60-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Driver Commuting Practices Survey |
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G. Kelly Regal
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
27 November 2017
[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 226 (Monday, November 27, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56102-56103]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-25526]
[[Page 56102]]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
[Docket No. FMCSA-2017-0313]
60-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Driver
Commuting Practices Survey
AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: FMCSA is seeking approval from the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In
accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, FMCSA is requesting
comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of
information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of
public comment.
FMCSA proposes a survey to inquire about driver commuting practices
to fulfill Section 5515 of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation
Act, 2015 (FAST Act). Section 5515 of the FAST Act requires FMCSA to
conduct a study on the safety effects of motor carrier operator
commutes exceeding 150 minutes. The administrator is then required to
submit a report to Congress containing the findings of the study.
The survey proposed within this information collection request is
seeking to gather information on the prevalence of excessive (greater
than 150 minutes) driver commuting in the commercial motor vehicle
(CMV) industry, including the number and percentage of drivers who
commute; the distances traveled, time zones crossed, time spent
commuting, and methods of transportation used; research on the impact
of excessive commuting on safety and CMV driver fatigue; and the
commuting practices of CMV drivers and policies of motor carriers.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 26, 2018.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments bearing the Federal Docket
Management System (FDMS) Docket ID FMCSA-2017-0313 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 Ave. SE., West Building, Ground Floor,
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., West
Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590 between 9
a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
Instructions: All submissions must include the Agency name and the
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 Web site. 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: Nicole Michel, Research Division,
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue
SE., Washington, DC 20590-0001, by email at nicole.michel@dot.gov, or
by telephone at (202) 366-4354. If you have questions on viewing or
submitting material to the docket, contact Docket Services, telephone
(202) 366-9826.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title: Impact of Driver Commuting on Safety
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 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 request
(ICR).
Frequency of Response: This survey requires a one-time response per
CMV operator, with an estimated total of 500 respondents (250 each of
freight drivers and passenger bus drivers).
Estimated Total Annual Burden: The estimated total annual burden is
166.7 hours, or $3,945.79 (based on an average labor cost of $23.67 per
hour for each responding driver).
I. 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 the meet the
specified congressional requirements set forth in the FAST Act.
Additionally, during the 114th Congress (2015-2016), legislation
entitled the Truck Safety Act was introduced. This legislation 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.
[[Page 56103]]
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 commercial motor vehicle
(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 learn more
about 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.
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:
1. FMCSA will provide a random sample of 12,000 drivers based on
recent Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) data,
augmented with the drivers' last known mailing address, obtained by
cross-referencing Commercial Driver's License Information System
(CDLIS) data with the licensing States' 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. 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. Paperwork Reduction Act
The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (the PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520)
prohibits agencies from conducting information collection (IC)
activities until they analyze the need for the collection of
information and how the collected data will be managed. Agencies must
also analyze whether technology could be used to reduce the burden
imposed on those providing the data. The Agency must estimate the time
burden required to respond to the IC requirements, such as the time
required to complete a particular form. The Agency submits its IC
analysis and burden estimate to OMB as a formal ICR; the Agency cannot
conduct the information collection until OMB approves the ICR.
V. Request for Public Comments
FMCSA asks for comment on the IC requirements of this study.
Comments can be submitted to the docket as outlined under ADDRESSES at
the beginning of this notice. 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.
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: November
17, 2017.
G. Kelly Regal,
Associate Administrator, Office of Research and Information Technology.
[FR Doc. 2017-25526 Filed 11-24-17; 8:45 am]
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