Citation

Madsen D, Wright D. Transp. Res. Rec. 1999; 1686: 1-7.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.3141/1686-01

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1993, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (the Volpe Center) began a multiyear research effort to propose an improved process for assessing motor carrier safety fitness for the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carriers (OMC). At the time, OMC's primary method of determining safety fitness came from ratings based on the results of onsite safety compliance reviews. The intent of OMC was to take advantage of improved safety data reporting, information systems technologies, and the Volpe Center's experience in safety measurement methodology, as well as to address the weaknesses of the rating process. The Volpe Center proposed using an automated safety performance monitoring system and subsequently developed SafeStat (Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System) as part of a federal-state pilot program. Since then, SafeStat has been implemented nationally by OMC to rank individual motor carriers for compliance reviews. SafeStat is designed to incorporate current on-road safety performance information and enforcement history with the compliance review information to measure the overall relative safety fitness of interstate carriers. In arriving at this overall assessment, SafeStat evaluates carriers in four safety evaluation areas: accident, driver, vehicle, and safety management. SafeStat enables OMC to quantify and monitor the safety status of carriers continually, thereby allowing OMC enforcement and education programs to efficiently allocate resources to carriers that pose a high risk of crashes. The methodology and the current and proposed uses of SafeStat are described.

Language: en