FMCSA Delays Implementation of Unified Registration System

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said July 20 it is delaying for three months implementation of the final piece of the Unified Registration System intended to streamline the registration process and more closely monitor “reincarnated” carriers.

The URS, slated to improve the registration process for carriers, property brokers, freight forwarders, intermodal equipment providers and cargo tank facilities, will be implemented by Jan. 14, with a full compliance date of April 14.

“This additional time is needed due to added complexities encountered when the agency converted to cloud-based systems and also due to the logistics of transferring millions of records,” the agency said.

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FMCSA estimates the initial phase of the URS, launched in December 2015, has saved the industry approximately $1.6 million in processing time during the first six months.

The URS requires new carriers to provide census and data information prior to gaining operating authority and existing carriers to update the information every two years.

“To date, FMCSA has issued 62,000 USDOT numbers, removed 340,000 dormant USDOT numbers from agency databases and screened 100% of operating authority applications for reincarnated carriers,” the agency said. Reincarnated carriers are unsafe operators who attempt to form a new company using a different company name or owner.

More than 500,000 active carriers remain in the agency’s database, Kelly Regal, FMCSA’s director and associate administrator of research and information technology, said at a telephone conference.

With the URS, carriers will realize time savings largely due to the consolidation of several old forms into a single new form, Regal said.