[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 15, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9954-9960]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-02947]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

[Docket No. FMCSA-2022-0066]


Revised Carrier Safety Measurement System

AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Department 
of Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: Since 2010, FMCSA has used its Safety Measurement System (SMS) 
to identify motor carriers for safety interventions. The National 
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommended 
on June 27, 2017, that FMCSA develop and test a new statistical model. 
This notice explains FMCSA's analysis and the Agency's proposed changes 
to SMS, announces FMCSA's preview of the proposed changes, and requests 
comments and input on the Agency's system to identify motor carriers 
for safety interventions.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before May 16, 2023.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Docket Number FMCSA-
2022-0066 using any of the following methods:
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0066/document. Follow the online instructions for 
submitting comments.
    Mail: Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 
New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 
Washington, DC 20590-0001.
    Hand Delivery or Courier: Dockets Operations, West Building, Ground 
Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-
0001 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal 
holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 
366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations.
    Fax: (202) 493-2251.
    To avoid duplication, please use only one of these four methods. 
See the ``Public Participation and Request for Comments'' portion of 
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for instructions on submitting 
comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Catterson Oh, Compliance Division, 
FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, (202) 366-
6160, [email protected]. If you have questions regarding viewing or 
submitting material to the docket, contact Dockets Operations, (202) 
366-9826.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Public Participation and Request for Comments

    If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this 
notice FMCSA-2022-0066, indicate the specific section of this document 
to which each comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion 
or recommendation. You may submit your comments and material online or 
by fax, mail, or hand delivery, but please use only one of these means. 
FMCSA recommends that you include your name and a mailing address, an 
email address, or a phone number in the body of your document so the 
Agency can contact you if it has questions regarding your submission.
    To submit your comment online, go to https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0066/document, click on this notice, click 
``Comment,'' and type your comment into the text box on the following 
screen.
    If you submit your comments by mail or hand delivery, submit them 
in an unbound format, no larger than 8\1/2\ by 11 inches, suitable for 
copying and electronic filing. If you submit comments by mail and would 
like to know that they reached the facility, please enclose a stamped, 
self-addressed postcard or envelope.
    FMCSA will consider all comments and material received during the 
comment period and may change this notice based on your comments.

Confidential Business Information (CBI)

    CBI is commercial or financial information that is both customarily 
and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of 
Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. 
If your comments responsive to the notice contain commercial or 
financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you 
actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to the 
notice, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted 
comments as CBI. Please mark each page of your submission that 
constitutes CBI as ``PROPIN'' to indicate it contains proprietary 
information. FMCSA will treat such marked submissions as confidential 
under the Freedom of Information Act, and they will not be placed in 
the public docket of the notice. Submissions containing CBI should be 
sent to Mr. Brian Dahlin, Chief, Regulatory Analysis Division, Office 
of Policy, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001. 
Any comments FMCSA receives not specifically designated as CBI will be 
placed in the public docket for this notice.

Viewing Comments and Documents

    To view any documents mentioned as being available in the docket, 
go to https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0066/document and 
choose the document to review. To view comments, click this notice, 
then click ``Browse Comments.'' If you do not have access to the 
internet, you may view the docket in person by visiting Dockets 
Operations in Room W12-140 on the ground floor of the DOT West 
Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 
9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To 
be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or 
(202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations.

Privacy Act

    DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its 
processes, in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c). DOT posts these 
comments, without edit, including any personal information the 
commenter provides, to

[[Page 9955]]

www.regulations.gov, as described in the system of records notice (DOT/
ALL 14--Federal Docket Management System), which can be reviewed at 
www.transportation.gov/privacy.

