Improving Motor Carrier Safety Measurement (2017) / Chapter Skim
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6 Data Availability and Quality
6 Data Availability and Quality
Pages 105-126
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From page 105... ...
and a form called the MCS-150, which carriers complete to register with the FMCSA. All of this information goes into the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS)
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From page 106... ...
It must be stressed that MCMIS is a database that draws on data supplied by the states, federal investigators, inspectors, and carriers to monitor motor carrier safety in the United States. MCMIS supports analysis of time, geography, and other trends and patterns involving large truck and bus crashes; roadside inspections disaggregated by motor carrier types; and violations.
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From page 107... ...
This means that the population of active carriers varies from one time period to the next, and therefore the current snapshot of data from MCMIS only pertains to the set of active motor carriers for this particular time period. Assessments of change over time almost necessarily involve somewhat different groups of carriers.
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From page 108... ...
are not classified as a "carrier" Remove blank rows in the file 19 1,640,194 Remove carriers without recent activity 760,859 879,335 Remove intrastate carriers 332,994 546,341 Carriers Included in SMS 546,341 All Inspections (MCMIS) 20,708,328 Include only inspections that occurred in the past 13,969,094 6,739,234 24 months Include only inspections that have a DOT number 541,298 6,197,936 listed Include only inspections matched to a carrier in 141,144 6,056,792 the final carrier file Inspections Included in SMS 6,056,792 All Violations (MCMIS)
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From page 109... ...
After intrastate nonhazardous materials carriers are removed, the remaining carriers for that particular data snapshot of MCMIS make up the set of active carriers to which SMS is applied. In addition, different data sufficiency standards have to be met before a carrier has an SMS score for a given BASIC, and the set of carriers that have sufficient data for one BASIC is not necessarily the same set of carriers that has sufficient data for another BASIC.
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From page 110... ...
times a utilization factor. VMT is the total number of miles traveled by all vehicles managed by a motor carrier, while the number of power units is the number of non-trailer vehicles managed by the carrier.
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From page 111... ...
While a majority of motor carriers do update their exposure information, a large number of carriers fail to do so. For two of the BASIC measures, Crash Indicator and Unsafe Driving, the denominator is a measure of exposure of a motor carrier.
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From page 112... ...
2.0 1.5 Density 1.0 0.5 0.0 0 1 2 3 4 5 Log base 10 (APU + 1) FIGURE 6-2 Logarithmic distribution of average power units.
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From page 113... ...
ing the infrequency of crashes, this means that MCMIS has no information on which to base an assessment of the safety performance for about 40 percent of active carriers. We point out that 51 percent of inspections conducted were clean, meaning that there were no violations recorded (which given the earlier mention of failure to report clean inspections, is likely an underestimate)
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From page 114... ...
754 .00 97 NOTE: Figure is based on November 27, 2013, to November 26, 2015, version of Motor Carrier Management Information System. Also, level IV inspections are not used in Safety Measurement System.
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From page 115... ...
. 14 No/defective lighting Vehicle 68,169 2.0 devices/reflective devices/ Maintenance projected 15 Operating a CMV without Vehicle 64,477 1.9 periodic inspection Maintenance 16 State/local laws speeding Unsafe Driving 62,146 1.8 6-10 miles per hour over the speed .
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From page 116... ...
4000000 Violations Given 2000000 0 Fatigued Fitness Hazmat Substances Unsafe Driving Vehicle Maintenance BASIC FIGURE 6-4 Frequency distribution of violations by Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories. NOTE: Figure based on November 28, 2013, to November 27, 2015, version of the Motor Carrier Management Information System.
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From page 117... ...
Unfortunately, because the current estimates of VMT are not considered to be of high quality, the Crash Indicator and the Unsafe Driving BASIC measures could be substantially flawed depending on the specific quality of VMT and of APU reported by individual carriers. A 10 percent error in the denominator would translate to a 10 percent error for the score, which in turn could have a large impact on a carrier's percentile rank.
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From page 118... ...
The MCMIS crash data element definitions and attributes have been incorporated into the MMUCC data element definitions related to CMVs so that the two are closely aligned. MMUCC is divided into sections corresponding to the data elements that describe the entire crash (date, time, location, environmental contributing circumstances, weather, etc.)
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From page 119... ...
The assessments also review each state's strategic plan for traffic records improvement, which is an opportunity for the state to report plans to update its PAR and crash database, potentially adopting additional MMUCC data element definitions in the process. Over time, more states are adopting more MMUCC data element definitions.
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From page 120... ...
In the absence of widespread adoption of MMUCC by states, the job of adding data elements from state PCRs and crash databases is complicated by the fact that each state has a unique set of data definitions. To bring the appropriate data into MCMIS would require translation between the state data definitions and those implemented in MMUCC for those extra data elements.
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From page 121... ...
(We note that the new approach to SMS described in Chapter 4 will automatically provide a mechanism for revising severity weights over time.) Better Data on Clean Inspections While it is not clear the degree to which the problem persists, there was evidence from the American Transportation Research Institute (2014)
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From page 122... ...
. Two specific data elements require immediate attention: carrier exposure and crash data.
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From page 123... ...
, light condition; 4. Carrier factors: Operation type, type of freight, fleet size, sched uling, logistics, driver turnover, fatigue management, safety cul ture, compensation level and method.
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From page 124... ...
In particular, since SMS is concerned with carrier behavior, the fact that MCMIS does not have information on scheduling, logistics, driver turnover, fatigue management policies, and compensation type and level suggests that if such information could be collected by FMCSA, it would benefit the functioning of SMS or the alternative proposed here. Since we believe a substantial fraction of crashes are due at least in part to carrier operations, and it is those that SMS is attempting to modify, it is clearly important to consider how to gain knowledge of those factors when evaluating SMS.
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From page 125... ...
This includes data on carrier characteristics -- including infor mation on driver turnover rate, type of cargo, method and level of compensation, and better information on exposure. This additional data collection will likely require additional funds for research and development of the data collection instrument, and greater col laboration between FMCSA and the states as to how to undertake this new data collection effort so that it is standardized across the states.
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