Revised Carrier Safety Measurement System, 9954-9960 [2023-02947]
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BILLING CODE 4910–13–P
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration
Public Participation and Request for
Comments
[Docket No. FMCSA–2022–0066]
Revised Carrier Safety Measurement
System
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA), Department
of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
AGENCY:
Since 2010, FMCSA has used
its Safety Measurement System (SMS) to
identify motor carriers for safety
interventions. The National Research
Council of the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) recommended on June
27, 2017, that FMCSA develop and test
a new statistical model. This notice
explains FMCSA’s analysis and the
Agency’s proposed changes to SMS,
announces FMCSA’s preview of the
proposed changes, and requests
comments and input on the Agency’s
system to identify motor carriers for
safety interventions.
DATES: Comments must be received on
or before May 16, 2023.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments
identified by Docket Number FMCSA–
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SUMMARY:
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2022–0066 using any of the following
methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/
FMCSA-2022-0066/document. Follow
the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Mail: Dockets Operations, U.S.
Department of Transportation, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building,
Ground Floor, Room W12–140,
Washington, DC 20590–0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: Dockets
Operations, West Building, Ground
Floor, Room W12–140, 1200 New Jersey
Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590–
0001 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.,
Monday through Friday, except Federal
holidays. To be sure someone is there to
help you, please call (202) 366–9317 or
(202) 366–9826 before visiting Dockets
Operations.
Fax: (202) 493–2251.
To avoid duplication, please use only
one of these four methods. See the
‘‘Public Participation and Request for
Comments’’ portion of the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for
instructions on submitting comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr.
Catterson Oh, Compliance Division,
FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE,
Washington, DC 20590–0001, (202) 366–
6160, Catterson.Oh@dot.gov. If you have
questions regarding viewing or
submitting material to the docket,
contact Dockets Operations, (202) 366–
9826.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
If you submit a comment, please
include the docket number for this
notice FMCSA–2022–0066, indicate the
specific section of this document to
which each comment applies, and
provide a reason for each suggestion or
recommendation. You may submit your
comments and material online or by fax,
mail, or hand delivery, but please use
only one of these means. FMCSA
recommends that you include your
name and a mailing address, an email
address, or a phone number in the body
of your document so the Agency can
contact you if it has questions regarding
your submission.
To submit your comment online, go to
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/
FMCSA-2022-0066/document, click on
this notice, click ‘‘Comment,’’ and type
your comment into the text box on the
following screen.
If you submit your comments by mail
or hand delivery, submit them in an
unbound format, no larger than 81⁄2 by
11 inches, suitable for copying and
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electronic filing. If you submit
comments by mail and would like to
know that they reached the facility,
please enclose a stamped, self-addressed
postcard or envelope.
FMCSA will consider all comments
and material received during the
comment period and may change this
notice based on your comments.
Confidential Business Information (CBI)
CBI is commercial or financial
information that is both customarily and
actually treated as private by its owner.
Under the Freedom of Information Act
(5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from
public disclosure. If your comments
responsive to the notice contain
commercial or financial information
that is customarily treated as private,
that you actually treat as private, and
that is relevant or responsive to the
notice, it is important that you clearly
designate the submitted comments as
CBI. Please mark each page of your
submission that constitutes CBI as
‘‘PROPIN’’ to indicate it contains
proprietary information. FMCSA will
treat such marked submissions as
confidential under the Freedom of
Information Act, and they will not be
placed in the public docket of the
notice. Submissions containing CBI
should be sent to Mr. Brian Dahlin,
Chief, Regulatory Analysis Division,
Office of Policy, FMCSA, 1200 New
Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC
20590–0001. Any comments FMCSA
receives not specifically designated as
CBI will be placed in the public docket
for this notice.
Viewing Comments and Documents
To view any documents mentioned as
being available in the docket, go to
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/
FMCSA-2022-0066/document and
choose the document to review. To view
comments, click this notice, then click
‘‘Browse Comments.’’ If you do not have
access to the internet, you may view the
docket in person by visiting Dockets
Operations in Room W12–140 on the
ground floor of the DOT West Building,
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE,
Washington, DC 20590–0001, between 9
a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through
Friday, except Federal holidays. To be
sure someone is there to help you,
please call (202) 366–9317 or (202) 366–
9826 before visiting Dockets Operations.
Privacy Act
DOT solicits comments from the
public to better inform its processes, in
accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c). DOT
posts these comments, without edit,
including any personal information the
commenter provides, to
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www.regulations.gov, as described in
the system of records notice (DOT/ALL
14—Federal Docket Management
System), which can be reviewed at
www.transportation.gov/privacy.
Background
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SMS Overview
In December 2010, FMCSA
implemented SMS to identify high risk
motor carriers for investigations (75 FR
18256, April 9, 2010). Section 5305(a) of
the Fixing America’s Surface
Transportation (FAST) Act, Public Law
114–94 (Dec. 4, 2015; 129 Stat. 1312)
requires FMCSA to ensure, at a
minimum, that a review is conducted on
motor carriers that demonstrate, through
performance data, that they are among
the highest risk carriers for four
consecutive months. FMCSA and its
State enforcement partners also use
SMS to identify and prioritize motor
carriers for inspections and less
resource-intensive interventions, such
as automated warning letters.
SMS determines a carrier’s
prioritization status (i.e., prioritized or
not prioritized) in each Behavior
Analysis and Safety Improvement
Category (BASIC) based on the carrier’s
on-road performance and/or
investigation results. A carrier’s relative
on-road performance is indicated by its
BASIC percentile. Investigation results
reflect if any Acute and/or Critical (A/
C) violations are found in a given BASIC
during investigations. A carrier can be
prioritized for interventions because its
percentile is at or above the Intervention
Threshold and/or it has one or more A/
C violations related to a particular
BASIC.
SMS also provides motor carriers and
other stakeholders with safety
performance data, which is updated
monthly, through the public website at
https://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS. Under
section 5223 of the FAST Act, FMCSA
removed SMS percentiles and alerts
from the public SMS website for motor
carriers transporting property. Passenger
carrier percentiles and alerts remain
publicly available, as well as inspection,
investigation, crash, and registration
data for all carriers.
SMS quantifies the safety
performance of motor carriers using data
available in FMCSA’s motor carrier
database, the Motor Carrier Management
Information System (MCMIS). This
database includes violations found
during inspections, traffic enforcement,
and investigations, as well as crash and
motor carrier census data. For detailed
information on the current structure of
SMS, see the SMS Methodology at
https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov. A copy of the
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SMS Methodology is available in the
docket for this notice.
FMCSA’s analysis has shown that
SMS is effective in helping the Agency
identify high crash risk carriers for
interventions. FMCSA’s SMS
Effectiveness Test (ET) found that the
group of carriers that SMS identified for
intervention in one or more BASICs had
a crash rate that was 61 percent higher
than the group of carriers not identified
for intervention. In addition, the group
of carriers that met FMCSA’s high risk
criteria had a crash rate that was 178
percent higher than the national average
crash rate. A copy of FMCSA’s ET,
which was first published in 2014 and
updated in 2018, is available in the
docket for this notice.
Section 5221 of FAST Act required
that NAS conduct a study of FMCSA’s
Compliance, Safety, Accountability
(CSA) program and SMS. Specifically,
the FAST Act required that NAS:
(1) shall analyze—
(A) the accuracy with which the
Behavior Analysis and Safety
Improvement Categories referred to in
this part as ‘‘BASIC’’)—
(i) identify high risk carriers; and
(ii) predict or are correlated with
future crash risk, crash severity, or other
safety indicators for motor carriers,
including the highest risk carriers;
(B) the methodology used to calculate
BASIC percentiles and identify carriers
for enforcement, including the weights
assigned to particular violations and the
tie between crash risk and specific
regulatory violations, with respect to
accurately identifying and predicting
future crash risk for motor carriers;
(C) the relative value of inspection
information and roadside enforcement
data;
(D) any data collection gaps or data
sufficiency problems that may exist and
the impact of those gaps and problems
on the efficacy of the CSA program;
(E) the accuracy of safety data,
including the use of crash data from
crashes in which a motor carrier was
free from fault;
(F) whether BASIC percentiles for
motor carriers of passengers should be
calculated separately from motor
carriers of freight;
(G) the differences in the rates at
which safety violations are reported to
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration for inclusion in the SMS
by various enforcement authorities,
including States, territories, and Federal
inspectors; and
(H) how members of the public use
the SMS and what effect making the
SMS information public has had on
reducing crashes and eliminating unsafe
motor carriers from the industry; and
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(2) shall consider—
(A) whether the SMS provides
comparable precision and confidence,
through SMS alerts and percentiles, for
the relative crash risk of individual large
and small motor carriers;
(B) whether alternatives to the SMS
would identify high risk carriers more
accurately; and
(C) the recommendations and findings
of the Comptroller General of the United
States and the Inspector General of the
Department, and independent review
team reports, issued before the date of
enactment of this Act.
