National Academies of Science researchers have issued a Congressionally mandated report recommending that the U.S. Department of Transportation overhaul its Compliance, Safety, Accountability carrier rating system.
The report says DOT needs to make CSA’s Safety Measurement System more fair and accurate in assessing motor carriers’ safety risk, and that data used to create the rankings is in need of “immediate attention.”
Key recommendations from the report, made public Tuesday, include:
The NAS urged further study of the impact of the public display of SMS rankings. Researchers recommend that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration better collaborate with state partners and other data providers to collect more data and higher quality data, specifically related to crash reports and to carriers’ operations (miles traveled, number of power units, etc.).
NAS will provide the roughly 130-page report, “Improving Motor Carrier Safety Measurement,” to FMCSA and to Congress, which called for the report in the 2015 FAST Act highway bill. The act also pulled the SMS’ BASIC percentile rankings from public view.
The law stipulated that the NAS must issue recommendations on how FMCSA can fix the data and methodology issues that have plagued CSA since its 2011 onset — and that FMCSA adopt the recommendations — before the SMS can be made public again.
It’s unclear yet how the agency intends to act on the report’s recommendations or the timeline on which it plans to adopt any CSA reforms. FMCSA confirmed it has received the report and says it will issue a response to Congress within the 120 days allotted by the FAST Act. An agency spokesperson says it is “reviewing the findings.”