Background

SMS Overview

    In December 2010, FMCSA implemented SMS to identify high risk motor 
carriers for investigations (75 FR 18256, April 9, 2010). Section 
5305(a) of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, 
Public Law 114-94 (Dec. 4, 2015; 129 Stat. 1312) requires FMCSA to 
ensure, at a minimum, that a review is conducted on motor carriers that 
demonstrate, through performance data, that they are among the highest 
risk carriers for four consecutive months. FMCSA and its State 
enforcement partners also use SMS to identify and prioritize motor 
carriers for inspections and less resource-intensive interventions, 
such as automated warning letters.
    SMS determines a carrier's prioritization status (i.e., prioritized 
or not prioritized) in each Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement 
Category (BASIC) based on the carrier's on-road performance and/or 
investigation results. A carrier's relative on-road performance is 
indicated by its BASIC percentile. Investigation results reflect if any 
Acute and/or Critical (A/C) violations are found in a given BASIC 
during investigations. A carrier can be prioritized for interventions 
because its percentile is at or above the Intervention Threshold and/or 
it has one or more A/C violations related to a particular BASIC.
    SMS also provides motor carriers and other stakeholders with safety 
performance data, which is updated monthly, through the public website 
at http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS. Under section 5223 of the FAST Act, 
FMCSA removed SMS percentiles and alerts from the public SMS website 
for motor carriers transporting property. Passenger carrier percentiles 
and alerts remain publicly available, as well as inspection, 
investigation, crash, and registration data for all carriers.
    SMS quantifies the safety performance of motor carriers using data 
available in FMCSA's motor carrier database, the Motor Carrier 
Management Information System (MCMIS). This database includes 
violations found during inspections, traffic enforcement, and 
investigations, as well as crash and motor carrier census data. For 
detailed information on the current structure of SMS, see the SMS 
Methodology at http://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov. A copy of the SMS Methodology 
is available in the docket for this notice.
    FMCSA's analysis has shown that SMS is effective in helping the 
Agency identify high crash risk carriers for interventions. FMCSA's SMS 
Effectiveness Test (ET) found that the group of carriers that SMS 
identified for intervention in one or more BASICs had a crash rate that 
was 61 percent higher than the group of carriers not identified for 
intervention. In addition, the group of carriers that met FMCSA's high 
risk criteria had a crash rate that was 178 percent higher than the 
national average crash rate. A copy of FMCSA's ET, which was first 
published in 2014 and updated in 2018, is available in the docket for 
this notice.
    Section 5221 of FAST Act required that NAS conduct a study of 
FMCSA's Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program and SMS. 
Specifically, the FAST Act required that NAS:
    (1) shall analyze--
    (A) the accuracy with which the Behavior Analysis and Safety 
Improvement Categories referred to in this part as ``BASIC'')--
    (i) identify high risk carriers; and
    (ii) predict or are correlated with future crash risk, crash 
severity, or other safety indicators for motor carriers, including the 
highest risk carriers;
    (B) the methodology used to calculate BASIC percentiles and 
identify carriers for enforcement, including the weights assigned to 
particular violations and the tie between crash risk and specific 
regulatory violations, with respect to accurately identifying and 
predicting future crash risk for motor carriers;
    (C) the relative value of inspection information and roadside 
enforcement data;
    (D) any data collection gaps or data sufficiency problems that may 
exist and the impact of those gaps and problems on the efficacy of the 
CSA program;
    (E) the accuracy of safety data, including the use of crash data 
from crashes in which a motor carrier was free from fault;
    (F) whether BASIC percentiles for motor carriers of passengers 
should be calculated separately from motor carriers of freight;
    (G) the differences in the rates at which safety violations are 
reported to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for 
inclusion in the SMS by various enforcement authorities, including 
States, territories, and Federal inspectors; and
    (H) how members of the public use the SMS and what effect making 
the SMS information public has had on reducing crashes and eliminating 
unsafe motor carriers from the industry; and
    (2) shall consider--
    (A) whether the SMS provides comparable precision and confidence, 
through SMS alerts and percentiles, for the relative crash risk of 
individual large and small motor carriers;
    (B) whether alternatives to the SMS would identify high risk 
carriers more accurately; and
    (C) the recommendations and findings of the Comptroller General of 
the United States and the Inspector General of the Department, and 
independent review team reports, issued before the date of enactment of 
this Act.

NAS Study

    On June 27, 2017, NAS published a report titled ``Improving Motor 
Carrier Safety Measurement.'' FMCSA commissioned this report under 
Section 5221 of the FAST Act. The report is available at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24818/improving-motor-carrier-safety-measurement. 
However, NAS did not complete all the reviews requested by the FAST 
Act. The NAS report notes, ``This study is not concerned with non-SMS 
aspects of CSA, and it is concerned only with CSMS [Carrier SMS], not 
with DSMS [Driver SMS], but we will refer to our topic as SMS in the 
remainder of this report.'' The NAS report concluded that SMS, in its 
current form, is structured in a reasonable way and its method of 
identifying motor carriers for alert status is defensible. NAS agreed 
that FMCSA's overall approach, based on crash prevention rather than 
prediction, is sound. NAS provided FMCSA with six recommendations to 
improve the system. This notice focuses on FMCSA's actions in response 
to the first NAS recommendation to develop an Item Response Theory 
(IRT) model. FMCSA will update its full corrective action plan 
addressing all six NAS recommendations after reviewing comments to this 
proposal. The corrective action plan is available on FMCSA's website at 
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/policy/nas-correlation-study-corrective-action-plan-report-congress.
    Pursuant to the FAST Act, FMCSA submitted the results of this study 
to both Congress and the DOT Office of Inspector General (OIG) on 
August 7, 2017. FMCSA also submitted the corrective action plan 
required by the FAST Act to Congress on June 25, 2018. Copies of the 
NAS report and FMCSA's action plan are available in the docket for this 
notice.
    OIG reviewed FMCSA's action plan as required by the FAST Act and on 
September 25, 2019, provided its report titled ``FMCSA's Plan Addresses 
Recommendations on Prioritizing Safety

