Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/751200
10 commercial carrier journal | november 2016 JOURNAL NEWS Fleets, drivers can preview altered scores based on FMCSA's changes T he Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last month pub- lished a website that allows fleets and owner-operators to preview potential changes to their Compliance Safety Accountability scores based on pro- posals issued in the last two years to reform the program. Motor car- riers and drivers now can preview their altered scores at csa.fmcsa.gov/ smspreview, should any changes be reflected from the 2015- and 2016-proposed reforms. The key changes proposed to CSA and its Safety Measurement System percentile rankings include lowering intervention thresholds in some SMS categories/BASICs, raising the thresh- old in one BASIC and making the Hazmat BASIC public and splitting it into two segments. Once interven- tion thresholds are crossed in an SMS BASIC, the agency targets the carrier for an on-site compliance review. Other proposed changes available for preview include increasing the minimum number of crashes needed before a carrier receives a score in the Crash Indicator BASIC and shortening the time period for which violations lead to BASIC percentile ratings. FMCSA released a video outlining the proposed changes and how to use the preview site, along with review slides and a transcript. Go to https:// csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMSPreview/Index. aspx. The agency was accepting public comment for 60 days after rolling out the preview tool, with the public comment period closing Dec. 5. To comment, go to Regulations.gov and search for Docket No. FMCSA-2015- 0149. The methodology changes to CSA's SMS will better tie carriers' safety to their rankings within the system and allow it to better target at-risk carri- ers, the agency argues. Due to stipulations within 2015's FAST Act highway bill, percentile rankings within the SMS BASICs no longer are available for public view. Only carriers and enforcers can see the ratings, even though the underlying data used to formulate the BASICs still are available publicly within the SMS portal. The proposed changes to the BASIC intervention thresholds now available for preview include: • Lowering the intervention thresh- old of the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC from 80 to 75 percent for gen- eral property carriers, thus targeting more carriers for intervention; • Raising the intervention threshold for the Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASIC from 80 to 90 percent, thus targeting fewer carriers; and • Raising the intervention threshold for the Driver Fitness BASIC from 80 to 90 percent, thus targeting fewer carriers. FMCSA plans to maintain the 65 percent intervention threshold for the BASICs with the highest correla- tion to crash risk: Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator and Hours-of-Service Compliance. In addition to proposing to go public with the Hazmat Compliance BASIC – which has now been effec- tively barred by the FAST Act provi- sions – the agency has proposed split- ting the BASIC into two segments: one for cargo tank carriers, and one for non-cargo tank carriers. These proposed changes also will be avail- able for preview for hazmat haulers on the agency's SMS preview site. Also available for preview are the proposal to reclassify a violation of an out-of-service order to the Unsafe Driving BASIC – instead of leaving it with whatever BASIC the original violation that caused the OOS order is categorized – and upping the "maximum vehicle miles traveled" figure used in CSA's so-called "utili- zation factor" to account for carriers that run primarily in high-mileage operations. FMCSA-proposed changes issued this year also are available for preview on the site. Those changes include raising the score threshold for the Crash Indicator BASIC from two crashes to three, and removing carri- ers with no violations in the past year in several BASICs from its interven- tion prioritization. – James Jaillet This mock SMS drilldown on FMCSA's SMS Preview site shows how the threshold changes impact carriers above the current 80 percent threshold but below the proposed 90 percent threshold.