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This story appears in the Dec. 23 & 30��print edition of Transport Topics.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said last week it would move forward with a field study on the effect of split rest times for truckers who use sleeper berths.

FMCSA made the announcement Dec. 17, a day after American Trucking Associations and the Minnesota Trucking Association jointly announced they had sent a letter to FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro proposing a pilot program that looks at the relationship between safety and flexibility in using sleeper-berth breaks.

Currently, those drivers each day must take at least eight straight hours in the sleeper, plus a separate two consecutive hours either in the sleeper, off duty or any combination of the two, according to FMCSA.

But trucking industry groups have argued the rule is not a good fit for sleeper-berth drivers because they have developed sleep habits other than the traditional 24-hour asleep-awake period of most workers.

Split sleep time would improve highway safety and be better for truckers, said Kyle Kottke, general manager of Kottke Trucking, a frozen-food carrier in Buffalo Lake, Minn., that operates 80 trucks with sleepers.

“It allows the flexibility to the driver to get rest when he needs it,” said Kottke. “That’s first and foremost and that flexibility, then, would allow that rest to not cut into a day’s productivity.”

The current 10-hour regulation encourages drivers not to take breaks when they’re tired, he added.

There remained some discrepancy, as Transport Topics went to press, regarding how many groups have asked to participate in FMCSA’s effort to test if electronic onboard recorders and sleep research could “offer improved safety and flexibility” to drivers who use sleepers.

FMCSA said last week it was in the planning stages of conducting a test with the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. The agency also said it will meet with ATA and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association about the study.

But Dave Osiecki, ATA senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs, said, “ATA learned last week that FMCSA has received only one proposal from the industry — the ATA-MTA pilot program proposal.”

He added, “It’s our understanding that the agency is reviewing the ATA-MTA proposal and is also interested in working with other industry groups as part of this type of near-term research.”

Meanwhile, David Owen, president of NASTC, said that the agency has sought his organization’s help.

He said an FMCSA staff member traveled to his organization’s headquarters in Gallatin, Tenn., in October to talk to him about plans for the study. He said FMCSA wants data from smaller fleets.

The group has 4,000 members with an average fleet size of 15.9 trucks, Owen said.

Trucking and FMCSA have grappled with sleeper-berth rules for many years trying to come up with a rest-hours formula acceptable to both sides.

In 2003, FMCSA proposed a 10-hour rule with multiple options on sleeper-berth hours. After a lengthy court battle on the overall HOS rule, however, the final rule issued in 2011 called for a total 10 hours of rest, eight of them in the berth.

In December 2012, FMCSA released a laboratory study on the effect of daytime, nighttime consolidated sleep and split sleep periods that found consolidated nighttime sleep is best, while split sleep is better than daytime sleep.

ATA and MTA asked FMCSA in their proposal — sent in early December and made public last week — to apply scientific findings from the laboratory to real-world trucking operations.

“Doing a pilot test using professional drivers in actual trucking operations could give FMCSA even more scientific data on which to base future improvements to the sleeper-berth rules,” said ATA President Bill Graves.

John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota group, said the current one-size-fits-all approach to regulating driver rest does not work, and he noted that driving teams present a strong case for flexibility.

“In the case of many truck drivers, particularly those working in teams, allowing them to break up their 10-hour off-duty period into two shorter periods would be beneficial,” he said.

The proposal said that to be properly done, a pilot would have to see a group of sleeper-berth drivers exempted from the hours-of-service rule change for 24 months.

“We are hopeful this pilot will produce field data that will support more flexibility in the rules,” Hausladen said.

Minnesota has a history of interest in sleeper-berth regulations, Hausladen said, referring to a study that Dart Transit of Eagan, Minn., proposed to FMCSA in 2007.

Dart wanted the agency to allow some drivers the flexibility to split their driving hours, said Dan Oren, Dart’s executive vice president.

“In addition, we proposed that the drivers in this pilot program would be off duty at similar times each night,” Oren said. “Our plan was to respect a driver’s circadian rhythm, allow drivers to take breaks or naps without losing driving time and track the drivers to ensure that the flexible rules are not abused.”