Agency Information Collection Activities; New Information Collection: Crash Risk by Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Schedules

Kelly Regal
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
25 October 2018

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 207 (Thursday, October 25, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 53945-53947]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-23334]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

[Docket No. FMCSA-2018-0279]


Agency Information Collection Activities; New Information 
Collection: Crash Risk by Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Schedules

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, the 
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announces its plan 
to submit the Information Collection Request (ICR) described below to 
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its review and approval 
and invites public comment. This ICR is associated with FMCSA's study 
to investigate how commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers' schedules 
impact overall driver performance and safety. FMCSA needs these data to 
answer important research questions related to driver schedules and how 
these affect overall driver performance and fatigue.

DATES: We must receive your comments on or before December 24, 2018.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Federal Docket 
Management System (FDMS) Docket Number FMCSA-2018-0279 using 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 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: U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, 
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. e.t., 
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
    Instructions: All submissions must include the Agency name and 
docket number. For detailed instructions on submitting comments, see 
the Public Participation heading below. Note that all comments received 
will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including 
any personal information provided. 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, and follow the 
online instructions for accessing the dockets, or go to the street 
address listed above.
    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.
    Public Participation: The Federal eRulemaking Portal is available 
24 hours each day, 365 days each year. You can obtain electronic 
submission and retrieval help and guidelines under the ``help'' section 
of the Federal eRulemaking Portal website. If you want us to notify you 
that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, 
stamped envelope or postcard, or print the acknowledgement page that 
appears after submitting comments online. 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: Theresa Hallquist, Research Division, 
Department of Transportation, Federal Motor Carrier Safety 
Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. 
Telephone: 202-366-1064; email theresa.hallquist@dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background

    The preamble of FMCSA's December 27, 2011, Hours-of-Service (HOS) 
of Drivers Final Rule states, ``FMCSA is committed to conducting a

[[Page 53946]]

