The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s “SafeStat” data collection system, which can trigger a motor carrier compliance review and also is used by the public as a source of safety-related information, needs serious sprucing up, according to a recent audit by the DOT’s Office of the Inspector General.
Rep. Thomas E. Petri, R-WI, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Highways and Transit Subcommittee, requested the audit.
FMCSA assesses less than 2 percent of the nation’s approximately 650,000 active interstate motor carriers each year.
Data from those assessments is also used by the public via the Internet. Thus, motor carriers, shippers, insurers and other government users have free access to the information, which may be incomplete, when making business decisions.
“We found material weaknesses in the data reported by states and motor carriers and with the FMCSA’s processes for correcting and disclosing data problems,” the audit said. “Consequently, while SafeStat is sufficient for internal use, its continued public dissemination and external use require prompt corrective action.”
SafeStat model needs tweaking
SafeStat is the Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System. It assigns carriers a percentile ranking between 0 and 100 (with 100 being the worst) in one or more of the following evaluation areas: crashes, driver, vehicle and safety management. Carriers ranked in the 75th percentile or greater are considered deficient in an area.
However, the OIG said other categories should be considered, including the addition of serious moving traffic violations, revised weighting of fatal accidents and altered methods for calculating the number of vehicles used by motor carriers.
“The most serious problems lie with outdated census data on the number of vehicles and drivers used by motor carriers, incomplete crash reporting from the states and late or incomplete inspection reporting, particularly reports on serious moving traffic violations,” the audit said.
Specifically, the audit found:
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About 272,000, or 42 percent, of the active interstate motor carriers had not met the congressionally mandated requirement to update census data every two years as of January 2003;
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About 71,000 (11 percent) of the 643,909 active interstate carriers were on record in January 2003 as having “zero” power units; and
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About 98,000 carriers – or 15 percent – of the nation’s carriers were on record as having zero drivers.
To solve these and other data glitches, the audit recommended the following:
FMCSA should revalidate the SafeStat model using a more sophisticated analysis and solicit public comment on all model changes.
To mitigate the impact of inaccuracies on public users of SafeStat, FMCSA should make available to all states, within three months of the audit, an improved system for facilitating the correction of data.
FMCSA’s overall data quality improvement program should: impose fines on carriers that fail to provide updated census information; set minimum standards for the quality of SafeStat data; accomplish actions planned in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; ensure better state data submission; and base incentive grants on a state’s demonstrated willingness to improve data submission.