NAS Study
On June 27, 2017, NAS published a
report titled ‘‘Improving Motor Carrier
Safety Measurement.’’ FMCSA
commissioned this report under Section
5221 of the FAST Act. The report is
available at https://www.nap.edu/
catalog/24818/improving-motor-carriersafety-measurement. However, NAS did
not complete all the reviews requested
by the FAST Act. The NAS report notes,
‘‘This study is not concerned with nonSMS aspects of CSA, and it is concerned
only with CSMS [Carrier SMS], not with
DSMS [Driver SMS], but we will refer to
our topic as SMS in the remainder of
this report.’’ The NAS report concluded
that SMS, in its current form, is
structured in a reasonable way and its
method of identifying motor carriers for
alert status is defensible. NAS agreed
that FMCSA’s overall approach, based
on crash prevention rather than
prediction, is sound. NAS provided
FMCSA with six recommendations to
improve the system. This notice focuses
on FMCSA’s actions in response to the
first NAS recommendation to develop
an Item Response Theory (IRT) model.
FMCSA will update its full corrective
action plan addressing all six NAS
recommendations after reviewing
comments to this proposal. The
corrective action plan is available on
FMCSA’s website at https://
www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/policy/nascorrelation-study-corrective-action-planreport-congress.
Pursuant to the FAST Act, FMCSA
submitted the results of this study to
both Congress and the DOT Office of
Inspector General (OIG) on August 7,
2017. FMCSA also submitted the
corrective action plan required by the
FAST Act to Congress on June 25, 2018.
Copies of the NAS report and FMCSA’s
action plan are available in the docket
for this notice.
OIG reviewed FMCSA’s action plan as
required by the FAST Act and on
September 25, 2019, provided its report
titled ‘‘FMCSA’s Plan Addresses
Recommendations on Prioritizing Safety
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Interventions but Lacks Implementation
Details,’’ available on the OIG’s website
at https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/
37465. The OIG made two
recommendations for FMCSA to provide
additional details to improve the
corrective action plan in relation to
three of the NAS recommendations.
FMCSA partially concurred with both
recommendations, stating that the
Agency would first decide how to move
forward with its prioritization
methodology before providing the cost
estimates and benchmarks
recommended by OIG. The OIG
considers the recommendations
resolved but open pending completion
of planned actions. As one of those
planned actions, FMCSA conducted a
full review of the IRT model and made
a decision on how to move forward with
the prioritization methodology, which is
described in this FRN. A copy of the
OIG report is available in the docket for
this notice.
IRT Modeling
The NAS report recommended that
FMCSA develop an IRT model and ‘‘[i]f
it is then demonstrated to perform well
in identifying motor carriers for alerts,
FMCSA should use it to replace SMS in
a manner akin to the way SMS replaced
SafeStat.’’ FMCSA contracted with NAS
for the establishment and operation of a
standing committee of experts, as well
as with subject matter experts with
experience in large-scale IRT modeling,
to provide advice and guidance to the
Agency during the development and
testing of the IRT model. The IRT model
was designed and tested using
inspection data from FMCSA’s MCMIS
database. The full modeling report
titled, ‘‘Development and Evaluation of
an Item Response Theory (IRT) Model
for Motor Carrier Prioritization,’’ which
details the statistical methodologies that
were applied in developing and testing
the IRT model, is available in the docket
for this notice.
The Agency’s IRT modeling work
revealed many limitations and practical
challenges with using an IRT model. As
a result, FMCSA has concluded that IRT
modeling does not perform well for the
Agency’s use in identifying motor
carriers for safety interventions, and
therefore, does not improve overall
safety. First, IRT is heavily biased
towards identifying smaller carriers that
have few inspections with violations
and limited on-road exposure to crash
risk. When the safety event groups and
data sufficiency standards used in SMS
were applied to the IRT model, IRT
produced similar results to SMS.
Second, IRT does not use Vehicle
Miles Traveled (VMT) or Power Units
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(PUs) to adjust for differences in on-road
exposure in the Unsafe Driving BASIC.
As a result, IRT identified carriers with
much lower crash rates in that BASIC
compared to SMS.
Third, IRT modeling is not readily
understandable by most stakeholders or
the public. IRT’s inherent complexity
makes it challenging for the industry
and public to replicate and interpret
results. While SMS results can be
reproduced and explained using simple
math, IRT requires an advanced
understanding of statistical modeling
and analysis.
Fourth, a motor carrier cannot
independently compute its IRT results.
IRT results can be computed only for
the entire carrier population. A carrier
would not be able to identify how
specific violations or areas of regulatory
noncompliance impacted its
prioritization status or how it could
improve its status.
Finally, IRT’s runtime is incompatible
with FMCSA’s operational needs. The
IRT model takes four weeks to run as
compared to two days for SMS. The
long runtime would make it difficult to
make even minor changes to the system.
Because IRT is overly complex and
adopting the IRT model would reduce
transparency without improving safety,
FMCSA will not replace SMS with an
IRT model. Instead, FMCSA continues
its commitment to continuously
improving SMS to identify motor
carriers that present the highest crash
risk through a transparent and effective
system.
Changes to SMS
The Agency conducted analyses
during the IRT modeling study that
revealed areas in which SMS could be
improved to better identify high risk
carriers for intervention, without the
complications inherent in adopting an
IRT model. Those improvements
include reorganizing the BASICs, now
called ‘‘safety categories,’’ to better
identify specific safety problems and
combining the 959 violations used in
SMS, plus 14 additional violations not
currently used in SMS, into 116
violation groups. In addition, the
changes include simplifying violation
severity weights, removing percentile
jumps that occur when carriers move
into a new safety event group, and
adjusting the Intervention Thresholds.
FMCSA also previously published
proposed changes as part of its efforts to
improve SMS (81 FR 69185, Oct. 5,
2016). The previously proposed
improvements included moving certain
Out-of-Service (OOS) violations to the
Unsafe Driving BASIC, segmenting the
Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance
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BASIC, focusing on recent violations,
and updating the Utilization Factor.
Taken together, FMCSA proposes the
following combined improvements to
SMS: (1) reorganized and updated safety
categories, including new segmentation;
(2) consolidated violations; (3)
simplified violation severity weights; (4)
proportionate percentiles instead of
safety event groups; (5) improved
Intervention Thresholds; (6) greater
focus on recent violations; and (7) an
updated Utilization Factor.
FMCSA conducted the ET to measure
the impact of the proposed changes on
potential future crash reduction. In
addition, the Agency analyzed other
measures such as the A/C violation rate,
which measures egregious and systemic
safety issues found during in-depth
investigations. Thus, a high A/C
violation rate among prioritized carriers
affirms the ability of the prioritization
system to identify carriers that are more
likely to exhibit these egregious safety
issues. In addition to the safety impacts
measured with the ET and A/C violation
rate, the proposed changes were guided
by FMCSA’s continuing commitment to
enhance the accuracy, fairness, and
clarity of its prioritization system.
A document which describes the
newly proposed changes and provides
additional analysis to support the
proposed changes, titled ‘‘Foundational
Document’’ and dated March 2022, is
available in the docket for this notice.
Reorganized and Updated Safety
Categories
During the development and testing of
the IRT model, FMCSA gained valuable
insight and concluded that reorganizing
the BASICs, now called ‘‘safety
categories,’’ could make it easier for
FMCSA and motor carriers to pinpoint
and address safety issues. FMCSA
proposes reorganizing the Controlled
Substances/Alcohol, Unsafe Driving,
and Vehicle Maintenance safety
categories as described below. FMCSA
also proposes to segment the Driver
Fitness and HM Compliance safety
categories to account for differences in
carrier operations.
The new safety categories would be:
(1) Unsafe Driving; (2) Crash Indicator;
(3) Hours of Service (HOS) Compliance;
(4) Vehicle Maintenance; (5) Vehicle
Maintenance: Driver Observed; (6) HM
Compliance; and (7) Driver Fitness. A
copy of the complete list of violations in
each safety category is available in the
docket for this notice and can also be
found in Appendix A of the
Foundational Document.
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Controlled Substances/Alcohol and
Unsafe Driving
FMCSA conducted an Exploratory
Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify
potential new groupings of violations by
highlighting statistical relationships
between the violations in each BASIC.
Controlled Substances/Alcohol has the
fewest violations of any BASIC, and
those violations are also cited relatively
infrequently. The EFA demonstrated
that controlled substances and alcohol
violations were strongly associated with
the Unsafe Driving BASIC and
supported removing the Controlled
Substances/Alcohol category as a
standalone BASIC. The new Unsafe
Driving safety category now includes
the drug and alcohol violations that
were previously captured in the
Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASIC.
