Hours of Service of Drivers: Application for Exemption; G4S Secure Solutions (USA), Inc. (G4S)

Larry W. Minor
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
21 April 2017

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 76 (Friday, April 21, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18820-18822]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-08092]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

[Docket No. FMCSA-2017-0120]


Hours of Service of Drivers: Application for Exemption; G4S 
Secure Solutions (USA), Inc. (G4S)

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

ACTION: Notice of application for exemption; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: FMCSA announces that G4S Secure Solutions (USA), Inc. (G4S) 
has requested an exemption from the electronic logging device (ELD) 
requirements in 49 CFR part 395 as applied to its drivers of customer/
government-owned vehicles used intermittently to perform passenger 
transportation. The G4S request is limited to operations involving 
customer/government-owned equipment. G4S states that this exemption, if 
granted, would have no adverse impact on the safety of their 
operations, as its drivers would continue to remain subject to the HOS 
regulations and would complete paper records of duty status (RODS), 
when applicable. FMCSA requests public comment on G4S's application for 
exemption.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before May 22, 2017.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Federal Docket 
Management System (FDMS) Number FMCSA-2017-0120 by any of the following 
methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov. See the 
Public Participation and Request for Comments section below for further 
information.
     Mail: Docket Management Facility, 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: West Building, Ground Floor, 
Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., 
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
     Fax: 1-202-493-2251.
     Each submission must include the Agency name and the 
docket number for this notice. Note that DOT posts all comments 
received without change to www.regulations.gov, including any personal 
information included in a comment. Please see the Privacy Act heading 
below.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments, go to www.regulations.gov at any time or visit Room W12-140 
on the ground level of the West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., 
Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., ET, Monday through Friday, 
except Federal holidays. The on-line FDMS is available 24 hours each 
day, 365 days each year.
    Privacy Act: In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits 
comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT 
posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information 
the commenter provides, to www.regulations.gov, as described in the 
system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at 
www.dot.gov/privacy.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information concerning this 
notice, contact Mr. Tom Yager, Chief, FMCSA Driver and Carrier 
Operations Division; Office of Carrier, Driver and Vehicle Safety 
Standards; Telephone: 614-942-6477. Email: MCPSD@dot.gov. If you have 
questions on viewing or submitting

[[Page 18821]]

material to the docket, contact Docket Services, telephone (202) 366-
9826.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Public Participation and Request for Comments

    FMCSA encourages you to participate by submitting comments and 
related materials.

Submitting Comments

    If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this 
notice (FMCSA-2017-0120), indicate the specific section of this 
document to which the comment applies, and provide a reason for 
suggestions or recommendations. 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 comments online, go to www.regulations.gov and put 
the docket number, ``FMCSA-2017-0120'' in the ``Keyword'' box, and 
click ``Search.'' When the new screen appears, click on ``Comment 
Now!'' button and type your comment into the text box in the following 
screen. Choose whether you are submitting your comment as an individual 
or on behalf of a third party and then submit. 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 grant or not grant this application 
based on your comments.

II. Legal Basis

    FMCSA has authority under 49 U.S.C. 31136(e) and 31315 to grant 
exemptions from certain parts of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety 
Regulations (FMCSRs). FMCSA must publish a notice of each exemption 
request in the Federal Register (49 CFR 381.315(a)). The Agency must 
provide the public an opportunity to inspect the information relevant 
to the application, including any safety analyses that have been 
conducted. The Agency must also provide an opportunity for public 
comment on the request.
    The Agency reviews safety analyses and public comments submitted, 
and determines whether granting the exemption would likely achieve a 
level of safety equivalent to, or greater than, the level that would be 
achieved by the current regulation (49 CFR 381.305). The decision of 
the Agency must be published in the Federal Register (49 CFR 
381.315(b)) with the reasons for denying or granting the application 
and, if granted, the name of the person or class of persons receiving 
the exemption, and the regulatory provision from which the exemption is 
granted. The notice must also specify the effective period and explain 
the terms and conditions of the exemption. The exemption may be renewed 
(49 CFR 381.300(b)).

