CCJ Innovators profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. If you know a carrier that has displayed innovation, contact CCJ Editor Jason Cannon at jasoncannon@randallreilly.com or 800-633-5953.
The difficulty in learning how to deal with dangerous situations is fairly clear. It’s hard to get hands-on real-world experience without exposing your mortality.
That’s why in 2018, Calgary, Alberta-based Trimac Transportation (CCJ Top 250, No. 66), a bulk carrier operating throughout the United States and Canada, left the real world for the virtual world in an effort to train its drivers on real problems without the threat of real ramifications.
“If you make a mistake, either in a regular product handling or if we expose you to an emergency situation such as a sudden hose rupture under pressure, there are no real-life consequences in VR,” said Marcel Pouliot, vice president of industry and regulatory affairs. “You get to learn that way. You get to develop the muscle reaction, the instincts that ‘if this occurs, I do that.’ ”
Real hazards, real dangers
Pouliot recalled an incident in 2017 when one of Trimac’s most senior and experienced drivers found himself in an emergency situation while offloading sulfuric acid.
The customer’s frozen pipes at the driver’s stop forced him to start and stop the offload multiple times, and Pouliot said the driver, on the last pause and attempt to disassemble his equipment, “opens the cam lock ears on the fitting on a 2-inch hose, and of course, now the acid is gushing out at 25 psi of pressure.”
