Proposed Enhancements to the Motor Carrier Safety Measurement System (SMS) Public Web Site |
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Anne S. Ferro
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
November 5, 2013
[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 214 (Tuesday, November 5, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66420-66422]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-26543]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
[Docket No FMCSA-2013-0392]
Proposed Enhancements to the Motor Carrier Safety Measurement
System (SMS) Public Web Site
AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice; request for public comment.
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SUMMARY: FMCSA provides notice and seeks comments on proposed
enhancements to the display of information on the Agency's Safety
Measurement System (SMS) public Web site. FMCSA first announced the
implementation of the SMS in April 2010 and announced further
improvements to the SMS in March 2012 and August 2012. Consistent with
its prior announcements, the Agency proposes changes to the design of
the SMS public Web site that are the direct result of feedback from
stakeholders regarding the information displayed. However, the Agency
is not proposing changes to the SMS methodology at this time.
On November 4, 2013, FMCSA began a preview of the proposed Web site
enhancements at https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMSPreview/. Motor carriers
are able to log in with their Portal account to view their own data in
the redesigned format. The general public will be also able to access
simulated motor carrier data to view the improved Web site design.
During the preview period, FMCSA will hold several webinars to provide
detailed information about the proposed SMS display changes.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 6, 2014.
Educational webinars:
1. Monday, November 18, 2013, 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. eastern time.
2. Thursday, November 21, 2013, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. eastern time.
3. Friday, November 22, 2013, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. eastern time.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Federal Docket
Management System Number FMCSA-2013-0392 by any of the following
methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the
online instructions for submitting comments.
Fax: 1-202-493-2251.
Mail: Docket Management Facility, (M-30), U.S. Department of
Transportation (DOT), 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., West Building, Ground
Floor, Room 12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery: Same as mail address above, between 9 a.m. and 5
p.m., e.t, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The
telephone number is 202-366-9329.
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
that FMCSA can contact you if there are questions regarding your
submission.
To submit your comment online, go to http://www.regulations.gov and
in the
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search box insert the docket number ``FMCSA-2013-0392'' and click the
search button. When the new screen appears, click on the blue ``Comment
Now!'' button on the right hand side of the page. On the new page,
enter information required including the specific section of this
document to which each comment applies, and provide a reason for each
suggestion or recommendation. If you submit your comments by mail or
hand delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than
8[frac12] 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.
We will consider all comments and material received during the
comment period and may change the proposed enhancements based on your
comments. FMCSA may issue final enhancements at any time after the
close of the comment period.
Viewing Comments and Documents
To view comments, as well as any documents mentioned in this
preamble, To submit your comment online, go to http://www.regulations.gov and in the search box insert the docket number
``FMCSA-2013-0392'' and click ``Search.'' Next, click ``Open Docket
Folder'' and you will find all documents and comments related to the
proposed rulemaking.
Note that all comments received, including any personal information
provided, will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov.
Please see the ``Privacy Act'' heading below.
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or
comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov at any time or to
Room W12-140 on the ground floor of the DOT Headquarters Building at
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5
p.m., e.t., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
Privacy Act: Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all
comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual
submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf
of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's
Privacy Act System of Records Notice for the DOT Federal Docket
Management System published in the Federal Register on January 17, 2008
[73 FR 3316].
Public Participation: The http://www.regulations.gov Web site is
generally available 24 hours each day, 365 days each year. You can get
electronic submission and retrieval help and guidelines under the
``help'' section of the http://www.regulations.gov Web site. Comments
received after the comment closing date will be included in the docket,
and will be considered to the extent practicable.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Courtney Stevenson, Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration, Compliance Division, 1200 New Jersey
Avenue SE., Washington, DC 20590, Telephone 202-366-5241, E-Mail:
courtney.stevenson@dot.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
The SMS
On April 9, 2010, FMCSA announced the implementation of the SMS in
the Federal Register (75 FR 18256) (Docket No. FMCSA-2004-18898). The
Agency announced it would use the SMS to identify high-risk motor
carriers for on-site investigations consistent with Section 4138 of the
Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act: A
Legacy for Users, Public Law 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144, 1745 (Aug. 10,
2005) (set out as a note to 49 U.S.C. 31144). The SMS has been
operational since December 2010. The SMS is also used to identify and
prioritize motor carriers for other interventions, including automated
warning letters, and serves as a principal factor in roadside
inspection selection software designed to recommend motor carriers with
known performance and compliance problems for inspections.
Effectiveness testing of the SMS has shown that motor carriers that are
categorized as high-risk by the SMS have future crash rates more than
double that of all active motor carriers.
Just as the Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System
(SafeStat) previously provided the public with access to SafeStat data
online, the SMS provides the motor carrier industry and other safety
stakeholders with more comprehensive, informative and regularly updated
safety performance data. As FMCSA explained in its April 9, 2010
Federal Register notice, the SMS provides motor carriers and other
safety stakeholders with regularly updated safety performance
assessments through the public Web site at http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS.
From the start of CSA, FMCSA expected to modify SMS as new data and
additional analyses became available. As stated in its March 27, 2012
Federal Register notice (77 FR 18298) (Docket No. FMCSA-2012-0074),
FMCSA plans to apply a systematic approach to making improvements to
SMS, prioritizing and releasing packages of improvements as needed.
