The Carrier Safety Measurement System (CSMS) Effectiveness Test by Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs)

NHTSA · 2014 · ROSA P / United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

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Summary

This report evaluates the effectiveness of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Carrier Safety Measurement System (CSMS) in identifying motor carriers with high future crash risk. The CSMS is a prioritization tool within the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program that ranks carriers based on safety performance data across six Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs) and a Crash Indicator. The study aims to determine if carriers identified by the CSMS for intervention actually exhibit higher subsequent crash rates, thereby validating the system’s utility in targeting enforcement resources. The analysis utilizes the 2012 CSMS Effectiveness Test (ET), which simulates CSMS results using historical data from 2009 and 2010 to assign percentile ranks to carriers as of January 2011. The study then observes crash involvement for these carriers over an 18-month post-identification period (January 2011 through June 2012). The dataset includes 278,318 active carriers that met specific screening criteria for operational activity and data sufficiency. Crash rates are measured in crashes per 100 Power Units (PUs). The report presents three primary analyses: (1) comparing crash rates of carriers identified for CSA interventions versus those not identified, stratified by carrier size and specific BASICs; (2) assessing the crash rates of carriers designated as “high-risk” for congressionally mandated onsite investigations; and (3) examining crash rate trends across the full percentile spectrum for each BASIC. The results demonstrate that the CSMS effectively identifies high-risk carriers. Carriers identified for CSA interventions had a future crash rate of 4.82 crashes per 100 PUs, which is 79% higher than the 2.69 rate for carriers not identified. This association held across all carrier sizes, with the percentage increase in crash rates being most pronounced for smaller carriers (e.g., 137% for carriers with five or fewer PUs). The Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service (HOS) Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, and Crash Indicator BASICs showed the strongest associations with future crash risk, with identified carriers experiencing 65–93% higher crash rates than the national average. Conversely, the Driver Fitness BASIC showed no positive association with crash rates at the national level, though it did for specific subsets of for-hire combination carriers. Carriers identified as “high-risk” for mandated investigations exhibited a crash rate of 7.33 per 100 PUs, more than double the general population rate. Furthermore, crash rates increased steadily as the number of BASICs identifying a carrier for intervention increased, reaching 7.17 per 100 PUs for carriers with five or more identified BASICs. The study concludes that the CSMS is an effective prioritization tool that successfully isolates carriers with higher future crash risks, supporting FMCSA’s mission to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities. The findings validate the use of CSMS percentiles to target interventions and confirm that carriers with multiple safety issues pose the greatest risk. While some BASICs like Driver Fitness and Controlled Substances/Alcohol showed weaker correlations with crash frequency, the report notes these may still serve important regulatory or severity-based functions. The results provide evidence that the CSA program can effectively hold a broad spectrum of the motor carrier industry accountable for safety compliance.

Key finding

Carriers identified for CSA interventions had a future crash rate of 4.82 crashes per 100 Power Units, which is 79 percent higher than the 2.69 crash rate of non-identified carriers.

Methodology

modeling

Sample size: 278318

Provenance

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Topics

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• incidence prevalence
• telematics crash prediction
• bus coach
• induced exposure
• comparative international
• naturalistic crash near crash

Information type

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• Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation
• Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes