FMCSA Delays CSA 2010

This story appears in the April 12 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said last week it is pushing back the start of its new safety monitoring system, CSA 2010, until late this year, to give itself time to respond to criticisms and suggestions, and give fleets time to fix safety deficiencies.

Full-scale, nationwide enforcement using the new system will be delayed until 2011, but the agency said carriers can begin this week reviewing data that it will use to target unsafe carriers, and will be able to view their relative rankings by August.

“FMCSA had originally planned to roll out CSA 2010 beginning in the summer of 2010,” the agency said in an April 9 Federal Register notice. “However, the agency has received valuable feedback . . . [and] has decided to move the beginning of CSA 2010 rollout from the summer to the fall of 2010.”

As recently as a month ago, agency officials told Transport Topics they intended to start the Comprehensive Safety Analysis program this month so carriers can view their scores, and then launch the full array of new interventions — ranging from warning letters to full compliance reviews — during the summer.

The delay extends the period for carriers to check their data, allowing reviews through Nov. 30. After that, the data will be open to the public and FMCSA will begin phasing in implementation of the new enforcement regime.

During the initial phase, carriers would be able to see only their violations but not their scores, FMCSA said, but “beginning in August, after the refinements to [the measurement system] are complete, motor carriers will be able to see an assessment of their violations through CSA 2010.”

By extending the period before enforcement starts, the agency said it hopes carriers will “use the time to identify and take actions to correct deficiencies.”

Beginning Nov. 30, FMCSA will replace SafeStat with CSA 2010’s new measurement system. SafeStat is the current system FMCSA uses to target carriers for increased roadside inspections and compliance reviews.

Once SafeStat is replaced, the agency will use CSA data to issue warning letters to carriers as a first step toward enacting a new range of national enforcement procedures.

FMCSA has been testing CSA in nine states, and said that in those states it will “carry out the full array of CSA 2010 interventions after the test concludes in June.” For the other 41 states, the new CSA interventions will be phased in next year, the agency said.

According to a memo obtained by TT, that phase-in period is scheduled to take place during the spring and summer of 2011.

“This is generally a good thing, provided the appropriate changes are made,” said Dave Osiecki, American Trucking Associations’ senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs.

ATA and other industry groups have pushed the agency to adjust CSA in three main areas: accounting for crash responsibility, weighing how an individual violation counts against a carrier’s score and defining a fleet’s exposure to crashes.

FMCSA stated it is “currently considering refinements” to the measurement system in all three areas.

“If, during this delay, FMCSA can implement those changes that would be good,” said Tom Whitaker, executive director of the Kansas Motor Carriers Association.

However, Whitaker said that fleets in pilot states, such as Kansas, may be at a disadvantage during the delay.

“There is a concern that there are carriers in Kansas who are put on a different level of intervention until it is implemented nationwide,” he said. Whitaker has proposed reducing fines for carriers in test states until the program is fully operational nationwide.

Lana Batts, a managing partner of Transport Capital Partners, said the split implementation means there will be “costs incurred by the carriers in the pilot states who are in compliance,” and those companies could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage with carriers not in compliance.

In its delay, FMCSA did not address its plans to change how the agency rates carriers’ relative safety fitness.

Agency officials have said they intend to publish a proposal changing safety fitness determinations but only after the new measurement system is launched publicly. However, some industry officials said they believe that, too, will be delayed.

“I think that it is reasonable to assume that . . . we won’t see that rulemaking until later in 2012,” said Rob Abbott, ATA’s vice president of safety policy, adding that a final rule is “several years off at this point.”

Steve Keppler, interim executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, said there is still a chance FMCSA may try to hold to its original timetable for the fitness determination rule.

“There’s a lot of moving parts to this, but things don’t necessarily need to be done in series; some things can be done in parallel,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the agency said she was unaware of any change in the schedule for the fitness determination rule. A report on the rules the agency is working on stated that a proposed rule is slated for early October.

Senior Reporter Rip Watson contributed to this story.