What Has Changed for CSA?

12/16/2015 10 Considerations in Choosing a Freight Audit and Payment Provider


The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), was signed into law on Friday, December 4, 2015.  This five-year authorization for all federal surface transportation programs is the first long-term solution surface transportation bill since 2005, and includes major reforms to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Compliance, Safety, and Accountability (CSA) initiative.

As required by the FAST Act, FMCSA has quickly removed from public view the following information:

  • Analysis of violations
  • Crashes in which a determination is made that the motor carrier or commercial motor vehicle driver is not at fault
  • CSA Alerts
  • Relative percentile for each Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC)

While FMCSA is not prohibited from displaying all data, they have currently removed all information from public view while they make changes.  Data that may come back online soon includes:

  • Inspection and violation information data
  • Out of Service rates
  • “Absolute measures” (the data that previously underpinned the BASIC percentile rankings)

By law, the process that FMCSA must undertake to improve CSA before the initiative is brought back online is exhaustive.  It will likely take over two years for the Agency to complete.  It is unclear how the removal of CSA data and analysis from public view will impact the legal landscape of negligent selection lawsuits that continue to threaten your industry.  As more details come to light about how these changes affect the industry, TIA will work hard to keep all members informed.

It has always been the policy of TIA that the safety rating (satisfactory, unsatisfactory, conditional, or unrated) is the sole determination from the FMCSA on whether a motor carrier is safe to be hired.  We encourage our membership to continue using a rigorous carrier selection process, and recommend that all members take advantage of TIA’s Carrier Selection Framework.

If you have additional questions on this issue please feel free to contact TIA Government Affairs at advocacy@tianet.org or 703-299-5700.