Transportation in the Covid-19 Environment

 

Dawn Truell
President, Cross Border Services
May 19, 2020

As we welcomed in the New Year 2020 we all jumped at the new great challenges for expanding our businesses and charging forward with all of our wonderful plans for our future. As the days and nights lead on through January things were galloping ahead, businesses were booming and everyone had positive vibes with ecstatic enthusiasm. February came with a leap when our famous Groundhog Wiarton Willie showed himself and predicted an early spring giving us all the wonderful hope of enjoying our early spring and with great enthusiasm we all marched forward. Then March 1st hit, we all heard in the news on every station that a new strand of a very dangerous and deadly coronavirus had landed in Canada. At first we all thought it was just a flu bug and that everyone would be fine. As the stories unfolded we discovered that this was actually a Pandemic and that it had originated in the Wuhan City in China, after much investigation the National Geographic published an article with scientific evidence proving that this coronavirus started in and was caused by the Wet Markets in Wuhan City. Wet Markets are typically where you find very large collections of open-air stalls selling fresh seafood, meats, fruits and vegetables, some even unfortunately also sell and slaughter live animals including chickens, fish and shellfish and even more horrible some also sell and slaughter wild animals of which I will not name here as this topic absolutely horrifies me.

Numerous Scientists around the world and members of the WHO World Health Organization jumped on the task of determining what type of coronavirus this was because the term coronavirus simply means: Any of a group of RNA (ribonucleic acid) viruses that cause a variety of diseases in humans and other animals. The World needed to know a more definitive answer, what is this? After many weeks of scientific studies they determined that it was the Covid-19, which is also known as SARS-CoV-2. To date there are 4,948,680 cases worldwide and 322,801 deaths. In Canada as of this morning (May 19, 2020) we have 79,397 and 5,959 deaths. The USA as of today has 1,558,440 with 92,518 deaths. By the time this article gets published we will be over 5 million cases worldwide, over 80,000 in Canada and over 1.6 million in the USA.

Business has changed due to this Covid-19 Pandemic. Many of us have struggled to keep our businesses going living basically day to day hoping that with each day comes new hope for not only our businesses but for a vaccine for this Covid-19 so that people around the world can get back to a normal life, life as we knew it prior to covid-19 will never be the same.

For the Transportation & Trucking Industry those who carry essential goods such as food, water, fuel and medical supplies business has not only been good but has been booming! Those who don’t carry essential supplies have really felt the pinch just as the rest of our businesses have, many that I have spoken to are operating at only 10%. I have certainly sent many positive shout outs to all of those wonderful truck drivers out there who continue to keep our supply chain open and are not always treated as heroes but throughout this Covid-19 Pandemic all of you truck drivers out there we Cheer You On and Thank You!

Keeping in touch with our customers during all of this is what will keep us successful. Reach out to your customers via telephone calls, text messages, emails and here’s a new one on me using facebook’s messenger! The technology out there is amazing and sure has been getting its usage during this pandemic!

I have written about this before in tweets and on LinkedIn but I want to be sure every truck driver out there knows about this:  Ontario launched a new free Ontario 511 app to provide truck drivers with immediate access to information that they need while delivering essential goods during the COVID-19 Pandemic. You can get the Ontario 511 app on the Apple App Store for iPhones and for Android phones Google Play. It is updated constantly and includes traffic information from over 600 cameras across Ontario with a map view showing any construction, collisions, road closures, open rest areas and locations where trucks drivers are able to get food, fuel and rest.  There is “Drive Mode” that automatically turns on when the app detects a user is driving and provides hands free audio alerts. There also is an option for customizing your Ontario 511 account to access your most used routes. Currently this app is in English with a French version due out at the end of this month.

Thank you again to all of our Wonderful Truck Drivers that keep our supply chains going and our grocery stores and hospitals stocked up with our essential supplies.

For more information about this article, border crossings or safety & compliance programs such as CTPAT, FAST, PIP, TTP, AEO, CSA, NEXUS please contact Cross Border Services at www.crossborderservices.ca   dawntruell@gmail.com.