CSA App Sparks Controversy; GAO Official Concerned With Public Availability of Scores

The HOS screen on the QCMobile smartphone app.

This story appears in the March 23 print edition of Transport Topics.

The launch of a smartphone application that provides safety performance information on trucking and bus companies immediately sparked controversy last week.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced its new QCMobile app March 17, saying it is available now for Apple and Android devices.

QC stands for “query central.”

Law enforcement personnel and people in the insurance and third-party logistics industries make up the primary target group, but it is available to the public as well, according to the FMCSA announcement.

The app makes available all of the information they can access via desktop or laptop computers.

QCMobile requires no log-in and immediately reveals whether the federal operating status of the carrier is authorized. This app would help to expedite an “inspect/pass” decision by a commercial vehicle safety inspector. It retrieves data from several FMCSA sources.

The safety scores are part of FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program. However, the statistical underpinning of the safety scores has drawn criticism not just from trucking but also from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Susan Fleming, GAO director of physical infrastructure issues, discussed the subject on March 18 in a radio interview with Mark Willis, host of a news program on the “Road Dog Trucking” channel on SiriusXM.

“We really have some concerns about reporting scores publicly,” Fleming said of CSA scores of individual carriers. “We don’t feel that they’re reliable, and so we don’t think they should be reported on a website or, obviously, on an app.”

GAO started criticizing CSA’s data-use techniques in 2014 and continued on March 4, when Fleming testified before a panel of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Contacted after her radio interview, which reiterated some of her testimony, Fleming said the GAO does not have an official opinion on the app and whether it should remain available.

“The scores are probably fine for targeting enforcement efforts, but again, based on our analysis, we don’t feel they are reliable enough to compare safety performance across carriers,” Fleming told Transport Topics.

“Once the scores are publicly released, third parties . . . might use those scores for purposes that are not appropriate, given the limitations we identified. We didn’t specifically have a recommendation that the scores be removed from FMCSA’s website but noted our concerns,” Fleming said.

AUDIO: Fleming's interview on SiriusXM Road Dog Network

American Trucking Associations took umbrage with FMCSA’s announcement, calling it “recklessness cloaking itself as transparency.”

ATA has said the scores are fine for federal and state law-enforcement personnel, but the group has opposed the posting of scores for individual motor carriers online.

“It is wholly inappropriate for FMCSA to encourage and facilitate public access and use,” ATA spokesman Sean McNally said. “The agency should immediately pull this tool from the marketplace.”

In releasing the app, however, federal transportation officials said it was further enhancing highway safety.

“We are providing greater transparency while making our roadways safer for everyone,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in discussing the app.

“Aggressive safety enforcement, research and technology development and deployment, combined with strong stakeholder participation, will continue to be directed toward removing unsafe trucks and buses from our roadways and protecting every traveler from needless harm,” said Scott Darling, FMCSA’s acting administrator.