The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), in a Federal Register notice published Wednesday, signaled its intent to move forward with a revamp of its CSA carrier Safety Measurement System (SMS), which it proposed more than a year and a half ago in February 2023.
Wednesday’s notice serves as an update on the direction FMCSA is heading with potential changes to the system, as the agency responds to comments received during a 90-day preview and comment period. During the comment period, and beyond, carriers could log in to the Prioritization Preview site to see what their SMS ratings would look like under the proposed methodology. The agency also took into consideration feedback it received during three Q&A sessions in March 2023.
The proposed changes:
- Reorganized and updated Safety Categories (now “Compliance Categories”), including new segmentation
- Consolidated violations
- Simplified violation severity weights
- Proportionate percentiles instead of safety event groups
- Improved intervention thresholds
- Greater focus on recent violations
- Updated utilization factor
[Related: FMCSA proposes long-overdue CSA carrier Safety Measurement System revamp]
In total, the agency received just 176 comments in response to the February 2023 notice. Of those, 111 contained comments related to the proposed changes. Most of the comments voiced support for the proposed changes, FMCSA said, yet there were some concerns, which the agency is addressing in the new notice.
Keep tuned to the Prioritization Preview site in the coming months. There, a webinar series on the changes made will be announced in future. Additionally, a follow-up notice in the Federal Register will announce the official launch date of the enhanced SMS website.
[Related: FMCSA offering 'kinder, gentler' approach to safety scoring? Not if automated inspections go live]
A summary of FMCSA’s responses to comments received that include changes from the original proposal follows:
About those 'Safety Categories'...
Part of FMCSA’s proposal was to rename the current Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs) to “safety categories.” Comments received by the American Trucking Associations, American Bus Association and Driver iQ suggested FMCSA use different terminology. Specifically, ATA suggested “compliance categories” instead, noting that the change “simplifies the terminology to a more understandable and relatable reference. It also will allow motor carrier operations and the enforcement community to more accurately pinpoint and address compliance concerns.”
FMCSA said that its analysis has demonstrated a strong relationship between each category and safety, but nonetheless decided to move forward with “compliance categories” instead of “safety categories” to “provide simpler and more reliable terminology.”
[Related: Proposed CSA-scores change a mixed bag, particularly for hours of service category]
Consolidated violations
FMCSA proposed to reorganize the existing 959 roadside violations into 116 violation groups. An anonymous commenter noted to FMCSA that there are still areas of overlap between the “HOS Requirements” and “HOS Requirements -- Nominal” and the “Brakes” and “Brakes -- OOS” violation groups.
As a result, FMCSA further consolidated overlapping violation groups “to further prevent inconsistencies in how violations are cited for the same underlying safety issue.”
A list of the “nominal” HOS violations moving to the “HOS Requirements” group follows:
For brakes, FMCSA consolidated the single overlapping Vehicle Maintenance category violation -- the “20% rule” -- in the “Brakes – OOS” violation group into the “Brakes” group.
FMCSA also reorganized certain violations that were already put into effect in the preview, and in the current SMS methodology where applicable, to better align with the needs of the agency's enforcement program. Namely violations 390.3E and 392.15, related to operating while prohibited from performing safety-sensitive functions in the FMCSA's Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, shifted from the Unsafe Driving category to Driver Fitness. The move was to better reflect the root of the underlying safety issue, FMCSA said. "Since these violations address whether a driver meets drug and alcohol requirements to perform safety-sensitive functions, they are more closely aligned with the Driver Fitness Compliance Category, which covers driver requirements for the safe operation of CMVs, including training, experience, licensing, and medical qualifications."
Also, back in February, FMCSA moved 13 Vehicle Maintenance violations from the Lighting violation group to the Clearance Identification Lamps/Other group in the current and preview SMS methodologies.
The change will be carried over to the new methodology, and violations will contribute to the new Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed compliance category. The Lighting violations moved to the Clearance Lamp violation group are detailed in the following list:
[Related: Not comprehensive enough: Trucking responds to FMCSA's proposed CSA-scores changes]
Simplified severity weights
FMCSA proposed to move from a 1 to 10 scale for violation severity weights to a simplified 1 or 2. Some commenters supported the move generally, but raised some concerns with moving to a 1-2 scale.
FMCSA said its analysis showed that “assigning a customized weight to all violations was not as important as noting that the violation occurred. The number of violations a carrier has is a strong indicator of its safety compliance, or lack thereof. Carriers with poor safety management practices have patterns of violations across the compliance categories -- regardless of each violation’s level of egregiousness. Conversely, carriers with strong safety management practices have fewer violations per inspection.”
Improved intervention thresholds
For intervention thresholds, current SMS methodology prioritizes carriers for investigatory looks or audits if their percentile rankings are at or above those thresholds. With the updated prioritization methodology, the new Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed and Vehicle Maintenance categories will both have the same thresholds as the current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC:
- 80% for general carriers
- 75% for Hazmat carriers
Hazmat Compliance thresholds will increase, meaning investigation could be less likely for more of those carriers:
- From 80% to 90% for all carrier types
Thresholds for the Driver Fitness category, containing primarily driver credentials-related violations, will increase as well:
- From 80% to 90% for general carriers
- From 75% to 85% for hazmat carriers
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association questioned whether FMCSA should use the Driver Fitness or Hazardous Materials compliance categories to assess safety risk if a carrier has to be worse than 90% of their peers in order for the agency to prioritize them.
FMCSA acknowledged the concern about the high threshold for those categories, but noted that its analysis shows that every category has a different relationship to crash rate, with some having a higher correlation than others.
“Adjusting the thresholds ensures that the agency focuses its enforcement program on carriers with the highest crash risk,” FMCSA said. “In addition, the Driver Fitness and Hazardous Materials compliance categories can help carriers identify and improve patterns of noncompliance that contribute to their companies’ overall safety, regardless of whether the carriers are over the threshold in these categories.”
[Related: FMCSA's safety rating revamp: Truckers caution against use of CSA SMS, roadside data]