In addition, FMCSA’s analysis found
that violations for operating while under
an OOS Order issued under the
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance
North American Standard OOS Criteria
belong in the new Unsafe Driving safety
category. Currently, SMS places these
types of violations across multiple
BASICs based on the underlying OOS
violation. For example, a carrier that
had a violation cited against its driver
who operated after being placed OOS
for an HOS violation and another driver
who operated after being placed OOS
for a vehicle violation would now have
both violations placed in the new
Unsafe Driving safety category, rather
than one in the HOS Compliance safety
Crash rate
(crashes per
100 PUs)
Category
Current Unsafe Driving BASIC ........................................................................
Current Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASIC ...............................................
Proposed Unsafe Driving Safety Category ......................................................
Vehicle Maintenance
10.32
5.51
10.63
greater specificity to help carriers
improve and enforcement officials to
conduct targeted investigations.
Therefore, Vehicle Maintenance
violations would be divided into two
separate categories: Vehicle
Maintenance: Driver Observed, which
includes violations that may be
identified by a driver during a pre- or
post-trip inspection and/or while
operating the vehicle; and Vehicle
Vehicle Maintenance is the largest
BASIC in terms of both the number of
violation identifiers (i.e., CFR
provisions or unique enforcement
codes) included in the BASIC and the
number of violations cited during
inspections. The EFA results showed
that breaking this category into two
separate categories would provide
Crash rate
(crashes per
100 PUs)
Category
Current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC ..............................................................
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance Safety Category ............................................
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed Safety Category ...............
Combined Proposed Vehicle Maintenance and/or Proposed Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed Safety Category* ...................................................
category and the other in the Vehicle
Maintenance safety category. Moving
and consolidating these violations to the
new Unsafe Driving safety category
would allow motor carriers and
enforcement officials to more effectively
identify and correct driver-based safety
problems related to disregarding OOS
Orders.
FMCSA’s evaluation of the new
Unsafe Driving safety category,
illustrated in the table below, showed
that this new combined safety category
identified more carriers for intervention
that were involved in more crashes and
had a higher crash rate and A/C
violation rate than the groups of carriers
identified in the current Unsafe Driving
and Controlled Substances/Alcohol
BASICs.
Number of
crashes
27,255
182
27,550
A/C violation
rate
(violations
per 100
investigations)
114.1
84.8
116.8
Number of
carriers
12,786
805
13,353
Maintenance, which includes all other
vehicle maintenance violations.
FMCSA’s evaluation showed that
although splitting Vehicle Maintenance
into two separate categories identifies
groups of carriers with a lower crash
rate in each category, more carriers with
more crashes are identified for
intervention and those carriers have a
very similar A/C violation rate, as
illustrated in the table below.
Number of
crashes
A/C violation
rate
(violations
per 100
investigations)
Number of
carriers
8.06
7.55
7.44
23,675
19,039
23,618
108.4
103.8
109.7
18,764
11,019
17,167
7.47
31,666
107.1
22,092
* Carriers in this row have percentiles above the 80th percentile threshold in one or both proposed new Vehicle Maintenance safety categories.
This row is not the sum of the prior two rows since some carriers are prioritized under both new safety categories.
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Segmentation in Driver Fitness and HM
Compliance
SMS accounts for differences in
carrier operations in the Unsafe Driving
and Crash Indicator BASICs by
segmenting carriers according to
whether they primarily operate
Combination vehicles (i.e., more than 70
percent of their total PUs) or Straight
vehicles. Carriers that are not
considered Combination carriers are
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considered Straight carriers. This
segmentation ensures that carriers are
compared to other carriers with
fundamentally similar exposure to crash
risk when operating their vehicles.
FMCSA tested whether applying
segmentation to other safety categories
would improve the identification of the
highest risk carriers in those categories.
Based on its analysis, FMCSA proposes
to segment the Driver Fitness and HM
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Compliance safety categories to more
effectively pinpoint safety issues
relating to each operation type. FMCSA
determined that segmenting HOS
Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance:
Driver Observed, and Vehicle
Maintenance would not improve those
safety categories.
In the Driver Fitness BASIC, carriers
that operate Straight trucks and similar
vehicles have much higher violation
rates than motor carriers that operate
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Combination vehicles. Segmenting the
Driver Fitness BASIC into Straight and
Combination segments more effectively
identifies carriers with higher crash
rates in both segments. Although fewer
carriers were prioritized for intervention
in the Driver Fitness BASIC, the carriers
that were removed from prioritization
had a lower crash rate, which allows the
Agency to better focus on those carriers
that pose a higher risk to public safety.
The current HM Compliance BASIC
compares Cargo Tank carriers to nonCargo Tank carriers, but these carriers
have fundamentally different
operations. A carrier is categorized as a
Cargo Tank carrier for purposes of
segmentation if more than 50 percent of
its inspections indicated the vehicles
were Cargo Tanks. FMCSA’s analysis
found that segmenting carriers as Cargo
Tank carriers and Non-Cargo Tank
carriers in the HM Compliance safety
category in conjunction with adjusting
the HM Compliance threshold from the
80th to 90th percentile identifies a
group of carriers that has (1) an HM
inspection violation rate that is 22
percent higher and (2) an HM A/C
violation rate that is 46 percent higher
than carriers identified for intervention
under the current HM Compliance
BASIC.
Consolidated Violations
Over the past decade, the number of
CFR provisions or distinct enforcement
codes used as violations in SMS has
grown from about 650 violations to 959
violations. Most of the new violation
codes provide more specific
descriptions for existing violations and
do not reflect new Federal safety
regulations. For example, an inspector
could cite an inoperative vehicle brake
by citing §§ 393.48(a) (Inoperative/
defective brakes), 393.45UV (Brake
tubing and hose adequacy under
vehicle), or 393.45PC (Brake tubing and
hose adequacy—connections to power
unit).
FMCSA’s analysis during IRT
modeling confirmed that similar
violation provisions could be
consolidated to mitigate differences that
result from inspectors citing different
violation codes. Grouping similar
violations together would also allow
motor carriers and enforcement officials
to identify and address specific safety
issues more easily. The following table
shows a summary of the consolidated
violations by safety category.
Number of
violation
provisions/codes in
SMS
Violations in category
Number of
consolidated
groups in new
system
Unsafe Driving .........................................................................................................................................
HOS Compliance .....................................................................................................................................
Vehicle Maintenance ...............................................................................................................................
Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed ...................................................................................................
Controlled Substance/Alcohol ..................................................................................................................
HM Compliance .......................................................................................................................................
Driver Fitness ...........................................................................................................................................
* 59
73
406
N/A
11
369
55
32
9
15
35
N/A
14
11
Total ..................................................................................................................................................
973
116
* Number includes 14 additional violations for operating while under an OOS Order that are not used in the current SMS methodology.
A report titled, ‘‘New Prioritization
System: Proposed Violation Groups,’’
which maps the consolidation of the
violations, is available in the docket for
this notice.
ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with NOTICES
Severity Weights
SMS assigns each violation a specific
severity weight that is intended to
correlate with the crash risk associated
with that violation. The assignment of
severity weights to violations in SMS on
a scale of 1 through 10 has been
criticized as overly subjective. FMCSA
tested many different models to improve
the severity weights attached to
violations in SMS, including models
that applied regression analysis and
IRT. Based on that analysis, FMCSA
proposes to simplify violation severity
weights by assigning each consolidated
violation group a weight of either one or
two. OOS violations and violations in
the Unsafe Driving safety category that
are disqualifying offenses under 49 CFR
383.51 would be assigned a weight of
two and all other violations would be
assigned a weight of one. If an OOS
violation is combined with a non-OOS
violation in the consolidated violation
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grouping, the consolidated group would
be assigned the higher weight of two.
FMCSA’s evaluation found that
simplifying the severity weights
identifies carriers with higher crash
rates. This change would maintain the
safety focus on those violations severe
enough to result in an OOS Order while
removing the subjectivity and
complications of distinguishing each
violation by severity on a scale of 1
through 10.
Proportionate Percentiles
FMCSA places motor carriers into
safety event groups in SMS based on
their number of inspections and crashes.
For example, carriers in the HOS
Compliance BASIC with 3 to 10 driver
inspections are compared to each other,
while carriers with 11 to 20 driver
inspections are compared to each other,
and so forth. SMS uses violations and
crashes to calculate a quantifiable
‘‘measure’’ of a motor carrier’s safety
performance. SMS then ranks carriers
within safety event groups by assigning
each carrier in the safety event group a
percentile rank that compares their
measure to the measure of other carriers
in the same safety event group. A higher
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Frm 00108
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
percentile rank in a BASIC indicates
that a carrier has a worse measure than
other carriers in that safety event group.
Safety event groups allow FMCSA to
provide safety oversight of carriers of all
sizes. Some carriers, however, have
experienced large percentile jumps
based solely on a no-violation
inspection that places them in a new
safety event group.
