DOT IG Releases Audit Report on CSA

The saga over CSA continues to be in the limelight within the transportation industry. The Agency continues to be silent about whether the CSA scores and alerts should be made publicly available or not. TIA remains steadfast opposed to any CSA scores, alerts or data being publicly available and recently had a major victory in the U.S. Senate to ensure that those scores and alerts stay down as long as possible. 

On Friday, September 25, the Department of Transportation (DOT) Inspector General’s Office (IG) released an audit report titled: “FMCSA’s Plan Addresses Recommendations on Prioritizing Safety Interventions but Lacks Implementation Details.” This report is part of the CSA reform language included in the FAST Act. In summary, the DOT IG found that while FMCSA’s corrective action plan addresses motor carrier safety interventions, it lacks implementation details for improving transparency and its assessment of carrier safety rankings. For example, in response to recommendations from NAS and GAO, the Agency is testing an Item Response Theory (IRT) statistical model to gauge how it prioritizes motor carrier safety interventions.

Regarding the NAS recommendation on collecting more accurate and diverse types of data, FMCSA determined that much of the data does not exist. As a result, FMCSA no longer plans to collect additional data. Similarly, the plan describes putting datasets on a publicly available website, but does not discuss making them user-friendly or outline costs and implementation steps – hindering FMCSA’s efforts to make its data, safety measures and rankings more transparent. Finally, the complexity of the IRT model may make implementation and public outreach difficult.

The full report can be viewed HERE.

If you have any questions, please contact TIA Advocacy (advocacy@tianet.org, 703.299.5700).