Agency Information Collection Activities; Approval of a New Information Collection Request: Driver Commuting Practices Survey |
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G. Kelly Regal
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
24 May 2018
[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 101 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24149-24151]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-11129]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
[Docket No. FMCSA-2017-0313]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Approval of a New
Information Collection Request: Driver Commuting Practices Survey
AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, FMCSA
announces its plan to submit the Information Collection Request (ICR)
described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review
and approval.
FMCSA proposes a voluntary survey to inquire about driver commuting
practices to fulfill Section 5515 of the Fixing America's Surface
Transportation Act, 2015 (FAST Act), which requires FMCSA to conduct a
study on the safety effects of motor carrier operator commutes
exceeding 150 minutes. The FMCSA Administrator is then required to
submit a report to Congress containing the findings of the study. There
are no current or future planned regulations associated with this
survey,
[[Page 24150]]
nor does FMCSA plan to actively track driver commutes to obtain data.
The survey proposed within this ICR is entirely voluntary, and
would gather information on the prevalence of excessive (greater than
150 minutes) commuting of interstate commercial motor vehicle (CMV)
drivers, including the number and percentage of drivers who commute;
the distances traveled, time zones crossed, time spent commuting, and
methods of transportation used; the impact of excessive commuting on
safety and CMV driver fatigue; and the commuting practices of CMV
drivers and policies of motor carriers.
DATES: Please send your comments by June 25, 2018. OMB must receive
your comments by this date in order to act quickly on the ICR.
ADDRESSES: All comments should reference Federal Docket Management
System (FDMS) Docket Number FMCSA-2017-0313. Interested persons are
invited to submit written comments on the proposed information
collection to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office
of Management and Budget. Comments should be addressed to the attention
of the Desk Officer, Department of Transportation/Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration, and sent via electronic mail to
oira_submission@omb.eop.gov, or faxed to (202) 395-6974, or mailed to
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management
and Budget, Docket Library, Room 10102, 725 17th Street NW, Washington,
DC 20503.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Nicole Michel, Mathematical
Statistician, FMCSA's Office of Analysis, Research, and Technology's
Research Division, Department of Transportation, Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration, 6th Floor, West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue
SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001. Telephone: 202-366-4354; Email Address:
Nicole.michel@dot.gov. Office hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday
through Friday, except Federal Holidays.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title: Driver Commuting Practices Survey.
OMB Control Number: 2126-00XX.
Type of Request: New information collection.
Respondents: A random sample of licensed CMV operators, to include
both freight operators and those with a passenger bus endorsement.
Estimated Number of Respondents: 500 CMV drivers (250 each of
freight drivers and commercial passenger bus drivers).
Estimated Time per Response: The estimated average time for a
driver to complete the survey is 20 minutes.
Expiration Date: N/A. This is a new information collection.
Frequency of Response: This survey requires a one-time response per
CMV operator. The survey will be open for a minimum of four weeks to
collect responses.
Estimated Total Annual Burden: The estimated total annual burden is
166.7 hours.
Background
On December 4, 2015, the FAST Act was signed into law (Pub. L. 114-
94,129 Stat. 1312, 1557 (Dec. 4, 2015)). Section 5515 of the FAST Act
directs the FMCSA Administrator to ``conduct a study on the safety
effects of motor carrier operator commutes exceeding 150 minutes''
(subsection (a)). The Act further specifies that a report containing
the findings of this study should be submitted to Congress no later
than 18 months after the date of enactment of the Act (subsection (b)).
FMCSA must complete this information collection to meet the specified
congressional requirements set forth in the FAST Act.
Additionally, during the 114th Congress (2015-2016), legislation
titled ``The Truck Safety Act'' was introduced. This legislation, which
has not been enacted to date, provided greater context to inform study
of this area (S. 1739, 114th Cong. Sec. 7) by proposing the following:
SECTION. 7. STUDY ON COMMERCIAL MOTOR VEHICLE DRIVER COMMUTING
(a) Effects of Excessive Commuting.--The Administrator of the
FMCSA shall conduct a study of the effects of excessive commuting on
safety and commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue.
(b) Study.--In conducting the study, the Administrator shall
consider--
(1) the prevalence of excessive driver commuting in the
commercial motor vehicle industry, including the number and
percentage of drivers who commute;
(2) the distances traveled, time zones crossed, time spent
commuting, and methods of transportation used;
(3) research on the impact of excessive commuting on safety and
commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue;
(4) the commuting practices of commercial motor vehicle drivers
and policies of motor carriers;
(5) the FMCSA regulations, policies, and guidance regarding
excessive driver commuting; and
(6) any other matters the Administrator considers appropriate.
In the past two decades, as the number of workers has increased and
the distance to affordable housing has also increased in most
metropolitan areas, commuting times have increased in the United
States. According to the 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard,\1\ travel
delays due to traffic congestion caused drivers to waste more than 3
billion gallons of fuel and kept travelers stuck in their cars for
nearly 7 billion extra hours (42 hours per rush-hour commuter).
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\1\ Schrank, David; Eisele, Bill; Lomax, Tim; and Bak, Jim.
(2015.) 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard. Texas A&M Transportation
Institute and Inrix, Inc., available at: http://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-scorecard-2015.pdf.
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Long commuting times can adversely affect CMV drivers in multiple
ways, for example:
Compromising off-duty time. Long commuting times can
reduce a driver's available off-duty time for sleep and personal
activities. This can lead to excessive fatigue while on duty, creating
safety concerns for both the CMV driver and other drivers on the roads.
Impacting driver health. A recent study was conducted that
monitored 4,297 adults from 12 metropolitan Texas counties. In this
region, 90 percent of people commute to work. The study found that the
drivers who have long commuting times were more likely to have poor
cardiovascular health and be less physically fit.\2\ This study showed
that people who commute long distances to work weigh more, are less
physically active, and have higher blood pressure.