[[Page 9956]]

Interventions but Lacks Implementation Details,'' available on the 
OIG's website at https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/37465. The OIG 
made two recommendations for FMCSA to provide additional details to 
improve the corrective action plan in relation to three of the NAS 
recommendations. FMCSA partially concurred with both recommendations, 
stating that the Agency would first decide how to move forward with its 
prioritization methodology before providing the cost estimates and 
benchmarks recommended by OIG. The OIG considers the recommendations 
resolved but open pending completion of planned actions. As one of 
those planned actions, FMCSA conducted a full review of the IRT model 
and made a decision on how to move forward with the prioritization 
methodology, which is described in this FRN. A copy of the OIG report 
is available in the docket for this notice.

IRT Modeling

    The NAS report recommended that FMCSA develop an IRT model and 
``[i]f it is then demonstrated to perform well in identifying motor 
carriers for alerts, FMCSA should use it to replace SMS in a manner 
akin to the way SMS replaced SafeStat.'' FMCSA contracted with NAS for 
the establishment and operation of a standing committee of experts, as 
well as with subject matter experts with experience in large-scale IRT 
modeling, to provide advice and guidance to the Agency during the 
development and testing of the IRT model. The IRT model was designed 
and tested using inspection data from FMCSA's MCMIS database. The full 
modeling report titled, ``Development and Evaluation of an Item 
Response Theory (IRT) Model for Motor Carrier Prioritization,'' which 
details the statistical methodologies that were applied in developing 
and testing the IRT model, is available in the docket for this notice.
    The Agency's IRT modeling work revealed many limitations and 
practical challenges with using an IRT model. As a result, FMCSA has 
concluded that IRT modeling does not perform well for the Agency's use 
in identifying motor carriers for safety interventions, and therefore, 
does not improve overall safety. First, IRT is heavily biased towards 
identifying smaller carriers that have few inspections with violations 
and limited on-road exposure to crash risk. When the safety event 
groups and data sufficiency standards used in SMS were applied to the 
IRT model, IRT produced similar results to SMS.
    Second, IRT does not use Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) or Power 
Units (PUs) to adjust for differences in on-road exposure in the Unsafe 
Driving BASIC. As a result, IRT identified carriers with much lower 
crash rates in that BASIC compared to SMS.
    Third, IRT modeling is not readily understandable by most 
stakeholders or the public. IRT's inherent complexity makes it 
challenging for the industry and public to replicate and interpret 
results. While SMS results can be reproduced and explained using simple 
math, IRT requires an advanced understanding of statistical modeling 
and analysis.
    Fourth, a motor carrier cannot independently compute its IRT 
results. IRT results can be computed only for the entire carrier 
population. A carrier would not be able to identify how specific 
violations or areas of regulatory noncompliance impacted its 
prioritization status or how it could improve its status.
    Finally, IRT's runtime is incompatible with FMCSA's operational 
needs. The IRT model takes four weeks to run as compared to two days 
for SMS. The long runtime would make it difficult to make even minor 
changes to the system.
    Because IRT is overly complex and adopting the IRT model would 
reduce transparency without improving safety, FMCSA will not replace 
SMS with an IRT model. Instead, FMCSA continues its commitment to 
continuously improving SMS to identify motor carriers that present the 
highest crash risk through a transparent and effective system.

