Key Takeaways from TMC’s Annual Meeting
Jonathan Stotts
Senior PR & Communications Manager
America Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) is all about facilitating conversation between technical experts, not sales and marketing people. Collectively, they are focused on solving issues faced by the fleet industry, which was the founding principle back in 1956 when the industry needed to bond together to address tire quality.
Today, TMC has 105 task forces meeting under 17 different study groups – study groups identify industry challenges and task forces work on solving those challenges through various methods, like developing recommended practices, education, technical outreach, or voluntary industry standards.
This year’s annual meeting – TMC 2024 – was a bustling three days, March 4-7, at the convention center in New Orleans. More than 5,000 attendees joined dozens of educational sessions, debated current issues, and networked between sessions on the expo floor, featuring hundreds of exhibiting companies and organizations.
The show’s overall theme was Quality Spec’ing for optimal performance – or doing a better job maintaining vehicles and improving fleet operations. And the biggest objective is, as always, minimizing downtime. Vehicle complexity and the ability of fleets to maintain their own systems is becoming a challenge. Staying on top of the issues and using the latest techniques is critical to continue doing business in the most economical way possible.
We noticed Three key takeaways at the show: tires, staffing, and sustainability.
Tires
Tire quality was a big issue in 1956, but tires remain at the top of all fleet operators’ minds today because they remain the 2nd largest operational expense behind fuel. Our research found that US fleets currently use subjective or outdated methods to measure tire health – 82% of respondents to a survey use handheld tire gauges, which only measure one individual point on a tire and are error-prone, while 48% rely on visual inspections, which are very subjective. More accurate tire tread measurement methods like drive-over gauges, laser readers, and tire tread depth scanning via mobile phones are used less than 10% of the time. The adoption of electric vehicles, which wear out tires much more rapidly due to increased weight, torque, and weight distribution, only increases the importance of capturing accurate tire health information.
Tire manufacturers continue to develop new tires to meet evolving fleet demands, and improvements in retreading optimization will help keep vehicles on the road longer. However, the industry needs to improve its ability to track the health of each individual tire more accurately and more frequently.
Staffing
Fleet companies are not immune to the current staffing shortage hitting organizations globally. Luckily, many fleet operations in the US have a high level of loyalty, with employees working for one company or staying in the industry for their entire careers, there is a real shortage of skilled workers to fill the increasing gap. At the show, audience members shared their struggles and best practices regarding staff retention and upskilling. Ideas shared included providing tools to workers so they do not need to invest as much to get started upskilling and funding vocational education for employees.
Sustainability
While it’s a massive concept, the sustainability conversation has been evolving for decades at TMC. EVs and hydrogen were certainly talked about, as usual, but this year, there were also tangible advancements by the US Department of Energy’s SuperTruck program, a public-private collaboration aiming to improve freight energy efficiency and lessen negative environmental impacts. They shared many technological advancements at the show. These improvements, mainly focused on aerodynamics, weight, and reducing friction, will improve environmental sustainability while reducing vehicle operating costs on existing diesel-powered vehicles and alternative fuel trucks.
For Anyline, TMC 2024 was a great show that gave us an opportunity to talk to the men and women driving the US fleet industry forward. The work being done by TMC members in the study groups and task forces anticipates future problems and offers solutions to current challenges. We live in a world where technology is changing the way we work at a rapid pace. Communication and learning must accelerate along with tech to keep up with that. TMC’s annual meeting is one of those information-sharing platforms that you shouldn’t miss. See you at TMC 2025!