comprehensive analysis of the relative crash risk by driving hour and 
the impact of the changes in the HOS provisions in today's final rule. 
The Agency plans to match data collected from driver logs with crash 
information to determine the level of crash risk by hours of driving. 
The Agency also plans to estimate, for similarly situated drivers, the 
difference in crash risk after restarts that include two nights and 
those that do not. FMCSA will work with the OMB on the methodologies of 
these new statistical data collections'' 76 FR 81134, 81135-81136.
    Further, a 2015 report by the National Academies of Sciences, 
Engineering, and Medicine, ``Research Needs on CMV Driver Fatigue, 
Long-Term Health and Highway Safety,'' recommended that: ``FMCSA should 
incentivize those who capture driver performance data (e.g., large 
fleets, independent trucking associations, companies that collect 
telematics data, insurance companies, researchers) to increase the 
availability of those data relevant to research issues of operators' 
fatigue, hours of service, and highway safety. Any such efforts should 
ensure that data confidentiality is maintained, perhaps through 
restricted access arrangements or use of statistical techniques for 
disclosure protection. Clearly, such carrier-collected data could offer 
a rich opportunity for analysis of various questions of interest 
concerning HOS regulations, fatigue, and crash frequency. If data from 
a number of large carriers across the commercial trucking industry 
could be collected, organized in a database, and made available to 
researchers, these data could represent an important segment of the 
trucking industry'' (pg. 188-189).
    FMCSA needs additional data to answer important questions related 
to driver schedules and how these factors impact overall driver 
performance and fatigue. This effort will continue data collection 
previously initiated in the first phase of the project, and collect 
additional information to improve FMCSA's decision-making regarding 
various aspects of the HOS provisions, how HOS provisions are being 
used, and the impact of driver schedules on crash risk. The purpose of 
the first phase of this project was to pilot test methodologies to 
collect HOS and crash data from nine carriers. The current effort, 
titled ``Crash Risk by Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Schedules'', 
will expand the data collection effort to 44 carriers (which accounts 
for potential carrier attrition) and use these data to analyze how HOS 
provisions are being used and the impact of driver schedules on crash 
risk (i.e., determine crash risk ratios for various aspects of the HOS 
provisions). In Phase I, the research team primarily targeted CMV 
carriers with more than 1,000 power units. Drivers at the nine 
participating carriers were involved in a total of 6,318 crashes, 
including 3,035 preventable, 585 FMCSA-reportable, 195 injuries, and 14 
fatal crashes. The electronic logging device (ELD) data from the nine 
carriers contained a total of 60,933,691 duty entries (i.e., changes in 
driver duty status) and 4,226,737 total days with log entries (from 
36,369 different drivers) over six months (with one carrier submitting 
data for 12 month). Of the duty entries, there were 25,047,200 driving 
entries, 2,243,276 sleeper berth entries, 21,668,911 on-duty (not 
driving) entries, and 9,531,505 off-duty entries. To obtain the 
statistical power needed to answer the below research questions, the 
Phase I data set will be combined with the new data collected in Phase 
II.
    The objective of the study is to collect HOS and crash data to 
analyze how HOS provisions are being used and the effect of driver 
schedules on crash risk (i.e., determine crash risk ratios for various 
aspects of HOS provisions). Specifically, the data collected will be 
able to address the following research questions: (i) What is the 
relative crash risk by hour of driving (e.g., the number of total 
crashes by hour/the number of drivers by hour of driving); (ii) what is 
the relative crash risk by hour of driving per week (e.g., the number 
of crashes by hour of driving/the number of drivers by hour of driving 
per week); (iii) what is the relative crash risk of driving breaks 
(e.g., comparison of crash rates for drivers who take no breaks 
compared to drivers who take one and two 30-minute breaks in one day); 
(iv) what is the relative crash risk as a function of recovery periods 
that contain one period between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. compared to two 
periods between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. and as a function of weekly working 
hours before and after a 34-hour restart (i.e., compare the relative 
crash risk of schedules with more opportunities for restorative sleep 
during the natural circadian low); and (v) how each of the HOS 
provisions is being used?
    FMCSA has determined that the proposed data collection schedule is 
necessary to complete the study; currently, there is limited existing 
data that can be used for this project. The Phase I data set only 
included nine carriers with no vehicle or Motor Carrier Management 
Information System (MCMIS) data. Although the Phase I data set is 
valuable, it is insufficient to answer the research questions required 
in this project. Data will be collected electronically from each 
participating carrier every 6 months for 3 years. Less frequent data 
collection of information would result in lost data as most carriers 
only retain the most recent 6 months of ELD data (as required by 
FMCSA). Thus, there would be gaps in driver duty status data that would 
limit the data analyses.
    FMCSA proposes that the data collected in the study, after being 
de-identified, be made available to the public (using a legend and 
anonymous reference to the carriers and drivers in the data set) via 
FMCSA's Data Repository. Confidentiality protections will be carefully 
utilized, as further discussed in section 10 of the supporting 
statement associated with this information collection. FMCSA seeks 
comment on this proposal.
    Title: Crash Risk by Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Schedules.
    OMB Control Number: 2126-NEW.
    Type of Request: New information collection.
    Respondents: Commercial motor vehicle carriers with 100 or more 
power units.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: At least 44 commercial motor 
vehicle carriers. Recruitment will focus on 40 commercial motor vehicle 
carriers and anticipate a 10 percent attrition rate over the three 
years. Thus, a total of 44 commercial motor vehicle carriers over the 
three years.
    Estimated Time per Response: The carriers that participate in the 
study are expected to see a burden up to 58 hours over 3 years (if they 
participate for the full three years).
     Review of study material and grant permission (1 response 
x 2 hours/response or 2 hours).
     Compile existing datasets (7 responses x 6 hours/response 
or 42 hours).
     Anonymize existing dataset (7 responses x 1 hour/response 
or 7 hours).
     Transfer existing datasets (7 responses x 1 hour/response 
or 7 hours)
    Expiration Date: Three years after approval.
    Frequency of Response: Data will be collected every 6 months for 3 
years.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: The estimated total annual burden is 
776 hours across the 44 carriers. It is estimated that one national-
level manager from each of the 44 participating carriers will bear the 
burden of participating in the study. Each carrier already maintains 
each of the requested data sets; carriers will not be required to 
collect new data or maintain new data sets. Instead, the participating 
carrier burden is associated with reviewing study materials; granting 
permission to

[[Page 53947]]

participate; and compiling, anonymizing, and transferring the carrier-
owned, existing crash, ELD, driver, and vehicle data sets a total of 
seven times (i.e., initial data collection plus every 6 months for 3 
years). Reviewing the study materials and granting permission to 
participate in the study is estimated to take each carrier 2 hours (one 
time response; 44 total responses). Carriers are estimated to spend 
approximately 6 hours compiling the existing data sets (per response; 7 
total responses), 1 hour anonymizing the existing data sets (per 
response; 7 total responses), and 1 hour transferring the existing data 
sets to the research team (per response; 7 total responses); however, 
there are only 40 responses for these tasks as carriers that withdraw 
from the study are replaced with new carriers (e.g., Carrier A 
withdraws after 4 responses and Carrier B replaces Carrier A for the 
remaining 3 responses).
    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 performance of FMCSA's functions; (2) 
the accuracy of the estimated burden; (3) ways for 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. The agency will summarize or include your 
comments in the request for OMB's clearance of this information 
collection.

    Issued under the authority of 49 CFR 1.87 on: October 17, 2018.
Kelly Regal,
Associate Administrator for Office of Research and Information 
Technology.
[FR Doc. 2018-23334 Filed 10-24-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4910-EX-P