FMCSA Test-Drives Improvements on Safety Data Website

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is test-driving an improved version of its Safety Measurement System website.

The SMS site is where carriers and the public go to get the safety performance data the agency uses to determine which carriers pose a risk and need to be investigated. Last year the site hosted nearly 48 million user sessions, the agency said.

 The agency is proposing some improvements to the site that have been suggested by users of the system. The changes can be previewed online, and the agency plans to host several webinars to explain the changes.

The agency said its objective is to make the site easier and more intuitive to use, to consolidate information and to improve access to information and performance monitoring tools.

Among the changes, the site:

• Displays a carrier’s summary status in the Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories. Detailed data is available for each category.
• Offers a tour to explain the revisions.
• Lets the user download the data for all carriers in the same safety event group, such as inspections or crashes, used to rank the carrier’s BASIC percentile.
• Highlights a carrier’s performance in each BASIC to identify any trends.
• Includes a carrier’s safety rating from a compliance review, information that formerly had to taken from a different database.
• Shows a carrier’s current insurance and authority status.
• Shows a carrier’s enforcement case history.
• Offers a variety of customizable displays and graphs to portray safety performance over time.
• Displays the total number of inspections and a breakdown of the number of inspections with violations.

The agency said carriers can preview their own data in the proposed redesign, and the public has access to simulated data.

The explanatory webinars are scheduled for November 18, 21 and 22.

For more information, see Tuesday’s Federal Register.

Originally posted on Trucking Info