FMCSA proposes to use a new
method of ‘‘proportionate percentiles’’
that will remove sudden jumps in
percentiles, which can occur when a
carrier moves into a different safety
event group. By removing those
percentile jumps, FMCSA would be able
to more accurately evaluate whether a
carrier’s safety performance is
improving or declining from month to
month. The proportionate percentile
approach would use safety event groups
only to calculate the benchmark median
value of each grouping, which would be
calculated periodically. A carrier’s
proportionate percentile would be
calculated from a weighted average of
percentiles based on those benchmark
medians. After the benchmark run has
been established, any changes to a
carrier’s percentile would be based
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solely on the carrier’s own safety
performance and would not be impacted
by the safety performance of other
carriers.
The table below provides an
illustration of how proportionate
percentiles more accurately reflect a
carrier’s change in safety performance.
Example carrier
Current methodology
Carrier with 10 inspections .................................................................................................
Measure: 1.51 ..................
Percentile: 53.0% ............
Measure: 1.37 ..................
(↓ .14) ..............................
Percentile: 75.0% ............
(↑ 22%) ............................
Same carrier after receiving 1 additional inspection with no violations (and moving to
next largest safety event group, with 11 total inspections).
FMCSA’s analysis showed that this
approach would reduce the number of
unexpected jumps in a carrier’s
percentiles. In addition, the
proportionate percentile method would
more closely align a carrier’s percentile
ranking to changes in its safety
performance, ensure stable monthly
results for carriers, and provide
customized results that are specific to
the carrier’s exact number of inspections
or crashes.
Improved Intervention Thresholds
FMCSA prioritizes carriers for safety
interventions when their SMS
percentiles reach or exceed preestablished levels called Intervention
Thresholds. Because higher percentiles
represent worse safety performance, a
lower Intervention Threshold in a
BASIC represents a more stringent
safety criterion. FMCSA’s ET found that
the Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, and
HOS Compliance BASICs have the
strongest correlation to crash risk.
Therefore, those BASICs have lower
Intervention Thresholds than the other
BASICs, at 65 percent for property
carriers, 60 percent for HM carriers, and
50 percent for passenger carriers. The
Intervention Thresholds for the Vehicle
Maintenance, Controlled Substances/
Alcohol, and Driver Fitness BASICs
currently are set at 80 percent for
property carriers, 75 percent for HM
carriers, and 65 percent for passenger
carriers, and the HM Compliance
Intervention Thresholds are set at 80
percent for all carriers.
FMCSA examined whether adjusting
the Intervention Thresholds for the
Driver Fitness, HM Compliance, Vehicle
Maintenance, and Vehicle Maintenance:
Driver Observed safety categories could
improve the Agency’s focus on carriers
with the highest crash risk. FMCSA’s
updated ET continues to show that the
Driver Fitness and HM Compliance
safety categories have the lowest
Current intervention thresholds
Category
Passenger
carrier
Vehicle Maintenance ................................
Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed ...
HM Compliance .......................................
Driver Fitness ...........................................
SMS currently assigns percentiles in
the HOS Compliance, Vehicle
Maintenance, and Driver Fitness
BASICs if the last inspection in the past
two years resulted in a violation. Under
this standard, a carrier may be
prioritized for intervention even if the
carrier had no recent violation. FMCSA
proposes to sharpen the focus on
carriers with more recent violations by
assigning percentiles only to carriers
that had at least one violation in the
safety category in the past 12 months.
This change means that if all a carrier’s
violations in a particular safety category
are 12 months or older, the carrier will
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21:16 Feb 14, 2023
Jkt 259001
HM
65
N/A
80
65
Focusing on Recent Violations
ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with NOTICES
For a detailed description of the method
used to calculate the proportionate
percentiles, see the Foundational
Document in the docket for this notice.
Updated Utilization Factor
The Utilization Factor in SMS helps
to account for a carrier’s exposure in the
Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator
Frm 00109
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
correlation to crash risk. FMCSA
believes raising the Intervention
Thresholds in those safety categories, as
shown in the table below, would allow
the Agency to focus on populations with
a greater safety risk.
FMCSA also considered lowering the
Intervention Thresholds in the Vehicle
Maintenance and Vehicle Maintenance:
Driver Observed safety categories.
However, because the Agency is now
proposing to split Vehicle Maintenance
into two safety categories, FMCSA
determined that more carriers would be
prioritized for vehicle maintenance
issues by applying the current
Intervention Thresholds to the new
Vehicle Maintenance and Vehicle
Maintenance: Driver Observed safety
categories than are prioritized in the
current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC.
FMCSA, therefore, does not propose to
change the Intervention Thresholds for
the Vehicle Maintenance safety
categories, as shown in the table below.
Passenger
carrier
80
N/A
80
80
not be assigned a percentile in that
category.
FMCSA’s evaluation showed that this
change would result in 1,081 carriers no
longer having a safety category at or
above the Intervention Threshold and
that those carriers had a crash rate that
was 13 percent lower than the national
average. Removing carriers with no
recent violation in those safety
categories would allow the Agency to
focus its resources on carriers that pose
a greater safety risk.
PO 00000
Measure: 1.51.
Percentile: 67.4%.
Measure: 1.37.
(↓ .14).
Percentile: 67.0%.
(↓ .4%).
Proposed intervention thresholds
General
75
N/A
80
75
Proposed methodology
65
65
90
75
HM
General
75
75
90
85
80
80
90
90
BASICs. Carriers with higher-thanaverage exposure to safety events, as
measured by VMT per PUs, receive an
adjustment in those BASICs. The
Utilization Factor currently covers
carriers that drive up to 200,000 VMT
per PU per year. FMCSA’s analysis
found that more carriers are reporting
higher VMT now than when the
Utilization Factor was developed in
2009, and the 314 carriers with 200,000
to 250,000 VMT per PU were involved
in about three times as many
inspections per PU than the national
average. This result indicates that these
carriers exhibit much higher exposure to
inspections than most carriers. FMCSA
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proposes to extend the Utilization
Factor to carriers that drive up to
250,000 VMT per PU in the Unsafe
Driving and Crash Indicator safety
categories to more accurately account
for carriers with increased exposure.
Other Changes Considered and Not
Proposed
FMCSA analyzed other potential
changes to SMS and determined that
they would not improve safety, as
described below.
ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with NOTICES
Geographic Variation
A consistent criticism of SMS has
been that differences among State
enforcement agencies in commercial
motor vehicle (CMV) inspection and
violation rates may lead to unfair SMS
results for carriers that operate primarily
in States with higher-than-average
enforcement rates. During the IRT
model design, FMCSA explored a
statistical model to better account for
enforcement variation among States.
That model is detailed in the report
titled ‘‘Development and Evaluation of
an Item Response Theory (IRT) Model
for Motor Carrier Prioritization,’’ which
is available in the docket for this notice.
FMCSA determined that
incorporating a model to account for
geographic variation would not improve
the Agency’s ability to identify high risk
carriers and would run contrary to the
goals of the Motor Carrier Safety
Assistance Program (MCSAP), the
Agency’s grant program to support State
and local efforts to reduce crashes
involving CMVs. States face varying
challenges to reducing crashes due to
different road types, congestion,
topography, and weather conditions,
among other factors. Through MCSAP,
FMCSA encourages States to tailor their
crash reduction strategies by addressing
local conditions and challenges.
Applying a model that de-emphasizes
enforcement in certain States would
disincentivize FMCSA’s MCSAP
partners from undertaking enforcement
initiatives that are intended to address
particular safety issues in their States.
FMCSA believes that it should
encourage all States to continually raise
the bar for safety rather than
discounting the safety efforts of certain
States.
Crash Indicator
The Crash Indicator BASIC applies
severity weights to reportable crashes
and places more weight on crashes
involving an injury or fatality and
crashes involving the release of HM
than on tow-away crashes. FMCSA
analyzed whether removing severity
weights to simplify the calculation
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21:16 Feb 14, 2023
Jkt 259001
would improve this BASIC. Because
removing the severity weights from the
Crash Indicator BASIC has a minimal
impact on the group of carriers
identified for intervention, FMCSA does
not propose to make this change.
FMCSA also studied the impact of
raising the minimum number of crashes
required to assign a percentile in the
Crash Indicator BASIC from two to
three. FMCSA’s ET results, however,
showed that carriers with exactly two
crashes have a future crash rate that is
more than twice the national average
future crash rate. Approximately twothirds of those carriers were not
prioritized in another BASIC, meaning
they would not receive any safety
interventions from FMCSA if the data
sufficiency standard in the Crash
Indicator BASIC were increased from
two to three crashes. FMCSA has
concluded that raising the minimum
number of crashes from two to three in
the Crash Indicator BASIC would not
improve safety. Crashes that are
reviewed through FMCSA’s Crash
Preventability Determination Program
and found to be Not Preventable will
continue to be excluded from the
prioritization methodology.
