The OIG says its objective is to “determine whether FMCSA’s design and implementation of the restart study complies with the requirements of the act.”
The announcement came via a letter from the OIG’s Mitchell Behm, Assistant Inspector General of Surface Transportation Audits.
Behm’s letter to FMCSA says the OIG is waiting on a plan from FMCSA that “outlin[es] the scope and methodology for the study,” at which point it will work with FMCSA to conduct the audit.
The agency’s study on 34-hour restart rules was required by the 2015 appropriations bill passed by Congress and signed by the president in December.
The bill also suspended the 2013 restart rules — the requirement that a restart include two 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. periods and the once-per-week limit of its use — pending the agency’s study.
FMCSA will be studying two groups of drivers for a minimum of five months. One will abide by pre-2013 rules and one will be restricted to using post-July 2013 rules.
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, who’s heading the study, will use electronic logging devices, high-tech watches, psychomotor vigilance tests, cameras and other systems to determine operator fatigue levels. It will also gather data on crashes, near-crashes and other crash-relevant events.
VTTI will produce the study, which must be submitted to the DOT’s Office of Inspector General, the Secretary of Transportation and Congress.
