FMCSA CSA Safety Measurement System Changes

Safety Measurement System (SMS) Methodology

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Safety Measurement System (SMS) quantifies the on-road safety performance and compliance history of motor carriers to prioritize enforcement resources, determine the safety and compliance problems that a motor carrier may exhibit, and track each motor carrier’s safety. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) designed the SMS expecting that changes would be made as new data, and additional analysis became available.

This release is the first in a series of expected improvements to SMS that will take place periodically. FMCSA is providing a preview period and opportunity to comment for enforcement personnel and motor carriers prior to the implementation of these SMS changes. This document updates the March 27, 2012, version previously posted by including a more in-depth explanation of the proposed changes. It also updates the analysis referenced the March 27, 2012, Federal Register notice by using more current data. Following the preview period and analysis of comments, FMCSA may make final refinements to the methodology before implementation and release of the revised SMS results.

The first package of proposed SMS enhancements included:

  1. Strengthening the Vehicle Maintenance Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) by incorporating cargo/load securement violations from today’s Cargo-Related BASIC.
  2. Changing the Cargo-Related BASIC to the Hazardous Materials (HM) BASIC to better identify HM-related safety and compliance problems.
  3. Better aligning the SMS with Intermodal Equipment Provider (IEP) regulations.
  4. Aligning violations that are included in the SMS with Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) inspection levels by eliminating vehicle violations derived from driver-only inspections and driver violations from vehicle-only inspections.
  5. More accurately identifying carriers that transport significant quantities of HM.
  6. More accurately identifying carriers involved in transporting passengers.
  7. Modifying the SMS display to:
    • Change current terminology, “inconclusive” and “insufficient data,” to fact-based descriptions.
    • Separate crashes with injuries from crashes with fatalities.

Learn more about the Safety Measurement System.

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