Preview
With the February 2023 SMS update,
the Agency provided a preview
opportunity of the system before
implementation, as it has historically
done with SMS implementation and
enhancements, to allow motor carriers,
law enforcement, and other interested
stakeholders to see the impacts of these
proposed changes on measures,
percentiles, and alerts. Motor carriers
can log in to the preview at https://
csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview/
or through the CSA website or the
FMCSA Portal to see how the proposed
methodology may impact their
prioritization results. The public can
view the new methodology using an
example carrier. To support the
preview, FMCSA will hold a series of
question and answer (Q&A) sessions for
the industry and the public, where
participants will be able to ask
questions about the proposed changes
and receive real-time responses. All
sessions will have closed captioning.
The dates and times for these sessions
will be announced on the Agency’s
website. Before the Q&A sessions,
participants have the opportunity to
view the preview website and
additional resources at https://
csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview/
_ where they can learn more about the
proposed changes and review their
results under the proposed
methodology. FMCSA encourages all
PO 00000
Frm 00110
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
stakeholders to participate in these Q&A
sessions.
FMCSA requests comments on the
above proposed enhancements, as well
as the changes that were considered but
are not proposed. In addition, input is
requested on other changes that should
be considered. Submitters should
provide data to support their
recommendations.
Robin Hutcheson,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2023–02947 Filed 2–14–23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910–EX–P
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration
[Docket No. FMCSA–2015–0323; FMCSA–
2016–0008; FMCSA–2018–0056; FMCSA–
2019–0035]
Qualification of Drivers; Exemption
Applications; Epilepsy and Seizure
Disorders
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA), Department
of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice of final disposition.
AGENCY:
FMCSA announces its
decision to renew exemptions for seven
individuals from the requirement in the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Regulations (FMCSRs) that interstate
commercial motor vehicle (CMV)
drivers have ‘‘no established medical
history or clinical diagnosis of epilepsy
or any other condition which is likely
to cause loss of consciousness or any
loss of ability to control a CMV.’’ The
exemptions enable these individuals
who have had one or more seizures and
are taking anti-seizure medication to
continue to operate CMVs in interstate
commerce.
DATES: Each group of renewed
exemptions were applicable on the
dates stated in the discussions below
and will expire on the dates provided
below.
SUMMARY:
Ms.
Christine A. Hydock, Chief, Medical
Programs Division, FMCSA, DOT, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W64–224,
Washington, DC 20590–0001, (202) 366–
4001, fmcsamedical@dot.gov. Office
hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET
Monday through Friday, except Federal
holidays. If you have questions
regarding viewing or submitting
material to the docket, contact Dockets
Operations, (202) 366–9826.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
E:\FR\FM\15FEN1.SGM
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 15, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9954-9960]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-02947]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
[Docket No. FMCSA-2022-0066]
Revised Carrier Safety Measurement System
AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Department
of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: Since 2010, FMCSA has used its Safety Measurement System (SMS)
to identify motor carriers for safety interventions. The National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommended
on June 27, 2017, that FMCSA develop and test a new statistical model.
This notice explains FMCSA's analysis and the Agency's proposed changes
to SMS, announces FMCSA's preview of the proposed changes, and requests
comments and input on the Agency's system to identify motor carriers
for safety interventions.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before May 16, 2023.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Docket Number FMCSA-
2022-0066 using any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0066/document. Follow the online instructions for
submitting comments.
Mail: Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140,
Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: Dockets Operations, West Building, Ground
Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-
0001 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal
holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202)
366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations.
Fax: (202) 493-2251.
To avoid duplication, please use only one of these four methods.
See the ``Public Participation and Request for Comments'' portion of
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for instructions on submitting
comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Catterson Oh, Compliance Division,
FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, (202) 366-
6160, [email protected]. If you have questions regarding viewing or
submitting material to the docket, contact Dockets Operations, (202)
366-9826.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Public Participation and Request for Comments
If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this
notice FMCSA-2022-0066, indicate the specific section of this document
to which each comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion
or recommendation. You may submit your comments and material online or
by fax, mail, or hand delivery, but please use only one of these means.
FMCSA recommends that you include your name and a mailing address, an
email address, or a phone number in the body of your document so the
Agency can contact you if it has questions regarding your submission.
To submit your comment online, go to https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0066/document, click on this notice, click
``Comment,'' and type your comment into the text box on the following
screen.
If you submit your comments by mail or hand delivery, submit them
in an unbound format, no larger than 8\1/2\ by 11 inches, suitable for
copying and electronic filing. If you submit comments by mail and would
like to know that they reached the facility, please enclose a stamped,
self-addressed postcard or envelope.
FMCSA will consider all comments and material received during the
comment period and may change this notice based on your comments.
Confidential Business Information (CBI)
CBI is commercial or financial information that is both customarily
and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of
Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure.
If your comments responsive to the notice contain commercial or
financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you
actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to the
notice, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted
comments as CBI. Please mark each page of your submission that
constitutes CBI as ``PROPIN'' to indicate it contains proprietary
information. FMCSA will treat such marked submissions as confidential
under the Freedom of Information Act, and they will not be placed in
the public docket of the notice. Submissions containing CBI should be
sent to Mr. Brian Dahlin, Chief, Regulatory Analysis Division, Office
of Policy, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Any comments FMCSA receives not specifically designated as CBI will be
placed in the public docket for this notice.
Viewing Comments and Documents
To view any documents mentioned as being available in the docket,
go to https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0066/document and
choose the document to review. To view comments, click this notice,
then click ``Browse Comments.'' If you do not have access to the
internet, you may view the docket in person by visiting Dockets
Operations in Room W12-140 on the ground floor of the DOT West
Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between
9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To
be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or
(202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations.
Privacy Act
DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its
processes, in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c). DOT posts these
comments, without edit, including any personal information the
commenter provides, to
[[Page 9955]]
www.regulations.gov, as described in the system of records notice (DOT/
ALL 14--Federal Docket Management System), which can be reviewed at
www.transportation.gov/privacy.
Background
SMS Overview
In December 2010, FMCSA implemented SMS to identify high risk motor
carriers for investigations (75 FR 18256, April 9, 2010). Section
5305(a) of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act,
Public Law 114-94 (Dec. 4, 2015; 129 Stat. 1312) requires FMCSA to
ensure, at a minimum, that a review is conducted on motor carriers that
demonstrate, through performance data, that they are among the highest
risk carriers for four consecutive months. FMCSA and its State
enforcement partners also use SMS to identify and prioritize motor
carriers for inspections and less resource-intensive interventions,
such as automated warning letters.
SMS determines a carrier's prioritization status (i.e., prioritized
or not prioritized) in each Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement
Category (BASIC) based on the carrier's on-road performance and/or
investigation results. A carrier's relative on-road performance is
indicated by its BASIC percentile. Investigation results reflect if any
Acute and/or Critical (A/C) violations are found in a given BASIC
during investigations. A carrier can be prioritized for interventions
because its percentile is at or above the Intervention Threshold and/or
it has one or more A/C violations related to a particular BASIC.
SMS also provides motor carriers and other stakeholders with safety
performance data, which is updated monthly, through the public website
at https://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS. Under section 5223 of the FAST Act,
FMCSA removed SMS percentiles and alerts from the public SMS website
for motor carriers transporting property. Passenger carrier percentiles
and alerts remain publicly available, as well as inspection,
investigation, crash, and registration data for all carriers.
SMS quantifies the safety performance of motor carriers using data
available in FMCSA's motor carrier database, the Motor Carrier
Management Information System (MCMIS). This database includes
violations found during inspections, traffic enforcement, and
investigations, as well as crash and motor carrier census data. For
detailed information on the current structure of SMS, see the SMS
Methodology at https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov. A copy of the SMS Methodology
is available in the docket for this notice.
FMCSA's analysis has shown that SMS is effective in helping the
Agency identify high crash risk carriers for interventions. FMCSA's SMS
Effectiveness Test (ET) found that the group of carriers that SMS
identified for intervention in one or more BASICs had a crash rate that
was 61 percent higher than the group of carriers not identified for
intervention. In addition, the group of carriers that met FMCSA's high
risk criteria had a crash rate that was 178 percent higher than the
national average crash rate. A copy of FMCSA's ET, which was first
published in 2014 and updated in 2018, is available in the docket for
this notice.
Section 5221 of FAST Act required that NAS conduct a study of
FMCSA's Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program and SMS.