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\2\ Hoehner, Christine; Barlow, Carolyn; Allen, Peg; and
Schootman, Mario. (2012.) Commuting Distance, Cardiorespiratory
Fitness, and Metabolic Risk. American Journal of Preventive Medicine
42(6): 571-578.
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The objective of the survey proposed in this ICR is to study the
following CMV driver characteristics:
Work history;
Commuting time, transportation mode, and recording of that
time;
Driving schedules;
Rests and breaks;
Miles driven annually; and
Demographics.
Safety data obtained by the Motor Carrier Information Management
System (MCMIS) database will be used to determine whether there are any
noticeable safety impacts corresponding to commuting times.
II. Data Collection Plan
The information collection is a one-time, Web-based collection,
including surveys of current and past drivers of freight and passenger
vehicles. The survey will be entirely online. There will be no paper
survey. The general survey approach and design is as follows:
[[Page 24151]]
1. FMCSA will provide a random sample of 12,000 drivers obtained by
cross-referencing a random sample of records from the Commercial
Driver's License Information System (CDLIS) data with the licensing
States' Commercial Driver's License (CDL) driver histories. The samples
will be divided into one list for drivers who operate (or previously
operated) freight vehicles and a second list for those who drive (or
previously drove) passenger-carrying vehicles.
2. The sample of drivers obtained from CDLIS data will also be
queried in MCMIS for safety results of these drivers; this data will be
used to assess non-response bias and to compare safety records of
responding drivers with their survey responses on commuting times. To
the extent possible, MCMIS data may be used to try to verify whether
drivers with a passenger endorsement on their CDL are, in fact,
passenger bus drivers.
3. Using a mail-Web methodology, the driver commute survey will be
sent out by the research team, on behalf of FMCSA, to the 12,000
selected drivers identified in step 1. These drivers will be solicited
to complete an online survey, using a recruitment letter (with a $2
pre-incentive), a reminder postcard, and a second follow-up letter. The
letter will inform the drivers that they will receive a check for $10
upon completion of the survey, which is expected to average 20 minutes
to complete. Our initial expectation is that 4.17 percent of the 12,000
(500) will complete the survey on the Web. The burden analysis is based
on this figure of 500 responses.
III. Comments Received on the 60-Day Federal Register Notice of This
Proposed Information Collection Request
The Agency received 381 comments in response to this notice, of
which 18 were supportive of the study, 22 were deemed not relevant to
this information collection, 11 were neutral or provided information
regarding the proposed topic of driver commuting, 326 were negative
toward the study (one of these comments was a duplicate posting and two
of the comments were second submissions from one individual), and four
were suggestions for the study.
The 18 comments received in support of the information collection
request focused on the impacts commuting can have on commercial
drivers, and suggested it could be beneficial to look at whether a
commute should be included in a driver's hours-of-service and properly
accounted for. The majority of these comments came from individuals, as
well as the National Transportation Safety Board, the American Academy
of Sleep Medicine, and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers
Association. All parties acknowledged that longer commute times can
lead to excessive fatigue, particularly for professional drivers.
The 22 comments that were deemed to be not relevant to this
information collection addressed the Electronic Logging Device (ELD)
mandate or the 14-hour rule in the current Hours-of-Service
regulations, but did not mention or comment on driver commuting time or
safety impacts. All of these comments were received from individuals.
The 11 comments received that were simply informative in nature, or
neutral to the study, were submitted by individuals. The majority of
these comments gave insight into these drivers' commute times and how
they commute. One commenter noted that the survey was fine as long as
it was voluntary and not mandated; as stated earlier in this notice,
this will be a voluntary survey and each individual question on the
survey will be voluntary. All survey materials will reinforce this
information.
The 326 negative comments received were all from individuals
(mostly drivers) and not organizations. These comments expressed that
the survey is an invasion of privacy and that any attempt to regulate a
commute would be equivalent to the Government telling working citizens
how far they can live from work, which would be unconstitutional.
Additionally, several felt that it was unfairly targeting drivers and
if conducted should be expanded to the general public, as they also may
have longer commuting times.
While FMCSA appreciates these views, the agency's mission is
focused solely on safety of the CMV operations, and it has no authority
to regulate non-CMV commuters; therefore, it does not conduct surveys
of the general public unrelated to CMV safety. FMCSA is aware that the
National Institute of Health is currently working on surveys relating
to commuting times for other professions than commercial drivers.
None of these comments were actionable, as FMCSA has no plans, nor
legal authority, to regulate non-CMV commuting distances. The survey is
completely voluntary and is not intended to support a mandate or
regulate driver commutes, but will help the agency gain further
insights into commuting times experienced by commercial drivers.
Of the four comments that provided suggestions on the proposed
information collection, three suggested that the survey should be sent
to carriers and employers instead of individual drivers. FMCSA has
considered this suggestion, but believes that employers and carriers
would not necessarily know how long an individual employee is
commuting. Every driver has a unique circumstance with their commute,
and this information collection is aimed at better understanding the
dynamics of individual drivers' commutes.
Public Comments Invited: You are asked to comment on any aspect of
this information collection, including: (1) Whether the proposed
collection is necessary for the FMCSA to perform its functions; (2) the
accuracy of the estimated burden; (3) ways for the FMCSA to enhance the
quality, usefulness, and clarity of the collected information; and (4)
ways that the burden could be minimized without reducing the quality of
the collected information.
Issued under the authority delegated in 49 CFR 1.87 on May 16,
2018.
G. Kelly Regal,
Associate Administrator for Office of Research and Information
Technology.
[FR Doc. 2018-11129 Filed 5-23-18; 8:45 am]
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