DC Velocity - March 2012

transportationreport TRUCKLOAD

ed enough roadside data on approximately 200,000 DOT-licensed carriers to “assess” them under at least one BASIC. “Those carriers represent nearly 40 percent of all active carriers but have been involved in 93 percent of the crashes reported nationwide,” she said.

The FMCSA spokeswoman added that those looking to investigate a carrier’s safety record should also rely on the agency’s “Safety and Fitness Electronic Records System,” or SAFER, which officially rates a carrier based on its most recent on-site compliance review, as well as the agency’s “License & Insurance Website,” which confirms that a carrier has active operating authority and adequate insurance.

The agency said that by combining all three resources, users can get an “informed, current, and comprehensive picture of a motor carrier’s safety and compliance standing with FMCSA,” the spokeswoman wrote in the e-mail. She said the agency has cautioned users not to rely solely on CSA/SMS data to judge a carrier’s fitness to operate. The information is “only one of many possible pointers that the public can use to assess a motor carrier’s safety performance record,” she wrote.

a hybrid approach toward CSA. His company monitors carriers’ performance under the CSA BASICs to ensure the vendors remain within the acceptable thresholds. However, the CSA scorecard is just one part of what Barnes called a “weighted average” calculation in determining if a carrier is fit for service. Other factors include historical performance, meeting contractual commitments, financial viability, strategic capabilities, and perhaps most critical, how a carrier addresses defects, he said.

“I would need to get a lot of additional information [beyond the CSA scores] before I choose not to use a carrier,” said Barnes, whose company buys about $150 million worth of transportation services outside of the Con-way fleet each year.

Barnes is also a strong backer of CSA. “I think it has very positive benefits. If used the right way, it can drive continuous improvement in our industry,” he said.

A HYBRID APPROACH

C. Thomas Barnes, president of Con-way Multimodal, the brokerage arm of Con-way Inc., takes what could be called

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Like Barnes, Joshua Dolan, director of global logistics and customs compliance for Philadelphia-based auto parts and service giant The Pep Boys - Manny, Moe & Jack, considers CSA scores to be a “component” of the carrier selection process. Pep Boys also uses other criteria and is not shy about dropping a carrier that doesn’t measure up and lacks a way to get up to speed, according to Dolan.

“If we have companies that are not meeting our requirements and can’t provide us with plans to improve, we cut them,” said Dolan. Almost all of the carriers used by The Pep Boys are large-scale operations, with more than 500 power units in their fleets.

Dolan advises companies to use outside services like Carrier411, a Norcross, Ga.-based provider that monitors CSA scores and creates quarterly alerts for customers to keep track of carrier performance. Separate from that, Dolan advises supply chain players to stay informed about carrier safety issues and put an increased focus on sharing information before an incident occurs.

Dolan said CSA will force shippers and 3PLs to care more about carrier choice than they have in the past, adding that “there is an expense associated with that.” Safe and experienced drivers will be able to command higher salaries and benefits, and driver wages in general are likely to rise from current levels, he said.

“It will become a strategic goal on the part of companies
to keep drivers,” he said. “Drivers will be picking and choos-
ing companies, not the other way around.”
Unlike others, however, Dolan believes CSA is not a pos-
itive force but an unwarranted intrusion into industry
affairs by bureaucrats who purport to know more about the
trucking industry than the companies they govern.

“The industry’s safety record is as good as it’s ever been. Carriers are already doing a good job of managing their risk. I don’t necessarily think that more bureaucracy was needed,” he said. ;