CSA 2010 INITIATIVE

I recently attended a conference and one of the major discussions was on the CSA 2010 Initiative fy the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Admisistraion (FMCSA). This Initiative was started in 2008 and added motor carriers in a few States as a testing grounds. A few more States were added earlier this year and more in the Fall of 2009 are being added. The full implementation Nationwide is scheduled to begin in July of 2010 with all States added before 2011.

This Initiative, even though not very well publicized, will revolutionize the Motor Carrier Industry and the way Safety Ratings are assigned. All carriers will be starting out in the hole, so to speak. The data used is for the preceding 24 months. So in July of 2010 the data used will start with August of 2008. Due to carriers being in the hole and not knowing it, alot of them will be getting blind sided with a Compliance Review. Today carriers can look at the Safersys.org website to see where they stand in relationship to receiving a Compliance Review. The data on the new Initiative will not be able to be reviewed until January of 2010, unless you are a carrier with your main office in one of the test States.

The methodology used will assign a value to all violations found on roadside inspections, not just Out of Service violations and will be a weighted average over the preceding 24 months. Safety Ratings will be subject to change every 30 days, when updated data is released. Shippers need to be educated on this as well, is your agreement conditioned on you the carrier maintaining a Satisfactory Safety Rating. You may not be able to, at least in the beginning, and it could change several times a year due to a bad hiring decision or a string of maintenance related issues. These are additional things to consider.

I encourage all carriers to start getting pro-active and start now reviewing your existing data to find out where you are and start developing a plan of action to counteract the effects that otherwise will be felt later next year. Take your existing violations for 24 months apply the methodology and see where you stand. A FMCSA representative stated that SEA values could increase by a factor of 20 in Vehicle and Driver categories. This will put alot of carriers in the "High Risk" category and subject to a Compliance Review.

Then once the data is available in January of 2010 a review needs to be conducted every 30 days, at the time the new data is released to re-evaluate your standing and make revisions to your action plan. This is a must for all carriers, if they want to survive in the new era of this Initiative.

Our company is putting together resources to perform these reviews and to assist carriers in putting together a action plan to help reduce the violations being received. If you need assistance, please get with us before it is too late.

More industry information can be found at:

http://www.csa2010.com/

http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/