Execs Warn on CSA 2010
This story appears in the Feb. 8 print edition of Transport Topics.
SAN DIEGO — CSA 2010, the new federal safety monitoring and rating system for motor carriers, is likely to be the most important and potentially disruptive federal policy development for trucking to come out of Washington this year, fleet executives and industry watchers said last week.
American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said CSA 2010 — or the Comprehensive Safety Analysis program — which is set to supplant the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SafeStat system, is “at the top of the list” of federal policy issues that will affect the trucking industry in 2010.
“Many of you are going to have to become experts about CSA 2010 in a way that you never in your wildest dreams imagined,” Graves told an audience of trucking and technology executives gathered here Feb. 1.
Robert Lowe, president of refrigerated carrier and flatbed carrier Prime Inc., Springfield, Mo., said that CSA 2010 will be a “game-changer” for trucking companies. The initiative will push more technology into trucks and push cash-strapped truckers who cannot afford the technology out of the market entirely, Lowe said.
Lowe and Graves spoke here last week at Qualcomm Inc.’s Vision 2010 user conference.
Unlike the current SafeStat program, which assigns safety ratings based on infrequent compliance reviews by federal auditors, the Department of Transportation’s CSA 2010 program will base safety ratings on carriers’ on-highway performance.
In contrast with SafeStat ratings, which can remain static for years, FMCSA has said that CSA 2010 ratings will be updated monthly to reflect enforcement actions and inspections by local and state law enforcement agencies.
In another departure from the current system, drivers’ violations will affect a carrier’s overall rating. Drivers themselves, however, “don’t receive a formal rating” under the current CSA 2010 framework, said David Kraft, senior manager of government affairs for Qualcomm.
CSA 2010 is currently being tested by fleets in nine states, with nationwide rollout slated to begin in July and conclude by Dec. 31, according to DOT.
Lowe said that electronic onboard recorders, which keep track of drivers’ hours of service, will be essential supporting technology for the new safety initiative, because federal safety inspectors are now empowered to demand electronic records from carriers when conducting audits.
Hours-of-service violations can have a profound effect on carriers’ safety ratings under CSA 2010 because they fall into one of the two critical enforcement categories created by the new rating system, Qualcomm’s Kraft said at a breakout session during the conference.
CSA 2010 sorts safety violations into seven categories — which FMCSA calls BASICS — that cover drivers and equipment. They are: unsafe driving, fatigued driving, driver fitness, drug and alcohol use, cargo securement failures, vehicle defects and crashes.
HOS violations fall under the “fatigued driving” category. Qualcomm’s Kraft said that poor performance in that category or in the “unsafe driving” category can sink a carrier’s overall rating, even if the carrier scores well in the other five categories.
“If you’re red in those two BASICS, you’re red overall,” Kraft said Feb. 2 in an educational session devoted to CSA 2010. And that virtually guarantees additional federal oversight for a fleet, he said.
In spite of the operational challenges posed by the program, ATA broadly supports the goals of CSA 2010, which the federation has said addresses many of the shortcomings of SafeStat.
“We think CSA 2010 is a great initiative,” Graves said. “It makes sure that not only the companies, but the drivers themselves, are professional and safe.”
From a business perspective, Prime Inc.’s Lowe said the carriers that can adapt to CSA 2010 will come away with a competitive advantage over those that cannot afford to leverage technology to police their fleets’ safety performance.
The combination of CSA 2010 and the “de facto EOBR mandate” created by FMCSA’s 2008 electronic data retention rule is “going to take capacity off the roads,” Lowe said. In the current operating environment of cutthroat rates and sparse freight, “there are a lot of carriers that are pretty beaten up” and might opt out of the trucking business rather than make technology investments to help with CSA 2010 compliance.
“As these things come into play, you’re going to see truck rates start to move up,” Lowe said.