Changes to SMS

    The Agency conducted analyses during the IRT modeling study that 
revealed areas in which SMS could be improved to better identify high 
risk carriers for intervention, without the complications inherent in 
adopting an IRT model. Those improvements include reorganizing the 
BASICs, now called ``safety categories,'' to better identify specific 
safety problems and combining the 959 violations used in SMS, plus 14 
additional violations not currently used in SMS, into 116 violation 
groups. In addition, the changes include simplifying violation severity 
weights, removing percentile jumps that occur when carriers move into a 
new safety event group, and adjusting the Intervention Thresholds. 
FMCSA also previously published proposed changes as part of its efforts 
to improve SMS (81 FR 69185, Oct. 5, 2016). The previously proposed 
improvements included moving certain Out-of-Service (OOS) violations to 
the Unsafe Driving BASIC, segmenting the Hazardous Materials (HM) 
Compliance BASIC, focusing on recent violations, and updating the 
Utilization Factor.
    Taken together, FMCSA proposes the following combined improvements 
to SMS: (1) reorganized and updated safety categories, including new 
segmentation; (2) consolidated violations; (3) simplified violation 
severity weights; (4) proportionate percentiles instead of safety event 
groups; (5) improved Intervention Thresholds; (6) greater focus on 
recent violations; and (7) an updated Utilization Factor.
    FMCSA conducted the ET to measure the impact of the proposed 
changes on potential future crash reduction. In addition, the Agency 
analyzed other measures such as the A/C violation rate, which measures 
egregious and systemic safety issues found during in-depth 
investigations. Thus, a high A/C violation rate among prioritized 
carriers affirms the ability of the prioritization system to identify 
carriers that are more likely to exhibit these egregious safety issues. 
In addition to the safety impacts measured with the ET and A/C 
violation rate, the proposed changes were guided by FMCSA's continuing 
commitment to enhance the accuracy, fairness, and clarity of its 
prioritization system.
    A document which describes the newly proposed changes and provides 
additional analysis to support the proposed changes, titled 
``Foundational Document'' and dated March 2022, is available in the 
docket for this notice.

Reorganized and Updated Safety Categories

    During the development and testing of the IRT model, FMCSA gained 
valuable insight and concluded that reorganizing the BASICs, now called 
``safety categories,'' could make it easier for FMCSA and motor 
carriers to pinpoint and address safety issues. FMCSA proposes 
reorganizing the Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Unsafe Driving, and 
Vehicle Maintenance safety categories as described below. FMCSA also 
proposes to segment the Driver Fitness and HM Compliance safety 
categories to account for differences in carrier operations.
    The new safety categories would be: (1) Unsafe Driving; (2) Crash 
Indicator; (3) Hours of Service (HOS) Compliance; (4) Vehicle 
Maintenance; (5) Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed; (6) HM 
Compliance; and (7) Driver Fitness. A copy of the complete list of 
violations in each safety category is available in the docket for this 
notice and can also be found in Appendix A of the Foundational 
Document.

[[Page 9957]]

Controlled Substances/Alcohol and Unsafe Driving

    FMCSA conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify 
potential new groupings of violations by highlighting statistical 
relationships between the violations in each BASIC. Controlled 
Substances/Alcohol has the fewest violations of any BASIC, and those 
violations are also cited relatively infrequently. The EFA demonstrated 
that controlled substances and alcohol violations were strongly 
associated with the Unsafe Driving BASIC and supported removing the 
Controlled Substances/Alcohol category as a standalone BASIC. The new 
Unsafe Driving safety category now includes the drug and alcohol 
violations that were previously captured in the Controlled Substances/
Alcohol BASIC.
    In addition, FMCSA's analysis found that violations for operating 
while under an OOS Order issued under the Commercial Vehicle Safety 
Alliance North American Standard OOS Criteria belong in the new Unsafe 
Driving safety category. Currently, SMS places these types of 
violations across multiple BASICs based on the underlying OOS 
violation. For example, a carrier that had a violation cited against 
its driver who operated after being placed OOS for an HOS violation and 
another driver who operated after being placed OOS for a vehicle 
violation would now have both violations placed in the new Unsafe 
Driving safety category, rather than one in the HOS Compliance safety 
category and the other in the Vehicle Maintenance safety category. 
Moving and consolidating these violations to the new Unsafe Driving 
safety category would allow motor carriers and enforcement officials to 
more effectively identify and correct driver-based safety problems 
related to disregarding OOS Orders.
    FMCSA's evaluation of the new Unsafe Driving safety category, 
illustrated in the table below, showed that this new combined safety 
category identified more carriers for intervention that were involved 
in more crashes and had a higher crash rate and A/C violation rate than 
the groups of carriers identified in the current Unsafe Driving and 
Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASICs.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                  A/C violation
                                                   Crash rate                          rate
                    Category                      (crashes per      Number of    (violations per     Number of
                                                    100 PUs)         crashes           100           carriers
                                                                                 investigations)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Unsafe Driving BASIC...................           10.32          27,255            114.1          12,786
Current Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASIC....            5.51             182             84.8             805
Proposed Unsafe Driving Safety Category........           10.63          27,550            116.8          13,353
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vehicle Maintenance

