ELD and job-site tracking for construction fleets
A construction fleet is a mix. Pickups that never need a log, dump trucks that sometimes do, and a lowboy that always does. TenTrucks sets logs person by person, tracks job sites with dwell time and runs maintenance on engine hours. This page also covers which of your trucks the federal rules actually reach.
What a construction fleet really looks like
Walk a contractor's yard at six in the morning and you'll count three kinds of vehicles. Crew pickups and service trucks. Tandem and tri-axle dumps, and mixers if you batch your own concrete. Then one or two tractors with a lowboy for moving the excavator to the next job.
Most work is short. A tandem dump turns between the quarry and a paving job eight or ten times a day and is parked in the yard by evening. The operator may not hold a CDL. Then one Thursday it hauls pipe two states over, and for compliance that day is a different animal.
An ELD set up for long haul fits this badly. It assumes everyone keeps logs and has never heard of a pit or a pour. A construction office asks plainer questions. Who has to log at all, and how long did truck 22 sit at the overpass job yesterday?
Which of your vehicles fall under the ELD rule
Federal hours of service apply to a commercial motor vehicle. Under 49 CFR 390.5, a vehicle used in interstate commerce is a CMV if its weight rating or actual weight, whichever is greater, is 10,001 lb or more, or if it carries hazmat in a placardable quantity. Interstate commerce covers an in-state leg of a trip that starts or ends outside the state.
| Vehicle or situation | Does the ELD rule apply? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Crew pickup or service truck rated under 10,001 lb, no trailer | No | Under the threshold with no placardable hazmat, so not a CMV. Check each unit's GVWR plate. |
| Pickup towing an equipment trailer | It can | The test uses the combined rating or weight. A trailer can push the combination to 10,001 lb or more, and on interstate work it is then a CMV. |
| Dump truck within 150 air miles, back and released within 14 hours | Usually no | The short-haul exception, 395.1(e)(1), exempts the driver from logs and the ELD. The 11-hour, 60/70-hour and 10-hours-off limits still apply, and you keep time records for 6 months. |
| Truck that doesn't need a CDL, on local work | Usually no | 395.1(e)(2): within 150 air miles, back to the reporting location each duty tour, no driving after the 14th hour on duty on 5 days of any 7, or after the 16th hour on 2 days of any 7. |
| The same truck on a day it goes past 150 air miles or 14 hours | That day needs a log | Paper logs are allowed when a driver needs a record of duty status on no more than 8 days in any rolling 30-day period. More days than that, and it's an ELD. |
| Lowboy moving an excavator to a job two states away | Yes | A CMV on interstate work, outside short-haul. Logs on an ELD. |
| Truck built before model year 2000, per the VIN | No ELD, still logs | 395.8 allows paper logs for a CMV manufactured before model year 2000 as shown by the VIN. Hours of service still apply. |
| Truck rented for 8 days or less | No ELD, still logs | FMCSA's rental exemption. The driver carries the rental agreement, a copy of the exemption notice and records for the current day and the prior 7 days. |
Drivers under either short-haul exception also skip the 30-minute break. For work that never leaves your state, check your state's rules as well.
The two construction provisions in Part 395
Construction has two provisions of its own in Part 395. Both are narrower than people remember.
24-hour restart, 395.1(m)
For a driver used primarily in transporting construction materials and equipment, any 7- or 8-consecutive-day period may end with an off-duty period of 24 or more successive hours. The standard restart in 395.3(c) is 34. It changes how the 60/70-hour period ends and leaves the daily limits alone.
Who it covers
Primarily is the rule's word. A driver who hauls aggregate, rebar or your own equipment to your jobs most of the time fits it. One who spends most weeks on general freight doesn't. Drivers used primarily in transporting and operating a ground-water well drilling rig get the same restart under 395.1(l).
State law still counts
The federal text says this exception does not preempt State laws. If your state has its own rules for in-state work, they still apply there.
Ready-mixed concrete, 395.1(t)
Mixer drivers may count 30 minutes or more of waiting with the truck at a job site or terminal as their 30-minute break, as long as they do no other work in that time. It's a break rule, not a log exemption.
