The U. S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is pleased to announce the next step in the phased rollout of Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010).
Motor
Carrier Data Preview:
In April 2010, FMCSA launched the CSA 2010 Data
Preview Website which allowed commercial motor vehicle carriers to view an
inventory of their safety performance data by the new Safety Measurement
System’s (SMS) Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs). On
August 16, 2010, FMCSA will update the Data Preview Website by providing
carriers with an assessment of where they stand in each BASIC based on roadside
data and investigation findings. The SMS’s seven BASICs are Unsafe Driving,
Fatigued Driving (Hours-of-Service), Driver Fitness, Controlled
Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, Cargo-Related and Crash Indicator. The
BASICs will replace SafeStat’s Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs) in December 2010,
and this early look gives motor carriers an opportunity to understand and
address their safety compliance issues right away.
Recent
Updates to SMS:
The Data Preview assessments will be based on an
improved SMS methodology. As a result of input from enforcement personnel,
industry representatives, and safety experts, as well as findings from an
extensive, 30-month field test, FMCSA is implementing several updates to the SMS
that will make it more effective in identifying high risk and other carriers
with safety compliance problems. Specifically:
These enhancements will allow the Agency to more effectively identify motor carriers with safety performance and compliance problems thereby raising the bar for safety on the Nation’s roads. For additional details about the Data Preview and the improvements to the SMS, visit: http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/Documents/SMSImprovementsFAQs.pdf
Preliminary
University of Michigan Transportation Institute (UMTRI) Findings:
FMCSA’s 30-month field test of CSA 2010 has drawn keen interest from
the trucking industry, including trade publications. Recently one of these
publications reported preliminary findings provided by FMCSA’s independent
evaluator, UMTRI, that indicate that while the majority of the BASICs have a
strong relationship to future crashes, two of the seven – Driver Fitness and
Cargo-Related - do not. The question was raised whether these findings would
delay implementation.
In the interest of safety, and based on promising field test results, FMCSA’s implementation of CSA 2010 will continue according to its published schedule available at: http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/csa_when.aspx. The SMS was designed to: (1) Identify high-risk motor carriers for priority intervention; those that have a greater propensity to be involved in future crashes, and (2) Identify motor carriers with patterns of on-road performance and compliance issues for intervention. SMS does both very well.
With respect to identifying high risk carriers, FMCSA effectiveness testing results demonstrate that those carriers that SMS identifies as “high-risk” have much higher future crash rates than those carriers not designated as high risk. Additionally, the effectiveness testing shows SMS identifies a group of carriers with higher crash risk than the system currently in use known as SafeStat.
SMS clearly identifies motor carriers with compliance issues as well, regardless of whether those compliance issues are linked to future crash risk through effectiveness testing. Congress has been clear that the FMCSA is a compliance and enforcement agency. While the effectiveness testing may not establish a relationship with future crashes in the Driver Fitness and Cargo-Related BASICs, FMCSA, as well as industry, has an obligation to ensure compliance with the regulations that contribute to these two BASICs. These two BASICs include being properly licensed, carrying medical cards to allow verification that a driver meets the medical qualification standards, adequately securing cargo, and properly packaging and handling hazardous materials.
UMTRI’s preliminary findings are in line with FMCSA’s effectiveness findings in terms of future crash risk. In response, FMCSA has adjusted how it identifies carriers for investigation so that the BASICs that have the strongest relationship to future crashes receive the most emphasis. In this way, FMCSA will address those carriers with the highest propensity for future crashes as well as those with the strongest patterns of noncompliance.
To learn more about CSA 2010, and to stay updated during the coming months, subscribe to the CSA 2010 RSS feed or email list at http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov.
Thank You,
CSA 2010 Web Team
USDOT/Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration
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Thank You,
CSA 2010 Web Team
USDOT/Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration
You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website: http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov. To unsubscribe from this e-mail list, please unsubscribe here.