In 2022, the Postal Service awarded a contract to Geotab for use of its telematics technology in all postal-owned vehicles. USPS believes that using technology reduces fuel consumption and improves overall vehicle maintenance and repairs. Installation and use of the devices began in February 2023.
Geotab devices are used to create the following reports: USPS Vehicle Stop Locations Report, which relies on tracking to identify overnight parking locations of vehicles;
Maintenance/Fault Report, which provides fault name, code and count for fault issues reported by each vehicle; Battery Drain Report, which provides a list of all vehicles reporting a battery voltage below 11 volts; Low Oil Pressure Report, which provides a list of vehicles experiencing very low oil pressure;
In Shop More than 8 Hours Report, which identifies vehicles that spend more than eight hours at local maintenance locations; Idling Report, which displays total time a vehicle idles, including a dollar value to fuel used during that idle based on current fuel cost; Fuel Efficiency Scoreboard Report, which evaluates driving behavior that affects fuel efficiency;
and Backing Up While Leaving Report, which shows each time a vehicle backs up while leaving when outside of a USPS location.
Driver Seatbelt Exceptions Report
USPS is now using Geotab data to create a report called the Driver Seatbelt Exceptions Report. This report identifies when a driver seat belt is not engaged while a vehicle is being operated. Based on what I have seen, the report lists the total number of instances, miles traveled and percentage of time a vehicle is driven above 5 mph without the driver seat belt engaged.
Postal management officials have relied on this report to confirm seat belt use in place of conducting street observations. In some cases, these officials have used the report to issue disciplinary action.
Geotab reports alone are not sufficient for identifying failures to wear seat belts and should not be the sole basis for any disciplinary action.
Relying on the report as a substitute for conducting street observations conflicts with Section 134.22 of Handbook M-39, Management of Delivery Services, which states:
134.22 The manager is not to spy or use other covert techniques. Any employee infractions are to be handled in accordance with the section in the current National Agreement that deal with these problems.
Attempts to rely on Geotab data in this manner are not much different than USPS efforts to rely solely on GPS data from Mobile Delivery Devices (MDD) to discipline carriers for stationary events. Like data collected from the MDD, data from Geotab devices is not always accurate and should be investigated by union representatives whenever necessary.
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