    Vehicle Maintenance is the largest BASIC in terms of both the 
number of violation identifiers (i.e., CFR provisions or unique 
enforcement codes) included in the BASIC and the number of violations 
cited during inspections. The EFA results showed that breaking this 
category into two separate categories would provide greater specificity 
to help carriers improve and enforcement officials to conduct targeted 
investigations.
    Therefore, Vehicle Maintenance violations would be divided into two 
separate categories: Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed, which 
includes violations that may be identified by a driver during a pre- or 
post-trip inspection and/or while operating the vehicle; and Vehicle 
Maintenance, which includes all other vehicle maintenance violations.
    FMCSA's evaluation showed that although splitting Vehicle 
Maintenance into two separate categories identifies groups of carriers 
with a lower crash rate in each category, more carriers with more 
crashes are identified for intervention and those carriers have a very 
similar A/C violation rate, as illustrated in the table below.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                  A/C violation
                                                   Crash rate                          rate
                    Category                      (crashes per      Number of    (violations per     Number of
                                                    100 PUs)         crashes           100           carriers
                                                                                 investigations)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC..............            8.06          23,675            108.4          18,764
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance Safety Category...            7.55          19,039            103.8          11,019
Proposed Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed              7.44          23,618            109.7          17,167
 Safety Category...............................
Combined Proposed Vehicle Maintenance and/or               7.47          31,666            107.1          22,092
 Proposed Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed
 Safety Category*..............................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Carriers in this row have percentiles above the 80th percentile threshold in one or both proposed new Vehicle
  Maintenance safety categories. This row is not the sum of the prior two rows since some carriers are
  prioritized under both new safety categories.

Segmentation in Driver Fitness and HM Compliance

    SMS accounts for differences in carrier operations in the Unsafe 
Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs by segmenting carriers according to 
whether they primarily operate Combination vehicles (i.e., more than 70 
percent of their total PUs) or Straight vehicles. Carriers that are not 
considered Combination carriers are considered Straight carriers. This 
segmentation ensures that carriers are compared to other carriers with 
fundamentally similar exposure to crash risk when operating their 
vehicles. FMCSA tested whether applying segmentation to other safety 
categories would improve the identification of the highest risk 
carriers in those categories. Based on its analysis, FMCSA proposes to 
segment the Driver Fitness and HM Compliance safety categories to more 
effectively pinpoint safety issues relating to each operation type. 
FMCSA determined that segmenting HOS Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance: 
Driver Observed, and Vehicle Maintenance would not improve those safety 
categories.
    In the Driver Fitness BASIC, carriers that operate Straight trucks 
and similar vehicles have much higher violation rates than motor 
carriers that operate

[[Page 9958]]

Combination vehicles. Segmenting the Driver Fitness BASIC into Straight 
and Combination segments more effectively identifies carriers with 
higher crash rates in both segments. Although fewer carriers were 
prioritized for intervention in the Driver Fitness BASIC, the carriers 
that were removed from prioritization had a lower crash rate, which 
allows the Agency to better focus on those carriers that pose a higher 
risk to public safety.
    The current HM Compliance BASIC compares Cargo Tank carriers to 
non-Cargo Tank carriers, but these carriers have fundamentally 
different operations. A carrier is categorized as a Cargo Tank carrier 
for purposes of segmentation if more than 50 percent of its inspections 
indicated the vehicles were Cargo Tanks. FMCSA's analysis found that 
segmenting carriers as Cargo Tank carriers and Non-Cargo Tank carriers 
in the HM Compliance safety category in conjunction with adjusting the 
HM Compliance threshold from the 80th to 90th percentile identifies a 
group of carriers that has (1) an HM inspection violation rate that is 
22 percent higher and (2) an HM A/C violation rate that is 46 percent 
higher than carriers identified for intervention under the current HM 
Compliance BASIC.