Last year, FMCSA made 11 improvements to SMS to better identify high-
risk and non-compliant motor carriers for interventions. Those SMS
enhancements were implemented in December 2012 and included a new
Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance Behavior Analysis and Safety
Improvement Category (BASIC). A complete description of those
enhancements, including the rationale behind them, was published in the
Federal Register on August 28, 2012 (77 FR 52110) (Docket No. FMCSA-
2004-18898). The enhancements are also outlined in the SMS Changes
Foundational Document on the Agency's Web site at http://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/Documents/SMS_FoundationalDoc_Final.pdf. The
current proposed enhancements to the display of information on the SMS
are an extension of the Agency's effort to provide more comprehensive,
informative, and regularly updated safety and compliance performance
data through a systematic approach, as announced in the April 9, 2010
and March 27, 2012 Federal Register notices.
The August 28, 2012, Federal Register notice announced that the
Agency would study and refine the HM Compliance BASIC before making it
a publicly available BASIC in December 2013. The Agency continues to
examine the HM Compliance BASIC but does not plan to make it publicly
available with these proposed enhancements to the SMS public Web site.
The current effort is focused primarily on the display of the data that
is currently available in the SMS.
Enhancing the Public Display of SMS Information
In Fiscal Year 2012, the SMS public Web site hosted nearly 48
million user sessions, up from over 30 million user sessions in Fiscal
Year 2011 and 4 million user sessions under the prior public SafeStat
system in 2010. Many more users now access the SMS; this presents FMCSA
with opportunities to ensure that the users understand the information
provided.
FMCSA received feedback on SMS's public display from a variety of
stakeholders including the Agency's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory
Committee (MCSAC). The MCSAC was asked to appoint a subcommittee to
help identify ways in which FMCSA could leverage the SMS Web site to
best promote safety; suggestions as to how FMCSA could more clearly
convey the intent of the SMS as FMCSA's workload prioritization tool;
aspects that work
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well with respect to the current SMS Web site's design and operation;
and what changes would make the information on the SMS more easily
understood and accessible to a variety of safety stakeholders.
List of Proposed Enhancements to the SMS Display
The proposed Web site enhancements seek to accomplish three key
objectives:
1. Provide easier, more intuitive navigation and user-friendly
features and descriptions to clarify the SMS's role as FMCSA's
prioritization tool for interventions;
2. Consolidate FMCSA safety information so users do not have to go
to multiple sites; and
3. Provide improved access to detailed information and new
performance monitoring tools.
The proposed Web site enhancements are summarized below:
Displaying a summary BASIC status to better clarify if a
motor carrier's performance in the individual BASICs causes it to be
prioritized for an intervention. Detailed data such as the motor
carrier's percentile ranking in each BASIC has been moved to the
individual drill down pages for each BASIC.
A new ``Take a Tour'' feature to highlight enhancements to
the SMS display and show visitors how to locate and use the site.
Allowing the Web site user to download the data for all of
the carriers in the same safety event group used to rank a carrier's
BASIC percentile. The SMS determines a BASIC percentile for each motor
carrier within a BASIC based on how the individual carrier's BASIC
measure ranks relative to other carriers with a similar number of
safety events (i.e., inspections, violations, or crashes).
Highlighting a motor carrier's individual performance
measure in each BASIC to more clearly identify its performance trends
over time. The measure is based on the results of the carrier's
roadside inspections or crashes, and is not relative to other carriers
in its safety event group.
Reordering the display of the BASICs based on their
association to crash rates, with the BASICs with the strongest
associations at the left.
Displaying any motor carrier safety rating from a
compliance review issued in accordance with 49 CFR part 385.
Previously, users had to go to FMCSA's Safety and Fitness Electronic
Records System (SAFER) Web site.
Displaying current insurance and authority status.
Previously, users had to access FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance Online
Web site.
Providing a motor carrier's enforcement case history,
including the date the case was closed, the applicable violations, and
the associated fines.
Enhancing the display of safety performance over time
through a variety of displays and graphs users can customize.
Displaying the total number of inspections as well as a
breakdown of the number of inspections with violations used in the SMS
in each carrier's detail.
Clarifying terminology in the SMS, such as the definitions
of the terms ``0%'' and ``<3 inspections with violations,'' in a new
glossary called ``SMS Display Key Terms.''
On November 4, 2013, FMCSA began a preview of the proposed Web site
enhancements at https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMSPreview/. Motor carriers
are able to log in with their Portal account or PINs to view their own
data in the proposed re-designed format. The general public will be
able to access simulated carrier data in order to view the proposed
enhancements. During the preview period, FMCSA will hold several public
webinars to provide stakeholders with detailed information about the
SMS display.
The Agency is not proposing changes to the SMS methodology at this
time.
Public Webinars
FMCSA plans to host several educational webinars for the public
addressing the proposed enhancements to the SMS public Web site. These
webinars will take place in November 2013. The scheduled dates and
times are below.
1. Monday, November 18, 2013, 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. eastern time.
2. Thursday, November 21, 2013, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. eastern time.
3. Friday, November 22, 2013, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. eastern time.
All the webinars will have closed captioning available, and all
stakeholders are encouraged to participate. Interested parties can
register for the webinars through the FMCSA's National Training Center
at https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/ntc/webinarinfo/CSA_Improvements_Webinar-FMCSA.pdf.
Request for Comments
FMCSA requests comments on the above improvements to the SMS public
Web site. Commenters are requested to provide supporting data wherever
appropriate.
Issued On: October 31, 2013.
Anne S. Ferro,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2013-26543 Filed 11-1-13; 11:15 am]
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