Specifically, the FAST Act required that NAS:
(1) shall analyze--
(A) the accuracy with which the Behavior Analysis and Safety
Improvement Categories referred to in this part as ``BASIC'')--
(i) identify high risk carriers; and
(ii) predict or are correlated with future crash risk, crash
severity, or other safety indicators for motor carriers, including the
highest risk carriers;
(B) the methodology used to calculate BASIC percentiles and
identify carriers for enforcement, including the weights assigned to
particular violations and the tie between crash risk and specific
regulatory violations, with respect to accurately identifying and
predicting future crash risk for motor carriers;
(C) the relative value of inspection information and roadside
enforcement data;
(D) any data collection gaps or data sufficiency problems that may
exist and the impact of those gaps and problems on the efficacy of the
CSA program;
(E) the accuracy of safety data, including the use of crash data
from crashes in which a motor carrier was free from fault;
(F) whether BASIC percentiles for motor carriers of passengers
should be calculated separately from motor carriers of freight;
(G) the differences in the rates at which safety violations are
reported to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for
inclusion in the SMS by various enforcement authorities, including
States, territories, and Federal inspectors; and
(H) how members of the public use the SMS and what effect making
the SMS information public has had on reducing crashes and eliminating
unsafe motor carriers from the industry; and
(2) shall consider--
(A) whether the SMS provides comparable precision and confidence,
through SMS alerts and percentiles, for the relative crash risk of
individual large and small motor carriers;
(B) whether alternatives to the SMS would identify high risk
carriers more accurately; and
(C) the recommendations and findings of the Comptroller General of
the United States and the Inspector General of the Department, and
independent review team reports, issued before the date of enactment of
this Act.
NAS Study
On June 27, 2017, NAS published a report titled ``Improving Motor
Carrier Safety Measurement.'' FMCSA commissioned this report under
Section 5221 of the FAST Act. The report is available at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24818/improving-motor-carrier-safety-measurement.
However, NAS did not complete all the reviews requested by the FAST
Act. The NAS report notes, ``This study is not concerned with non-SMS
aspects of CSA, and it is concerned only with CSMS [Carrier SMS], not
with DSMS [Driver SMS], but we will refer to our topic as SMS in the
remainder of this report.'' The NAS report concluded that SMS, in its
current form, is structured in a reasonable way and its method of
identifying motor carriers for alert status is defensible. NAS agreed
that FMCSA's overall approach, based on crash prevention rather than
prediction, is sound. NAS provided FMCSA with six recommendations to
improve the system. This notice focuses on FMCSA's actions in response
to the first NAS recommendation to develop an Item Response Theory
(IRT) model. FMCSA will update its full corrective action plan
addressing all six NAS recommendations after reviewing comments to this
proposal. The corrective action plan is available on FMCSA's website at
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/policy/nas-correlation-study-corrective-action-plan-report-congress.
Pursuant to the FAST Act, FMCSA submitted the results of this study
to both Congress and the DOT Office of Inspector General (OIG) on
August 7, 2017. FMCSA also submitted the corrective action plan
required by the FAST Act to Congress on June 25, 2018. Copies of the
NAS report and FMCSA's action plan are available in the docket for this
notice.
OIG reviewed FMCSA's action plan as required by the FAST Act and on
September 25, 2019, provided its report titled ``FMCSA's Plan Addresses
Recommendations on Prioritizing Safety
[[Page 9956]]
Interventions but Lacks Implementation Details,'' available on the
OIG's website at https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/37465. The OIG
made two recommendations for FMCSA to provide additional details to
improve the corrective action plan in relation to three of the NAS
recommendations. FMCSA partially concurred with both recommendations,
stating that the Agency would first decide how to move forward with its
prioritization methodology before providing the cost estimates and
benchmarks recommended by OIG. The OIG considers the recommendations
resolved but open pending completion of planned actions. As one of
those planned actions, FMCSA conducted a full review of the IRT model
and made a decision on how to move forward with the prioritization
methodology, which is described in this FRN. A copy of the OIG report
is available in the docket for this notice.
IRT Modeling
The NAS report recommended that FMCSA develop an IRT model and
``[i]f it is then demonstrated to perform well in identifying motor
carriers for alerts, FMCSA should use it to replace SMS in a manner
akin to the way SMS replaced SafeStat.'' FMCSA contracted with NAS for
the establishment and operation of a standing committee of experts, as
well as with subject matter experts with experience in large-scale IRT
modeling, to provide advice and guidance to the Agency during the
development and testing of the IRT model. The IRT model was designed
and tested using inspection data from FMCSA's MCMIS database. The full
modeling report titled, ``Development and Evaluation of an Item
Response Theory (IRT) Model for Motor Carrier Prioritization,'' which
details the statistical methodologies that were applied in developing
and testing the IRT model, is available in the docket for this notice.
The Agency's IRT modeling work revealed many limitations and
practical challenges with using an IRT model. As a result, FMCSA has
concluded that IRT modeling does not perform well for the Agency's use
in identifying motor carriers for safety interventions, and therefore,
does not improve overall safety. First, IRT is heavily biased towards
identifying smaller carriers that have few inspections with violations
and limited on-road exposure to crash risk. When the safety event
groups and data sufficiency standards used in SMS were applied to the
IRT model, IRT produced similar results to SMS.
Second, IRT does not use Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) or Power
Units (PUs) to adjust for differences in on-road exposure in the Unsafe
Driving BASIC. As a result, IRT identified carriers with much lower
crash rates in that BASIC compared to SMS.
Third, IRT modeling is not readily understandable by most
stakeholders or the public. IRT's inherent complexity makes it
challenging for the industry and public to replicate and interpret
results. While SMS results can be reproduced and explained using simple
math, IRT requires an advanced understanding of statistical modeling
and analysis.
Fourth, a motor carrier cannot independently compute its IRT
results. IRT results can be computed only for the entire carrier
population. A carrier would not be able to identify how specific
violations or areas of regulatory noncompliance impacted its
prioritization status or how it could improve its status.
Finally, IRT's runtime is incompatible with FMCSA's operational
needs. The IRT model takes four weeks to run as compared to two days
for SMS. The long runtime would make it difficult to make even minor
changes to the system.
Because IRT is overly complex and adopting the IRT model would
reduce transparency without improving safety, FMCSA will not replace
SMS with an IRT model. Instead, FMCSA continues its commitment to
continuously improving SMS to identify motor carriers that present the
highest crash risk through a transparent and effective system.
Changes to SMS
The Agency conducted analyses during the IRT modeling study that
revealed areas in which SMS could be improved to better identify high
risk carriers for intervention, without the complications inherent in
adopting an IRT model. Those improvements include reorganizing the
BASICs, now called ``safety categories,'' to better identify specific
safety problems and combining the 959 violations used in SMS, plus 14
additional violations not currently used in SMS, into 116 violation
groups. In addition, the changes include simplifying violation severity
weights, removing percentile jumps that occur when carriers move into a
new safety event group, and adjusting the Intervention Thresholds.
FMCSA also previously published proposed changes as part of its efforts
to improve SMS (81 FR 69185, Oct. 5, 2016). The previously proposed
improvements included moving certain Out-of-Service (OOS) violations to
the Unsafe Driving BASIC, segmenting the Hazardous Materials (HM)
Compliance BASIC, focusing on recent violations, and updating the
Utilization Factor.
Taken together, FMCSA proposes the following combined improvements
to SMS: (1) reorganized and updated safety categories, including new
segmentation; (2) consolidated violations; (3) simplified violation
severity weights; (4) proportionate percentiles instead of safety event
groups; (5) improved Intervention Thresholds; (6) greater focus on
recent violations; and (7) an updated Utilization Factor.
FMCSA conducted the ET to measure the impact of the proposed
changes on potential future crash reduction. In addition, the Agency
analyzed other measures such as the A/C violation rate, which measures
egregious and systemic safety issues found during in-depth
investigations. Thus, a high A/C violation rate among prioritized
carriers affirms the ability of the prioritization system to identify
carriers that are more likely to exhibit these egregious safety issues.
In addition to the safety impacts measured with the ET and A/C
violation rate, the proposed changes were guided by FMCSA's continuing
commitment to enhance the accuracy, fairness, and clarity of its
prioritization system.
A document which describes the newly proposed changes and provides
additional analysis to support the proposed changes, titled
``Foundational Document'' and dated March 2022, is available in the
docket for this notice.
Reorganized and Updated Safety Categories
During the development and testing of the IRT model, FMCSA gained
valuable insight and concluded that reorganizing the BASICs, now called
``safety categories,'' could make it easier for FMCSA and motor
carriers to pinpoint and address safety issues. FMCSA proposes
reorganizing the Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Unsafe Driving, and
Vehicle Maintenance safety categories as described below. FMCSA also
proposes to segment the Driver Fitness and HM Compliance safety
categories to account for differences in carrier operations.
The new safety categories would be: (1) Unsafe Driving; (2) Crash
Indicator; (3) Hours of Service (HOS) Compliance; (4) Vehicle
Maintenance; (5) Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed; (6) HM
Compliance; and (7) Driver Fitness. A copy of the complete list of
violations in each safety category is available in the docket for this
notice and can also be found in Appendix A of the Foundational
Document.
[[Page 9957]]
Controlled Substances/Alcohol and Unsafe Driving
FMCSA conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify
potential new groupings of violations by highlighting statistical
relationships between the violations in each BASIC. Controlled
Substances/Alcohol has the fewest violations of any BASIC, and those
violations are also cited relatively infrequently. The EFA demonstrated
that controlled substances and alcohol violations were strongly
associated with the Unsafe Driving BASIC and supported removing the
Controlled Substances/Alcohol category as a standalone BASIC. The new
Unsafe Driving safety category now includes the drug and alcohol
violations that were previously captured in the Controlled Substances/
Alcohol BASIC.