Consolidated Violations

    Over the past decade, the number of CFR provisions or distinct 
enforcement codes used as violations in SMS has grown from about 650 
violations to 959 violations. Most of the new violation codes provide 
more specific descriptions for existing violations and do not reflect 
new Federal safety regulations. For example, an inspector could cite an 
inoperative vehicle brake by citing Sec. Sec.  393.48(a) (Inoperative/
defective brakes), 393.45UV (Brake tubing and hose adequacy under 
vehicle), or 393.45PC (Brake tubing and hose adequacy--connections to 
power unit).
    FMCSA's analysis during IRT modeling confirmed that similar 
violation provisions could be consolidated to mitigate differences that 
result from inspectors citing different violation codes. Grouping 
similar violations together would also allow motor carriers and 
enforcement officials to identify and address specific safety issues 
more easily. The following table shows a summary of the consolidated 
violations by safety category.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                       Number of           Number of
                                       violation         consolidated
     Violations in category        provisions/codes      groups in new
                                        in SMS              system
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsafe Driving..................                * 59                  32
HOS Compliance..................                  73                   9
Vehicle Maintenance.............                 406                  15
Vehicle Maintenance: Driver                      N/A                  35
 Observed.......................
Controlled Substance/Alcohol....                  11                 N/A
HM Compliance...................                 369                  14
Driver Fitness..................                  55                  11
                                 ---------------------------------------
    Total.......................                 973                 116
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Number includes 14 additional violations for operating while under an
  OOS Order that are not used in the current SMS methodology.

    A report titled, ``New Prioritization System: Proposed Violation 
Groups,'' which maps the consolidation of the violations, is available 
in the docket for this notice.

Severity Weights

    SMS assigns each violation a specific severity weight that is 
intended to correlate with the crash risk associated with that 
violation. The assignment of severity weights to violations in SMS on a 
scale of 1 through 10 has been criticized as overly subjective. FMCSA 
tested many different models to improve the severity weights attached 
to violations in SMS, including models that applied regression analysis 
and IRT. Based on that analysis, FMCSA proposes to simplify violation 
severity weights by assigning each consolidated violation group a 
weight of either one or two. OOS violations and violations in the 
Unsafe Driving safety category that are disqualifying offenses under 49 
CFR 383.51 would be assigned a weight of two and all other violations 
would be assigned a weight of one. If an OOS violation is combined with 
a non-OOS violation in the consolidated violation grouping, the 
consolidated group would be assigned the higher weight of two.
    FMCSA's evaluation found that simplifying the severity weights 
identifies carriers with higher crash rates. This change would maintain 
the safety focus on those violations severe enough to result in an OOS 
Order while removing the subjectivity and complications of 
distinguishing each violation by severity on a scale of 1 through 10.

Proportionate Percentiles

    FMCSA places motor carriers into safety event groups in SMS based 
on their number of inspections and crashes. For example, carriers in 
the HOS Compliance BASIC with 3 to 10 driver inspections are compared 
to each other, while carriers with 11 to 20 driver inspections are 
compared to each other, and so forth. SMS uses violations and crashes 
to calculate a quantifiable ``measure'' of a motor carrier's safety 
performance. SMS then ranks carriers within safety event groups by 
assigning each carrier in the safety event group a percentile rank that 
compares their measure to the measure of other carriers in the same 
safety event group. A higher percentile rank in a BASIC indicates that 
a carrier has a worse measure than other carriers in that safety event 
group. Safety event groups allow FMCSA to provide safety oversight of 
carriers of all sizes. Some carriers, however, have experienced large 
percentile jumps based solely on a no-violation inspection that places 
them in a new safety event group.
    FMCSA proposes to use a new method of ``proportionate percentiles'' 
that will remove sudden jumps in percentiles, which can occur when a 
carrier moves into a different safety event group. By removing those 
percentile jumps, FMCSA would be able to more accurately evaluate 
whether a carrier's safety performance is improving or declining from 
month to month. The proportionate percentile approach would use safety 
event groups only to calculate the benchmark median value of each 
grouping, which would be calculated periodically. A carrier's 
proportionate percentile would be calculated from a weighted average of 
percentiles based on those benchmark medians. After the benchmark run 
has been established, any changes to a carrier's percentile would be 
based

