Senior Reporter
Federal Regulators Seeking Comment on Proposed 'Beyond Compliance' Program
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeking comment on a proposed program to recognize and reward motor carriers who exceed regulatory safety requirements.
The announcement, scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on April 20, would offer interstate motor carriers a sort of public recognition mechanism through the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program for voluntarily installing advanced safety equipment, enhancing driver fitness measures and implementing fleet safety-management tools, technologies and programs.
The agency’s Beyond Compliance program would allow carriers to enroll in the program when they deployed the measures before they are required by regulation.
Under the proposal, a new CSA Beyond Compliance Behavior Analysis Safety Improvement Category, or BASIC, would appear in a carrier’s CSA profile as a way of publicly acknowledging and distinguishing those companies from other companies.
The agency is seeking comment on the proposal for 60 days.
Although the agency first announced the possible development of the new program in April 2015, Congress made it a requirement in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act. The FAST ACT requires that the program be implemented within 18 months after its passage in December.
The FAST Act called on the agency to carry out the program by either incorporating a methodology into the CSA program or establishing a new BASIC.
Although the goal of the program is to somehow give a sort of extra CSA credit to carriers, it was not immediately clear how enrollment in the program might affect a carrier’s CSA scores.
The agency said developing and maintaining a separate BASIC can be completed within the 18-month time frame prescribed by the FAST Act, but that making modifications to its safety measurement system methodology would be more complicated and time consuming.
“In addition, a separate BASIC is easier and more cost-effective for the agency to implement and maintain," the announcement said. “This alternative allows FMCSA to only modify the SMS and does not need to tie to data in other systems such as the Motor Carrier Management Information System.”
To qualify for the program, a carrier would be required to not have a conditional or unsatisfactory safety rating, not have any BASICs over intervention thresholds, deploy a technology or program for its population of vehicles or drivers, and must have graduated from the new entrant monitoring period.
