A new Level 8 electronic inspection, in development for the last couple years via the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance of trucking industry and enforcement personnel, is now part of a new operational policy from the agency. The move amounts to recognition of the existing definition for what such an inspection needs to include when North American “jurisdictions get the ability to do an electronic inspection,” said Kerri Wirachowsky, CVSA’s director for its roadside inspection program. None that she knows of, she adds, have such ability today.
The update sets the stage for further tests of the concept to come in a variety of jurisdictions. Officials in the Canadian province of Alberta recently signaled their willingness to move forward with it following CVSA’s Board of Directors voting to include recognition of the Level 8 inspection as a policy. The designation also follows a variety of e-inspection/expedited Level 3 demonstrations that have occurred around the United States the last several years, spearheaded by state jurisdictions, the Drivewyze company, and a variety of other technology providers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, too, has long pursued proof of concept demonstrations of its Wireless Roadside Inspection effort, in recent years hampered to a certain extent by Congressional efforts to limit funding for the project amid concerns over its perceived conflict with inspection technology available today.
While the federal effort envisions wireless inspection at levels beyond just driver/carrier credentialing, the new Level 8 inspection definition hews closers to the “expedited Level 3” demonstrated by private groups and states. The Level 8 is defined as an “inspection conducted electronically or wirelessly while the vehicle is in motion without direct interaction with an enforcement officer,” moving beyond those expedited Level 3 tests, which Overdrive covered last year. Those, of course, still required the interaction of driver and officer to finish the inspection.
An electronic inspection, according to the CVSA definition, must include the following data points:
CVSA Director Wirachowsky was speaking as part of a May 31 webinar devoted to updating CVSA membership on changes to a variety of policies, inspection bulletins and procedures that came most out of the most recent, April CVSA Workshop event in Atlanta. Other policy updates of note included recognition of push-to-connect fittings within the air brake system as proper connections, among others.
A variety of publicly accessible inspection bulletins, too, were newly issued or updated, all the result of committee work at the Workshop that “then went through board of directors” for approval, Wirachowsky said.
The 2010-02 bulletin related to the inspection of 2007 and later trucks, many with engines with diesel-particulate-filter and selective catalytic reduction aftertreatment systems was updated to recognize the existence of drain holes in the exhaust system in places other than factory mufflers.