[[Page 9959]]

solely on the carrier's own safety performance and would not be 
impacted by the safety performance of other carriers.
    The table below provides an illustration of how proportionate 
percentiles more accurately reflect a carrier's change in safety 
performance. For a detailed description of the method used to calculate 
the proportionate percentiles, see the Foundational Document in the 
docket for this notice.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        Current            Proposed
         Example carrier              methodology         methodology
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carrier with 10 inspections.....  Measure: 1.51.....  Measure: 1.51.
                                  Percentile: 53.0%.  Percentile: 67.4%.
Same carrier after receiving 1    Measure: 1.37.....  Measure: 1.37.
 additional inspection with no    ([darr] .14)......  ([darr] .14).
 violations (and moving to next
 largest safety event group,
 with 11 total inspections).
                                  Percentile: 75.0%.  Percentile: 67.0%.
                                  ([uarr] 22%)......  ([darr] .4%).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    FMCSA's analysis showed that this approach would reduce the number 
of unexpected jumps in a carrier's percentiles. In addition, the 
proportionate percentile method would more closely align a carrier's 
percentile ranking to changes in its safety performance, ensure stable 
monthly results for carriers, and provide customized results that are 
specific to the carrier's exact number of inspections or crashes.

Improved Intervention Thresholds

    FMCSA prioritizes carriers for safety interventions when their SMS 
percentiles reach or exceed pre-established levels called Intervention 
Thresholds. Because higher percentiles represent worse safety 
performance, a lower Intervention Threshold in a BASIC represents a 
more stringent safety criterion. FMCSA's ET found that the Unsafe 
Driving, Crash Indicator, and HOS Compliance BASICs have the strongest 
correlation to crash risk. Therefore, those BASICs have lower 
Intervention Thresholds than the other BASICs, at 65 percent for 
property carriers, 60 percent for HM carriers, and 50 percent for 
passenger carriers. The Intervention Thresholds for the Vehicle 
Maintenance, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, and Driver Fitness BASICs 
currently are set at 80 percent for property carriers, 75 percent for 
HM carriers, and 65 percent for passenger carriers, and the HM 
Compliance Intervention Thresholds are set at 80 percent for all 
carriers.
    FMCSA examined whether adjusting the Intervention Thresholds for 
the Driver Fitness, HM Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, and Vehicle 
Maintenance: Driver Observed safety categories could improve the 
Agency's focus on carriers with the highest crash risk. FMCSA's updated 
ET continues to show that the Driver Fitness and HM Compliance safety 
categories have the lowest correlation to crash risk. FMCSA believes 
raising the Intervention Thresholds in those safety categories, as 
shown in the table below, would allow the Agency to focus on 
populations with a greater safety risk.
    FMCSA also considered lowering the Intervention Thresholds in the 
Vehicle Maintenance and Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed safety 
categories. However, because the Agency is now proposing to split 
Vehicle Maintenance into two safety categories, FMCSA determined that 
more carriers would be prioritized for vehicle maintenance issues by 
applying the current Intervention Thresholds to the new Vehicle 
Maintenance and Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed safety categories 
than are prioritized in the current Vehicle Maintenance BASIC. FMCSA, 
therefore, does not propose to change the Intervention Thresholds for 
the Vehicle Maintenance safety categories, as shown in the table below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                  Current intervention thresholds                Proposed intervention thresholds
                                                         -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        Category                             Passenger                                       Passenger
                                                              carrier           HM            General         carrier           HM            General
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vehicle Maintenance.....................................              65              75              80              65              75              80
Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed....................             N/A             N/A             N/A              65              75              80
HM Compliance...........................................              80              80              80              90              90              90
Driver Fitness..........................................              65              75              80              75              85              90
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Focusing on Recent Violations

    SMS currently assigns percentiles in the HOS Compliance, Vehicle 
Maintenance, and Driver Fitness BASICs if the last inspection in the 
past two years resulted in a violation. Under this standard, a carrier 
may be prioritized for intervention even if the carrier had no recent 
violation. FMCSA proposes to sharpen the focus on carriers with more 
recent violations by assigning percentiles only to carriers that had at 
least one violation in the safety category in the past 12 months. This 
change means that if all a carrier's violations in a particular safety 
category are 12 months or older, the carrier will not be assigned a 
percentile in that category.
    FMCSA's evaluation showed that this change would result in 1,081 
carriers no longer having a safety category at or above the 
Intervention Threshold and that those carriers had a crash rate that 
was 13 percent lower than the national average. Removing carriers with 
no recent violation in those safety categories would allow the Agency 
to focus its resources on carriers that pose a greater safety risk.

