iTECH: CSA Helps States Target Safety Reviews
By Mindy Long, Contributing Writer
This article appears in the February/March 2011 issue of iTECH, published in the Feb. 14 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
States are equipping roadside inspectors with carrier-specific information that could lead to more targeted inspections under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.
The December launch of CSA, which calculates safety scores for fleets based on seven categories of compliance, has compelled states to update their safety databases to help inspectors home in on areas where carriers have demonstrated deficiencies.
“It takes the randomness out of it, and we can conduct more focused inspections based on the data,” said Major Ron Cordova of the New Mexico Motor Transportation Police. New Mexico already has incorporated into its e-screening program additional data fields made possible by CSA.
In New Mexico and 45 other states and the District of Columbia, carriers’ performance ratings and other fleet data are consolidated in the Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks database. The information can be shared across jurisdictions and examined in the Commercial Vehicle Information Exchange Window system. As a result of CSA, states such as New Mexico are modifying their CVIEW systems, amending computer architecture and adding data fields to give inspectors a complete view of a carriers’ CSA status. With these changes, CVIEW now will contain more information than ever before.
The seven CSA categories, called Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs), cover vehicle maintenance; unsafe driving; fatigued driving; driver fitness; alcohol and drugs; vehicle maintenance; cargo securement; and crash history. If an inspector stops a truck and sees that a carrier is deficient in the maintenance BASIC but none of the others, he or she could scrutinize the truck in that category.
“The officer decides [where] to focus his or her efforts,” said Stephen Keppler, executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Administration. “If that carrier were deficient in the fatigued driving — hours of service — BASIC but not deficient in any other category, the officer would focus his or her efforts on . . . the driver.”
Keppler said inspectors are in training for CSA. States making CSA-related changes to their CVIEW systems also are training inspectors on how to use and view the information. Indeed, while CVISN is a national program, how the states use it varies widely.
Douglas Deckert, a CVISN systems architect for the Washington State Department of Transportation, said Washington emphasizes e-screening, but officials in Connecticut said the biggest benefit is in the electronic submittal of oversize and overweight permit processing and payments. Connecticut inspectors not only can access a carrier’s BASICs in CVIEW, they also can receive alerts when a carrier’s score in one or more of the BASICs is above the FMCSA threshold for intervention, said William Seymour, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
No matter where states focus their efforts, adding data fields to IT systems allows states to “drill down the safety data and capture all of the details,” said Joe McCormick, chief executive officer of Celtic Systems, a software provider in Scottsdale, Ariz., and a CVIEW systems architect. McCormick has updated CVIEW programs in Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa and South Carolina.
CVISN benefits inspectors, but it also can benefit fleets. In many areas, drivers that meet certain thresholds can bypass inspection stations, thanks to an e-screening function that is part of CVISN. Records of trucks that passed a recent inspection are included in CVIEW, and the drivers are waved down the road.
Florida is among the states focusing on e-screening, which benefits inspectors and carriers alike, said Col. David Dees, director of the Motor Carrier Compliance Office within the Florida Department of Transportation.
“I see more and more roadside weigh facilities being replaced with virtual stations that use increased technology . . . as a result of CVISN,” he said. “The officer is able to make a stop and a more focused enforcement action.”
Don Osterberg, senior vice president of safety, driver training and security at Schneider National Inc., Green Bay, Wis., said, “Those carriers that have displayed a disregard for violations should be targeted, based on their past performance. Conversely those carriers that operate legally, maintain their equipment to required standards and don’t violate hours-of-service regulations should get the benefit of being able to move through with fewer inspections.”
Joe Crabtree, director of the Kentucky Transportation Center at the University of Kentucky, said CSA could increase the benefits carriers see by serving as a catalyst for more uniform screening criteria.
But Gordon Lambert, corporate vice president of safety compliance with C.R. England Inc., said he has concerns about proper application of the data.
“I think there is so much variance on how they use it in different areas that we haven’t been able to measure the impact,” Lambert said. “Some states were using it to not only look at the previous inspection to see if it was passed but also to see when it was done and that drivers weren’t fudging on paper logs.”
Keppler said CVSA has been making changes to the software that collect driver and vehicle roadside inspection details to improve uniformity in how roadside violations are described in the software and to minimize variability in how citations are documented.
The latter issue addresses a common complaint carriers have about inconsistent enforcement between jurisdictions.
“We run the lower 48 [states] and Canada. All of those inconsistencies become very clear to us,” Osterberg said. “For example, some states still use a generic speeding code instead of new codes that provide a graduated scale for speeding. It is relevant to the CSA world because you know how many points to attribute to that.”
Neil Voorhees, U.S. director of safety and security in Houston for Trimac Transportation Services, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, also sees variations.
“We have one individual who will write you up for chafing air lines if they aren’t separated by a plastic piece, even if they aren’t touching,” he said.
While the advent of CSA has not resulted in increased CVISN funding, Keppler said that CSA funding will benefit CVISN because more data will be feeding into the system.
“FMCSA has put a budget request in for next year for $20 million for CSA implementation,” he said. “and it is our hope that it can provide additional money states can use to improve technology.”
The federal government does offer dedicated CVISN funding, and DOT accepted CVISN grant applications for fiscal year 2011 through Feb. 1. States can use grant funds to develop CVISN programs or to expand CVISN functionality, which may include wireless systems, virtual weigh stations and other functions or enhancements. FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne said the agency does not have a final figure on how much funding will be available.
Several state officials said their federal CVISN funding has been on hold for several months, pending an internal review at FMCSA, which is delaying projects in some places. FMCSA declined to comment on the review.
The funding freeze has not stalled CVISN applications in West Virginia, however. The state has not yet launched its CVIEW but has received a $3.5 million federal grant. Until it can spend those dollars, the state is using state funds to keep the program moving. In addition to the creation of a CVIEW database, the funds will be used to upgrade technology at seven fixed weigh stations and to provide mobile enforcement.
Mark Holmes, program administrator for the Governor’s Highway Safety Program in West Virginia, said he is excited about the immediate and long-term potential of adopting the system.
“To me, it opens up more ability to use technology,” he said.