Have your safety lead read 395.1(m) and decide who qualifies before anyone's restart changes.
Set up for construction, not long haul
Pick Construction when you sign up and TenTrucks changes its defaults. Hours of service starts off. The app says Equipment instead of Vehicle, Operator instead of Driver, Operating instead of Driving, Attachment instead of Trailer and Rest instead of Sleeper.
Then you decide, person by person, who logs. Each one is set to ELD, electronic logbook or not required, and marked CDL or non-CDL. The lowboy driver goes on ELD. The foreman in a half-ton pickup is set to not required and never sees a clock. The driver app runs in English, Spanish, French, Russian and Uzbek.
- Construction wording in the app and on the web
- Hours of service off by default, on when you need it
- ELD, electronic logbook or not required, per person
- CDL and non-CDL operators
Job sites, pits and the yard as geofences
Draw a circle around each job site, quarry, asphalt plant and your own yard. TenTrucks checks every truck's position against them every 30 seconds and sends an entry or exit alert in the app or by email, and by SMS or WhatsApp where your account has them.
The Geofence Dwell Time report is the one you'll open most. It shows how long each truck sat inside each site. When a general contractor says your trucks were at the pour for an hour, that's your answer. Costing the job is still your spreadsheet.
Size each circle to the fence line, not the whole neighborhood, so a truck passing on the highway doesn't count as a visit. The live map shows every truck with its trail, and trip replay shows where it went.
- Entry and exit alerts per site
- Dwell time by truck and by site
- Live map, trails and trip replay
- Webhooks to send site events to your own systems
Engine-hour maintenance, defects into work orders
A dump truck that spends half its day idling in a pit line puts on hours, not miles. The TenTrucks ELD reads engine hours, odometer, speed and fault codes from the truck over J1939, OBD-II or J1708. Set service schedules on engine hours, miles or days and you see each service coming before it's due.
Operators do their inspections in the app, with photos of the defect and custom forms if you want the dump body and the hoist on the checklist. Every open defect opens a work order by itself: a major one as critical and due in a day, anything else as high and due in a week. A fault code raises an alert and a work order too.
Electronic inspection reports have been explicitly allowed since March 23, 2026. More in fleet maintenance.
- Schedules by engine hours, miles or days
- Every open DVIR defect becomes a work order
- Fault-code and low-fuel alerts
Putting a driver on the 24-hour restart
On the US cycles, each driver's restart is set to 34 or 24 hours. For a driver who qualifies under 395.1(m), set it to 24.
If the presets don't fit your operation, the cycle rule builder lets you set the driving limit, shift window, reset hours, cycle hours and days, and the break, and choose which settings the driver must pick in the app.
Be clear about one thing. TenTrucks doesn't know what your driver hauled last week. It applies the restart you set and doesn't check whether the driver qualifies, so putting only covered drivers on 24 hours is the company's job. The general limits are in hours of service.
- 24- or 34-hour restart per driver
- Custom cycle rules for your own operation
- Primary and secondary cycle, switched in the app
What TenTrucks doesn't do for a construction fleet
Better to read it here than three weeks into a rollout.
No yellow iron
TenTrucks tracks vehicles with the TenTrucks ELD installed. Excavators, loaders, skid steers and light towers without one don't appear. There are no standalone asset trackers and no Cat, Deere or Komatsu data feeds.
No dash cams
No video and no AI camera events. Safety scoring comes from the ELD: harsh braking, acceleration and cornering, and seatbelt, plus speeding alerts against the posted limit.
No short-haul radius tracking
TenTrucks doesn't measure the 150 air-mile radius or decide whether a day qualified for short-haul. Someone in the office still owns that call and the time records that go with it.
No ELD data in the TMS
If you also use TenTrucks for dispatching, the ELD's hours and positions don't flow into it today. They are separate products.
Questions fleets ask us
About TenTrucks ELD for construction fleets.
Rules referenced on this page
See TenTrucks set up for a construction fleet
Book a demo. Bring your list of trucks and job sites, and we'll set up the wording, who logs and your first geofences on the call.