upcoming hazards, such as low bridges, high rollover areas, severe weather, high citation areas for speeding, and more. Safety+ would also give Arka Express managers access to new safety analytics on how drivers responded after receiving the alerts, providing new insight into driving behavior.

Results

Since switching to Drivewyze, Naumov has experienced a stark difference in how easy and less time-consuming it is to manage both PreClear and Safety+ services.

“Since all of our trucks are equipped with ELDs, it’s simple for us to access our account and manage the trucks activated with the service or add a new vehicle,” said Naumov. “Plus, with Drivewyze, we gain additional data regarding bypass usage in the Drivewyze Hub. We can see when and where our trucks are receiving bypass opportunities and the estimated time and cost savings associated with the bypasses. The monthly reports justify why weigh station bypass service is a cost-effective solution.”

In one of Arka Express’s recent monthly reports, the 370 trucks with PreClear activated bypassed more than 3,948 weigh station sites, for an average of 11 bypasses per truck. According to Drivewyze, these bypasses helped reduce the time drivers spent at weigh stations collectively by approximately 329 hours. It’s estimated that the cost savings associated with bypassing those weigh stations helped Arka Express save more than $34,269 in operating costs in that month alone.

In addition to positive results with PreClear, Drivewyze’s Safety+ service is having a significant influence on driving behavior. According to Naumov, notifications of upcoming severe weather, low bridges, high rollover areas, high citations for speeding are helping drivers reduce their speeds or avoid hazardous areas altogether. In recent years, the company experienced multiple truck rollover events, so eliminating these types of crashes was a point of emphasis for the company.

“When you factor in vehicle repairs or replacement, insurance, downtime, and other costs associated with a rollover event, it can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Naumov. “If a driver is unfamiliar with the roads they’re traveling on, these curves can sneak up and by the time they try to reduce their speed, it can be too late. With Safety+, we’re able to better inform drivers of upcoming areas that may cause problems so they’re more aware of what’s ahead. Since we began using the service, we haven’t experienced a rollover event.”

According to Naumov, through the Drivewye Hub, Arka Express can access data on how individual drivers are adjusting their driving behavior after they receive an alert and can identify fleet safety trends, including benchmarking how their company compares to other fleets using Safety+.

“We know these safety alerts are having a positive impact on drivers because the data is showing that when drivers receive an alert, for example, a high rollover curve, they’re reducing their speeds more than they would if they didn’t get the notification.”

Igor Naumov, Safety Director at Arka Express

“In general, our drivers are good about not speeding, in fact, our fleet is 17% below the benchmark for speeding incidents compared to other fleets according to the Drivewyze Hub,” said Naumov.

While the traditional safety alerts are having a positive impact on drivers, so too are other alerts that come with Safety+, such as rest area alerts that inform drivers of upcoming parking availability at rest areas and other parking centers in select states.

“There’s a lot of things drivers have to worry about when they’re on the road, and spending time looking for a safe place to park their truck at the end of the day or during a break shouldn’t be one of them,” said Naumov. “Our drivers really appreciate these alerts. It gives them piece of mind to know there is a place for them to safely park or if they need to continue on to find a spot instead of wasting their time pulling off the road.”

All in all, between a more simplified back-office management of its weigh station bypass service combined with the proactive safety alerts drivers receive, Arka Express is pleased with the decision to make the switch to Drivewyze.

“It’s a top-notch service,” said Naumov. “It integrates well with Samsara and it’s very user-friendly for us managers and drivers. Between PreClear and Safety+, what Drivewyze provides is of tremendous value for our operation, and we’re very happy we made the decision to add their services.”