In addition, FMCSA's analysis found that violations for operating
while under an OOS Order issued under the Commercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance North American Standard OOS Criteria belong in the new Unsafe
Driving safety category. Currently, SMS places these types of
violations across multiple BASICs based on the underlying OOS
violation. For example, a carrier that had a violation cited against
its driver who operated after being placed OOS for an HOS violation and
another driver who operated after being placed OOS for a vehicle
violation would now have both violations placed in the new Unsafe
Driving safety category, rather than one in the HOS Compliance safety
category and the other in the Vehicle Maintenance safety category.
Moving and consolidating these violations to the new Unsafe Driving
safety category would allow motor carriers and enforcement officials to
more effectively identify and correct driver-based safety problems
related to disregarding OOS Orders.
FMCSA's evaluation of the new Unsafe Driving safety category,
illustrated in the table below, showed that this new combined safety
category identified more carriers for intervention that were involved
in more crashes and had a higher crash rate and A/C violation rate than
the groups of carriers identified in the current Unsafe Driving and
Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASICs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/C violation
Crash rate rate
Category (crashes per Number of (violations per Number of
100 PUs) crashes 100 carriers
investigations)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Unsafe Driving BASIC................... 10.32 27,255 114.1 12,786
Current Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASIC.... 5.51 182 84.8 805
Proposed Unsafe Driving Safety Category........ 10.63 27,550 116.8 13,353
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vehicle Maintenance
Vehicle Maintenance is the largest BASIC in terms of both the
number of violation identifiers (i.e., CFR provisions or unique
enforcement codes) included in the BASIC and the number of violations
cited during inspections. The EFA results showed that breaking this
category into two separate categories would provide greater specificity
to help carriers improve and enforcement officials to conduct targeted
investigations.
Therefore, Vehicle Maintenance violations would be divided into two
separate categories: Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed, which
includes violations that may be identified by a driver during a pre- or
post-trip inspection and/or while operating the vehicle; and Vehicle
Maintenance, which includes all other vehicle maintenance violations.
FMCSA's evaluation showed that although splitting Vehicle
Maintenance into two separate categories identifies groups of carriers
with a lower crash rate in each category, more carriers with more
crashes are identified for intervention and those carriers have a very
similar A/C violation rate, as illustrated in the table below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/C violation
Crash rate rate
Category (crashes per Number of (violations per Number of
100 PUs) crashes 100 carriers
investigations)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC.............. 8.06 23,675 108.4 18,764
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance Safety Category... 7.55 19,039 103.8 11,019
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed 7.44 23,618 109.7 17,167
Safety Category...............................
Combined Proposed Vehicle Maintenance and/or 7.47 31,666 107.1 22,092
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed
Safety Category*..............................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Carriers in this row have percentiles above the 80th percentile threshold in one or both proposed new Vehicle
Maintenance safety categories. This row is not the sum of the prior two rows since some carriers are
prioritized under both new safety categories.
Segmentation in Driver Fitness and HM Compliance
SMS accounts for differences in carrier operations in the Unsafe
Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs by segmenting carriers according to
whether they primarily operate Combination vehicles (i.e., more than 70
percent of their total PUs) or Straight vehicles. Carriers that are not
considered Combination carriers are considered Straight carriers. This
segmentation ensures that carriers are compared to other carriers with
fundamentally similar exposure to crash risk when operating their
vehicles. FMCSA tested whether applying segmentation to other safety
categories would improve the identification of the highest risk
carriers in those categories. Based on its analysis, FMCSA proposes to
segment the Driver Fitness and HM Compliance safety categories to more
effectively pinpoint safety issues relating to each operation type.
FMCSA determined that segmenting HOS Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance:
Driver Observed, and Vehicle Maintenance would not improve those safety
categories.
In the Driver Fitness BASIC, carriers that operate Straight trucks
and similar vehicles have much higher violation rates than motor
carriers that operate
[[Page 9958]]
Combination vehicles. Segmenting the Driver Fitness BASIC into Straight
and Combination segments more effectively identifies carriers with
higher crash rates in both segments. Although fewer carriers were
prioritized for intervention in the Driver Fitness BASIC, the carriers
that were removed from prioritization had a lower crash rate, which
allows the Agency to better focus on those carriers that pose a higher
risk to public safety.
The current HM Compliance BASIC compares Cargo Tank carriers to
non-Cargo Tank carriers, but these carriers have fundamentally
different operations. A carrier is categorized as a Cargo Tank carrier
for purposes of segmentation if more than 50 percent of its inspections
indicated the vehicles were Cargo Tanks. FMCSA's analysis found that
segmenting carriers as Cargo Tank carriers and Non-Cargo Tank carriers
in the HM Compliance safety category in conjunction with adjusting the
HM Compliance threshold from the 80th to 90th percentile identifies a
group of carriers that has (1) an HM inspection violation rate that is
22 percent higher and (2) an HM A/C violation rate that is 46 percent
higher than carriers identified for intervention under the current HM
Compliance BASIC.
Consolidated Violations
Over the past decade, the number of CFR provisions or distinct
enforcement codes used as violations in SMS has grown from about 650
violations to 959 violations. Most of the new violation codes provide
more specific descriptions for existing violations and do not reflect
new Federal safety regulations. For example, an inspector could cite an
inoperative vehicle brake by citing Sec. Sec. 393.48(a) (Inoperative/
defective brakes), 393.45UV (Brake tubing and hose adequacy under
vehicle), or 393.45PC (Brake tubing and hose adequacy--connections to
power unit).
FMCSA's analysis during IRT modeling confirmed that similar
violation provisions could be consolidated to mitigate differences that
result from inspectors citing different violation codes. Grouping
similar violations together would also allow motor carriers and
enforcement officials to identify and address specific safety issues
more easily. The following table shows a summary of the consolidated
violations by safety category.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Number of
violation consolidated
Violations in category provisions/codes groups in new
in SMS system
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsafe Driving.................. * 59 32
HOS Compliance.................. 73 9
Vehicle Maintenance............. 406 15
Vehicle Maintenance: Driver N/A 35
Observed.......................
Controlled Substance/Alcohol.... 11 N/A
HM Compliance................... 369 14
Driver Fitness.................. 55 11
---------------------------------------
Total....................... 973 116
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Number includes 14 additional violations for operating while under an
OOS Order that are not used in the current SMS methodology.
A report titled, ``New Prioritization System: Proposed Violation
Groups,'' which maps the consolidation of the violations, is available
in the docket for this notice.
Severity Weights
SMS assigns each violation a specific severity weight that is
intended to correlate with the crash risk associated with that
violation. The assignment of severity weights to violations in SMS on a
scale of 1 through 10 has been criticized as overly subjective. FMCSA
tested many different models to improve the severity weights attached
to violations in SMS, including models that applied regression analysis
and IRT. Based on that analysis, FMCSA proposes to simplify violation
severity weights by assigning each consolidated violation group a
weight of either one or two. OOS violations and violations in the
Unsafe Driving safety category that are disqualifying offenses under 49
CFR 383.51 would be assigned a weight of two and all other violations
would be assigned a weight of one. If an OOS violation is combined with
a non-OOS violation in the consolidated violation grouping, the
consolidated group would be assigned the higher weight of two.
FMCSA's evaluation found that simplifying the severity weights
identifies carriers with higher crash rates. This change would maintain
the safety focus on those violations severe enough to result in an OOS
Order while removing the subjectivity and complications of
distinguishing each violation by severity on a scale of 1 through 10.
Proportionate Percentiles
FMCSA places motor carriers into safety event groups in SMS based
on their number of inspections and crashes. For example, carriers in
the HOS Compliance BASIC with 3 to 10 driver inspections are compared
to each other, while carriers with 11 to 20 driver inspections are
compared to each other, and so forth. SMS uses violations and crashes
to calculate a quantifiable ``measure'' of a motor carrier's safety
performance. SMS then ranks carriers within safety event groups by
assigning each carrier in the safety event group a percentile rank that
compares their measure to the measure of other carriers in the same
safety event group. A higher percentile rank in a BASIC indicates that
a carrier has a worse measure than other carriers in that safety event
group. Safety event groups allow FMCSA to provide safety oversight of
carriers of all sizes. Some carriers, however, have experienced large
percentile jumps based solely on a no-violation inspection that places
them in a new safety event group.
FMCSA proposes to use a new method of ``proportionate percentiles''
that will remove sudden jumps in percentiles, which can occur when a
carrier moves into a different safety event group. By removing those
percentile jumps, FMCSA would be able to more accurately evaluate
whether a carrier's safety performance is improving or declining from
month to month. The proportionate percentile approach would use safety
event groups only to calculate the benchmark median value of each
grouping, which would be calculated periodically. A carrier's
proportionate percentile would be calculated from a weighted average of
percentiles based on those benchmark medians. After the benchmark run
has been established, any changes to a carrier's percentile would be
based
[[Page 9959]]
solely on the carrier's own safety performance and would not be
impacted by the safety performance of other carriers.
