Small Fleet ELD: Running 2 to 20 Trucks

What changes when you add a second truck

With one truck, the owner is the driver, the dispatcher, and the safety department. With two or more, the office has to see what is happening in trucks it cannot see. Three jobs land on whoever runs safety:

• Reviewing driver logs for violations and form-and-manner errors before an officer or auditor finds them.
• Handling unidentified driving, the miles a truck moves while no driver is logged in.
• Keeping records for every driver for at least 6 months, including drivers who have left.

The office web portal

DocuDrive includes a web portal for the office in the $20 per truck. From one screen you can review Hours of Service logs, DVIRs, IFTA mileage by jurisdiction, and real-time GPS for each truck. When a customer calls asking where their freight is, you check the map.

The PT-40 reports location over its own LTE connection, so the map stays current when a driver's phone is dead or left at home. That matters most with a fleet, because you cannot walk out to the yard and look. See ELD with GPS.

Unidentified driving is your job

When a truck moves and nobody is logged in, the ELD assigns that time to an Unidentified Driver account. The rules split the cleanup between driver and carrier:

• When a driver logs in, they review unassigned time and either claim it or say it is not theirs (49 CFR 395.32(b)).
• The carrier must make sure unidentified records are reviewed, then assign them to the right driver or annotate why they are unassigned (49 CFR 395.32(c)). Those records are kept for at least 6 months.

In practice, it happens when a mechanic road-tests a truck, a yard move runs longer than expected, or a new driver forgets to log in at the start of a shift. Check unidentified driving every week. A pile of it looks bad at a DOT inspection or a compliance review.

Costs for a small fleet

Every truck is billed the same way: $149 once for a PT-40, or $0 if you bring your own PT-30 or PT-40, plus $20 a month. Here is the list-price math on a simple 12-month year. The first 14 days are free, so real first-year totals run slightly lower.

Fleets of 5 or more can buy online at these prices or contact sales for volume pricing. The full breakdown is on the ELD cost page.

Adding and removing trucks

Existing customers add trucks from the billing portal. Buy a truck in May and add it to the account at the same $20. Sell one in October and you remove it, with no early-termination fee because there is no term.

Driver turnover works the same way on the hardware side. The PT-40 stays in the truck and belongs to you. A new driver logs into the app on their own phone. Keep a copy of the old driver's records for at least 6 months.

Mixing PT-30s and PT-40s

Many small fleets already own Pacific Track PT-30s from a previous provider. You can move them to DocuDrive with no hardware purchase and buy PT-40s only for the trucks that need them. A common split:

• PT-40 in trucks that run broker freight with tracking requirements, long-haul trucks, and any truck with a driver whose phone tends to die.
• PT-30 in local or regional trucks where the driver's phone is reliable and the truck is rarely out of sight.

The core difference: a PT-30 relies on the driver's phone for location, and a PT-40 has its own GPS and cellular connection. Details in PT-30 vs PT-40 and bring your own ELD.

Vans and work trucks in the same fleet

The PT-40 works in light-duty vehicles with a standard OBD-II port, so a box truck or cargo van that needs logs can run the same ELD as your tractors. For service vans that only need location and no logs, DocuDrive offers GPS-only tracking at $8 per vehicle per month. When you are ready, order PT-40s for your fleet.