What’s an ISS Score and Why It’s Important

By Evan Lockridge

Drew: The Inspection Selection System is the mechanism that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) uses to prioritize motor carriers for scale pull-in at weigh stations and inspections based upon their safety profile. It primarily uses safety data from the FMCSA’s Compliance Safety and Accountability program, commonly known as CSA.

Drew: The primary elements of the ISS score are a motor carrier's safety percentile ranking in CSA. The FMCSA takes each motor carrier's percentile rankings and places them into its blender, so to speak. Depending upon the combination of scores and their performance in the different CSA safety categories, known as Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category, or BASICs for short, fleets will have a corresponding ISS score on a scale from zero to 100. 

Drew: Sure. There are seven CSA BASICs. If a carrier is over the threshold in a CSA BASIC or what the FMCSA determines is an alert status, for example in the hazmat category, but are good on all the other BASIC scores, then the ISS score will probably be in the middle of the range (50s, 60s or 70s). On the other hand, if a motor carrier has an alert status for the hours-of-service compliance BASIC, they're automatically going to have a high ISS score of between 75 and 100 because the hours-of-service BASIC is deemed to be more indicative of crash than an alert in the hazmat basic.

Depending upon where a motor carrier falls within that range, the higher the score, the more likely they are going to be prioritized for an inspection. I should note the FMCSA is careful to use the word "prioritization." That’s because it is simply an indicator to enforcement that this motor carrier is prioritized for closer scrutiny. ISS is a recommendation to enforcement, not a decree.

Drew: The BASICs that get heavily weighted or prioritized fall under "Unsafe Driving", which covers speeding, reckless driving, improper lane change, inattention and not wearing seatbelts, plus the "Hours-of-Service Compliance" basic, which covers noncompliance with hours-of-service regulations, including logbooks. There’s also the "Crash Indictor" BASIC, which considers a fleet’s history of crash involvement. At a 5,000 foot view those are the three BASICs that ultimately have the most impact on an ISS score, with the FMCSA paying closest attention to Hours of Service.

Drew: Insurance status can impact your ISS score, and fleet investigation results go into the score, whether it’s an on-site fixed investigation, or an off-site focused investigation. Regardless, if as a result of either type of investigation, safety inspectors find serious or critical violations, these can be factored into your ISS score. Additionally, there is a separate calculation for carriers with an "insufficient" number of inspections with the purpose being to increase the number of carriers with inspection data in the system.

Evan: If someone has a low ISS score, does that automatically mean they are going to get a bypass, or are they subject to other reasons an officer might have for pulling a truck in?

Drew: You are always subject to the officer’s discretion. If your ISS is 16, the officer could still decide to do an inspection. There's always a random element and this varies by state. And this is what we at HELP and PrePass feel is a huge benefit for our customers, because we work with these states. We adhere very strictly to the standards mandated by individual states for bypassing. For instance, in California, if your ISS is over 75, you cannot bypass, period. That's not the case in other states. 

Drew: Assuming that the scale is open, then yes, you need to pull in. However, inspections are often based on the manpower available at the inspection facility itself, so it's unlikely they’ll require every truck to stop. At the end of the day, the individual states are responsible for enforcement of the laws on their roads. So they have the final say in determining who gets inspected and who does not.

Drew Anderson is the director of carrier relations at PrePass, the leading weigh station bypass and toll payment system in the United States. For more information on ISS scores and PrePass, call (800) 773-7277 or visit the PrePass website.