The table below provides an illustration of how proportionate
percentiles more accurately reflect a carrier's change in safety
performance. For a detailed description of the method used to calculate
the proportionate percentiles, see the Foundational Document in the
docket for this notice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Proposed
Example carrier methodology methodology
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carrier with 10 inspections..... Measure: 1.51..... Measure: 1.51.
Percentile: 53.0%. Percentile: 67.4%.
Same carrier after receiving 1 Measure: 1.37..... Measure: 1.37.
additional inspection with no ([darr] .14)...... ([darr] .14).
violations (and moving to next
largest safety event group,
with 11 total inspections).
Percentile: 75.0%. Percentile: 67.0%.
([uarr] 22%)...... ([darr] .4%).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FMCSA's analysis showed that this approach would reduce the number
of unexpected jumps in a carrier's percentiles. In addition, the
proportionate percentile method would more closely align a carrier's
percentile ranking to changes in its safety performance, ensure stable
monthly results for carriers, and provide customized results that are
specific to the carrier's exact number of inspections or crashes.
Improved Intervention Thresholds
FMCSA prioritizes carriers for safety interventions when their SMS
percentiles reach or exceed pre-established levels called Intervention
Thresholds. Because higher percentiles represent worse safety
performance, a lower Intervention Threshold in a BASIC represents a
more stringent safety criterion. FMCSA's ET found that the Unsafe
Driving, Crash Indicator, and HOS Compliance BASICs have the strongest
correlation to crash risk. Therefore, those BASICs have lower
Intervention Thresholds than the other BASICs, at 65 percent for
property carriers, 60 percent for HM carriers, and 50 percent for
passenger carriers. The Intervention Thresholds for the Vehicle
Maintenance, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, and Driver Fitness BASICs
currently are set at 80 percent for property carriers, 75 percent for
HM carriers, and 65 percent for passenger carriers, and the HM
Compliance Intervention Thresholds are set at 80 percent for all
carriers.
FMCSA examined whether adjusting the Intervention Thresholds for
the Driver Fitness, HM Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, and Vehicle
Maintenance: Driver Observed safety categories could improve the
Agency's focus on carriers with the highest crash risk. FMCSA's updated
ET continues to show that the Driver Fitness and HM Compliance safety
categories have the lowest correlation to crash risk. FMCSA believes
raising the Intervention Thresholds in those safety categories, as
shown in the table below, would allow the Agency to focus on
populations with a greater safety risk.
FMCSA also considered lowering the Intervention Thresholds in the
Vehicle Maintenance and Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed safety
categories. However, because the Agency is now proposing to split
Vehicle Maintenance into two safety categories, FMCSA determined that
more carriers would be prioritized for vehicle maintenance issues by
applying the current Intervention Thresholds to the new Vehicle
Maintenance and Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed safety categories
than are prioritized in the current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC. FMCSA,
therefore, does not propose to change the Intervention Thresholds for
the Vehicle Maintenance safety categories, as shown in the table below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current intervention thresholds Proposed intervention thresholds
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Category Passenger Passenger
carrier HM General carrier HM General
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vehicle Maintenance..................................... 65 75 80 65 75 80
Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed.................... N/A N/A N/A 65 75 80
HM Compliance........................................... 80 80 80 90 90 90
Driver Fitness.......................................... 65 75 80 75 85 90
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Focusing on Recent Violations
SMS currently assigns percentiles in the HOS Compliance, Vehicle
Maintenance, and Driver Fitness BASICs if the last inspection in the
past two years resulted in a violation. Under this standard, a carrier
may be prioritized for intervention even if the carrier had no recent
violation. FMCSA proposes to sharpen the focus on carriers with more
recent violations by assigning percentiles only to carriers that had at
least one violation in the safety category in the past 12 months. This
change means that if all a carrier's violations in a particular safety
category are 12 months or older, the carrier will not be assigned a
percentile in that category.
FMCSA's evaluation showed that this change would result in 1,081
carriers no longer having a safety category at or above the
Intervention Threshold and that those carriers had a crash rate that
was 13 percent lower than the national average. Removing carriers with
no recent violation in those safety categories would allow the Agency
to focus its resources on carriers that pose a greater safety risk.
Updated Utilization Factor
The Utilization Factor in SMS helps to account for a carrier's
exposure in the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs. Carriers
with higher-than-average exposure to safety events, as measured by VMT
per PUs, receive an adjustment in those BASICs. The Utilization Factor
currently covers carriers that drive up to 200,000 VMT per PU per year.
FMCSA's analysis found that more carriers are reporting higher VMT now
than when the Utilization Factor was developed in 2009, and the 314
carriers with 200,000 to 250,000 VMT per PU were involved in about
three times as many inspections per PU than the national average. This
result indicates that these carriers exhibit much higher exposure to
inspections than most carriers. FMCSA
[[Page 9960]]
proposes to extend the Utilization Factor to carriers that drive up to
250,000 VMT per PU in the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator safety
categories to more accurately account for carriers with increased
exposure.
Other Changes Considered and Not Proposed
FMCSA analyzed other potential changes to SMS and determined that
they would not improve safety, as described below.
Geographic Variation
A consistent criticism of SMS has been that differences among State
enforcement agencies in commercial motor vehicle (CMV) inspection and
violation rates may lead to unfair SMS results for carriers that
operate primarily in States with higher-than-average enforcement rates.
During the IRT model design, FMCSA explored a statistical model to
better account for enforcement variation among States. That model is
detailed in the report titled ``Development and Evaluation of an Item
Response Theory (IRT) Model for Motor Carrier Prioritization,'' which
is available in the docket for this notice.
FMCSA determined that incorporating a model to account for
geographic variation would not improve the Agency's ability to identify
high risk carriers and would run contrary to the goals of the Motor
Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP), the Agency's grant program
to support State and local efforts to reduce crashes involving CMVs.
States face varying challenges to reducing crashes due to different
road types, congestion, topography, and weather conditions, among other
factors. Through MCSAP, FMCSA encourages States to tailor their crash
reduction strategies by addressing local conditions and challenges.
Applying a model that de-emphasizes enforcement in certain States would
disincentivize FMCSA's MCSAP partners from undertaking enforcement
initiatives that are intended to address particular safety issues in
their States. FMCSA believes that it should encourage all States to
continually raise the bar for safety rather than discounting the safety
efforts of certain States.
Crash Indicator
The Crash Indicator BASIC applies severity weights to reportable
crashes and places more weight on crashes involving an injury or
fatality and crashes involving the release of HM than on tow-away
crashes. FMCSA analyzed whether removing severity weights to simplify
the calculation would improve this BASIC. Because removing the severity
weights from the Crash Indicator BASIC has a minimal impact on the
group of carriers identified for intervention, FMCSA does not propose
to make this change.
FMCSA also studied the impact of raising the minimum number of
crashes required to assign a percentile in the Crash Indicator BASIC
from two to three. FMCSA's ET results, however, showed that carriers
with exactly two crashes have a future crash rate that is more than
twice the national average future crash rate. Approximately two-thirds
of those carriers were not prioritized in another BASIC, meaning they
would not receive any safety interventions from FMCSA if the data
sufficiency standard in the Crash Indicator BASIC were increased from
two to three crashes. FMCSA has concluded that raising the minimum
number of crashes from two to three in the Crash Indicator BASIC would
not improve safety. Crashes that are reviewed through FMCSA's Crash
Preventability Determination Program and found to be Not Preventable
will continue to be excluded from the prioritization methodology.
Preview
With the February 2023 SMS update, the Agency provided a preview
opportunity of the system before implementation, as it has historically
done with SMS implementation and enhancements, to allow motor carriers,
law enforcement, and other interested stakeholders to see the impacts
of these proposed changes on measures, percentiles, and alerts. Motor
carriers can log in to the preview at https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview/ or through the CSA website or the FMCSA Portal
to see how the proposed methodology may impact their prioritization
results. The public can view the new methodology using an example
carrier. To support the preview, FMCSA will hold a series of question
and answer (Q&A) sessions for the industry and the public, where
participants will be able to ask questions about the proposed changes
and receive real-time responses. All sessions will have closed
captioning. The dates and times for these sessions will be announced on
the Agency's website. Before the Q&A sessions, participants have the
opportunity to view the preview website and additional resources at
https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview/_ where they can learn
more about the proposed changes and review their results under the
proposed methodology. FMCSA encourages all stakeholders to participate
in these Q&A sessions.
FMCSA requests comments on the above proposed enhancements, as well
as the changes that were considered but are not proposed. In addition,
input is requested on other changes that should be considered.
Submitters should provide data to support their recommendations.
Robin Hutcheson,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2023-02947 Filed 2-14-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-EX-P