Updated Utilization Factor

    The Utilization Factor in SMS helps to account for a carrier's 
exposure in the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs. Carriers 
with higher-than-average exposure to safety events, as measured by VMT 
per PUs, receive an adjustment in those BASICs. The Utilization Factor 
currently covers carriers that drive up to 200,000 VMT per PU per year. 
FMCSA's analysis found that more carriers are reporting higher VMT now 
than when the Utilization Factor was developed in 2009, and the 314 
carriers with 200,000 to 250,000 VMT per PU were involved in about 
three times as many inspections per PU than the national average. This 
result indicates that these carriers exhibit much higher exposure to 
inspections than most carriers. FMCSA

[[Page 9960]]

proposes to extend the Utilization Factor to carriers that drive up to 
250,000 VMT per PU in the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator safety 
categories to more accurately account for carriers with increased 
exposure.

Other Changes Considered and Not Proposed

    FMCSA analyzed other potential changes to SMS and determined that 
they would not improve safety, as described below.

Geographic Variation

    A consistent criticism of SMS has been that differences among State 
enforcement agencies in commercial motor vehicle (CMV) inspection and 
violation rates may lead to unfair SMS results for carriers that 
operate primarily in States with higher-than-average enforcement rates. 
During the IRT model design, FMCSA explored a statistical model to 
better account for enforcement variation among States. That model is 
detailed in the report titled ``Development and Evaluation of an Item 
Response Theory (IRT) Model for Motor Carrier Prioritization,'' which 
is available in the docket for this notice.
    FMCSA determined that incorporating a model to account for 
geographic variation would not improve the Agency's ability to identify 
high risk carriers and would run contrary to the goals of the Motor 
Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP), the Agency's grant program 
to support State and local efforts to reduce crashes involving CMVs. 
States face varying challenges to reducing crashes due to different 
road types, congestion, topography, and weather conditions, among other 
factors. Through MCSAP, FMCSA encourages States to tailor their crash 
reduction strategies by addressing local conditions and challenges. 
Applying a model that de-emphasizes enforcement in certain States would 
disincentivize FMCSA's MCSAP partners from undertaking enforcement 
initiatives that are intended to address particular safety issues in 
their States. FMCSA believes that it should encourage all States to 
continually raise the bar for safety rather than discounting the safety 
efforts of certain States.

Crash Indicator

    The Crash Indicator BASIC applies severity weights to reportable 
crashes and places more weight on crashes involving an injury or 
fatality and crashes involving the release of HM than on tow-away 
crashes. FMCSA analyzed whether removing severity weights to simplify 
the calculation would improve this BASIC. Because removing the severity 
weights from the Crash Indicator BASIC has a minimal impact on the 
group of carriers identified for intervention, FMCSA does not propose 
to make this change.
    FMCSA also studied the impact of raising the minimum number of 
crashes required to assign a percentile in the Crash Indicator BASIC 
from two to three. FMCSA's ET results, however, showed that carriers 
with exactly two crashes have a future crash rate that is more than 
twice the national average future crash rate. Approximately two-thirds 
of those carriers were not prioritized in another BASIC, meaning they 
would not receive any safety interventions from FMCSA if the data 
sufficiency standard in the Crash Indicator BASIC were increased from 
two to three crashes. FMCSA has concluded that raising the minimum 
number of crashes from two to three in the Crash Indicator BASIC would 
not improve safety. Crashes that are reviewed through FMCSA's Crash 
Preventability Determination Program and found to be Not Preventable 
will continue to be excluded from the prioritization methodology.

Preview

    With the February 2023 SMS update, the Agency provided a preview 
opportunity of the system before implementation, as it has historically 
done with SMS implementation and enhancements, to allow motor carriers, 
law enforcement, and other interested stakeholders to see the impacts 
of these proposed changes on measures, percentiles, and alerts. Motor 
carriers can log in to the preview at https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview/ or through the CSA website or the FMCSA Portal 
to see how the proposed methodology may impact their prioritization 
results. The public can view the new methodology using an example 
carrier. To support the preview, FMCSA will hold a series of question 
and answer (Q&A) sessions for the industry and the public, where 
participants will be able to ask questions about the proposed changes 
and receive real-time responses. All sessions will have closed 
captioning. The dates and times for these sessions will be announced on 
the Agency's website. Before the Q&A sessions, participants have the 
opportunity to view the preview website and additional resources at 
https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/prioritizationpreview/_ where they can learn 
more about the proposed changes and review their results under the 
proposed methodology. FMCSA encourages all stakeholders to participate 
in these Q&A sessions.
    FMCSA requests comments on the above proposed enhancements, as well 
as the changes that were considered but are not proposed. In addition, 
input is requested on other changes that should be considered. 
Submitters should provide data to support their recommendations.

Robin Hutcheson,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2023-02947 Filed 2-14-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-EX-P