III. Request for Exemption

    G4S states that it is an international security solutions group, 
with operations in more than 100 countries and more than 54,000 
employees in North America alone. G4S offers its customers a suite of 
products and services, including risk consulting and investigations, 
systems integration, security software and technology, and security 
professionals. A component of G4S's operations is detainee and prisoner 
transport. Government agencies across the country, including the U.S. 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state/county police 
departments, contract G4S to safely and securely transport prisoners, 
offenders, and illegal aliens. In order to perform these transportation 
services, G4S is registered with the FMCSA as a for-hire motor carrier. 
While the company maintains a relatively small fleet of vehicles, a 
significant portion of its transportation services are performed by G4S 
employees in customer/government-owned equipment (e.g., buses and 15-
passenger-vans).
    G4S is aware of the upcoming ELD mandate and fully supports the 
Agency's efforts to curb fatigued driving. Moreover, the company has 
already started the process of selecting and installing compliant ELDs 
in its own fleet of vehicles. G4S, however, believes an exemption is in 
order for instances when its drivers operate customer/government-owned 
equipment to perform passenger transportation services.
    In these instances, it is the customer, not G4S that owns and 
maintains the vehicles. For its part, G4S provides qualified drivers to 
operate the vehicles and is explicitly precluded, often by contract, 
from making any modifications to or installing any equipment in the 
vehicles. In numerous cases, G4S drivers operate different customer-
owned vehicles each and every trip--depending on which vehicles the 
customer makes available--making it that more impracticable to install 
any type of equipment in the vehicles. As the vehicles are different 
each trip, it is possible, and even probable, that any ELD equipment 
G4S might choose to employ for its own fleet of vehicles would not be 
compatible with the customer-owned vehicles, and the company's drivers 
would not be aware of that fact until it came time to operate the 
equipment on a given day.
    According to G4S, in some cases, these customer-owned vehicles may 
have been manufactured prior to the model year 2000--excluding them 
from the ELD mandate--but again, G4S drivers would not necessarily be 
privy to that fact until it came time to operate the vehicle. It is 
also possible that in some instances G4S's drivers may not operate the 
equipment beyond a 100 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting 
location and may, therefore, fall under the short-haul exemption, but 
that also is not always the case.
    In these ways, G4S claims that its operations are indistinguishable 
from driveaway-towaway operations, which, are excluded from the ELD 
mandate. In these instances, neither the carriers nor the drivers own 
the vehicles being driven, nor are they authorized to make any 
modifications to those vehicles. Similarly, in both cases, the vehicles 
at issue may only be operated by the carrier's drivers for single trip.
    The only distinction between G4S's operations and those of 
traditional driveaway-towaway companies is that the customer/
government-owned equipment operated by G4S's drivers is not the 
commodity being moved. Although this is a distinction that precludes 
G4S from taking advantage of the driveaway-towaway exemption, it is not 
one that would, from a safety perspective, warrant ELDs in G4S's case 
any more so than driveaway-towaway companies. In fact, the company 
perceives no adverse impact to safety if the FMCSA were to grant this 
exemption request, particularly in light of the existing driveaway-
towaway exemption. On the other hand, if the request was to be denied 
by FMCSA, G4S stands to potentially lose its customer contracts with 
several government agencies which, as explained, often contractually 
prohibit the company from installing any equipment in their vehicles.

IV. Method To Ensure an Equivalent or Greater Level of Safety

    For these reasons, G4S respectfully requests an exemption form the 
ELD mandate for the operation of customer/

[[Page 18822]]

government-owned equipment to provide intermittent passenger 
transportation. G4S states that the company believes that this 
exemption proposal achieves a level of safety that is equivalent to the 
ELD mandate that takes effect on December 18, 2017--because its drivers 
would still be subject to the hours-of-service (HOS) restrictions 
contained in 49 CFR part 395 and would continue to (when required) 
record their duty status on paper logbooks, just as driveaway-towaway 
drivers are authorized to do.
    A copy of G4S's application for exemption is available for review 
in the docket for this notice.

    Issued on: April 14, 2017.
Larry W. Minor,
 Associate Administrator for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2017-08092 Filed 4-20-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4910-EX-P