First, according to FMCSA, SMS was designed to use all safety-related  violations of FMCSA regulations recorded during roadside inspections. However, we found that the relationship  between the violation of most of these regulations and crash risk is  unclear, potentially limiting the effectiveness of SMS in identifying carriers  that are likely to crash. Our analysis found that most of the safety  regulations used in SMS were violated too infrequently over a 2-year  period to reliably assess whether they were accurate predictors of an  individual carrier’s likelihood to crash. Second, most carriers lack sufficient safety performance data, such as  information from inspections, to ensure that FMCSA can reliably compare  them with other carriers. Violation rates calculated for carriers  with more inspections or vehicles will have more precision and confidence  than those with only a few inspections or vehicles. At  the same time, FMCSA has also stated that SMS provides stakeholders  with valuable safety information, which can “empower motor carriers and  other stakeholders…to make safety-based business decisions.” As a  result, some stakeholders we spoke to, such as industry and law  enforcement groups, have said that there is a lot of confusion in the  industry about what the SMS scores mean and that the public, unlike law  enforcement, may not understand the limitations of the system. Based on the concerns listed above, in our 2014 report we recommended  that FMCSA revise the SMS methodology to better account for limitations  in available information when drawing comparisons of safety performance  across carriers. FMCSA did not concur with our  recommendation to revise the SMS methodology because, according to  FMCSA officials, SMS in its current state sufficiently prioritizes carriers for  intervention purposes. However, FMCSA agreed with our  recommendation on the determination of a carrier’s fitness to operate, but  has not yet taken any actions. As  mentioned earlier, chameleon carriers are motor carriers disguising their  former identity to evade enforcement actions. FMCSA has established a  vetting program to review each new application for operating authority  submitted by passenger carriers (intercity and charter or tour bus  operators) and household goods carriers (hired by consumers to move  personal property). We found that using data analysis to target new applicants would allow  FMCSA to expand its examinations of newly registered carriers to include  new applicants of all types using few or no additional staff resources. Our  analysis of FMCSA data found that 1,136 new motor carrier applicants in  2010 had chameleon attributes, of which 1,082 were freight carriers.Even with the large number of new applicant carriers and constraints on  its resources, we concluded in 2012 that FMCSA could target the carriers  that present the highest risk of becoming chameleon carriers by using a  data-driven, risk-based approach. As a result of these findings, we recommended that FMCSA use a data- driven, risk-based approach to target carriers at high risk for becoming  chameleon carriers. With over 500,000 active motor carriers, it is  essential to examine ways to better target FMCSA’s resources to motor  carriers presenting the greatest risk. To effectively do this, FMCSA must  use a number of strategies to identify and intervene with high risk carriers. We continue to believe that a data-driven, risk-based approach for  identifying high risk carriers holds promise. FMCSA’s preliminary steps to  implement a risk-based screening methodology have the potential to  identify more high risk chameleon carriers. However, without efforts to  revise its SMS methodology, FMCSA will not be able to effectively target  its intervention resources toward the highest risk carriers and will be  challenged to meet its mission of reducing the overall crashes, injuries,  and fatalities involving large trucks and buses.
Why GAO Did This Study

FMCSA's primary mission of reducing crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses is critical to the safety of our nation's highways. However, with more than 500,000 active motor carriers operating on U.S. roadways, FMCSA must screen, identify, and target its resources toward those carriers presenting the greatest risk for crashing in the future.
FMCSA has recently taken some steps in this direction by, among other actions:
Establishing its oversight program—the CSA program—based on a data-driven approach for identifying motor carriers at risk of presenting a safety hazard or causing a crash, and
Establishing a vetting program designed to detect potential “chameleon” carriers—those carriers that have deliberately disguised their identity to evade enforcement actions issued against them.
This testimony provides information on both of these programs, based on two recent GAO reports on the oversight challenges FMCSA faces in identifying high risk motor carriers for intervention ( GAO-14-114 ), and chameleon carriers ( GAO-12-364 ), respectively.

What GAO Found

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has taken steps toward better oversight of motor carriers by establishing the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) and chameleon carrier vetting programs; however, FMCSA could improve its oversight to better target high risk carriers. The CSA program oversees carriers' safety performance through roadside inspections and crash investigations, and issues violations when instances of noncompliance with safety regulations are found. CSA provides FMCSA, state safety authorities, and the industry with valuable information regarding carriers' performance on the road.
A key component of CSA—the Safety Measurement System (SMS)—uses carrier performance data collected from inspections and investigations to calculate safety scores for carriers and identify those at high risk of causing a crash. The program then uses these scores to target high risk carriers for enforcement actions, such as warning letters, additional investigations, or fines. However, GAO's 2014 report identified two major challenges that limit the precision of the SMS scores and confidence that these scores are effectively comparing safety performance across carriers.
First, SMS uses violations of safety-related regulations to calculate a score, but GAO found that most of these regulations were violated too infrequently to determine whether they were accurate predictors of crash risk. Second, most carriers lacked sufficient data from inspections and violations to ensure that a carrier's SMS score could be reliably compared with scores for other carriers. GAO concluded that these challenges raise questions about whether FMCSA is able to identify and target the carriers at highest risk for crashing in the future. To address these challenges, GAO recommended, among other things, that FMCSA revise the SMS methodology to better account for limitations in available information when drawing comparisons of safety performance across carriers. FMCSA did not concur with GAO's recommendation to revise the SMS methodology because it believed that SMS sufficiently prioritized carriers for intervention. Therefore, FMCSA has not taken any actions.
GAO continues to believe that a data-driven, risk-based approach holds promise, and efforts to improve FMCSA's oversight could allow it to more effectively target its resources toward the highest risk carriers, and better meet its mission of reducing the overall crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving motor carriers.
GAO's 2012 report found that FMCSA examined only passenger and household goods carriers as part of its chameleon carrier vetting program for new applicants. GAO found that by modifying FMCSA's vetting program, FMCSA could expand its examinations of newly registered carriers to include all types of carriers, including freight carriers, using few additional staff resources. GAO recommended that FMCSA develop, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of a data-driven, risk-based vetting methodology to target carriers with chameleon attributes. FMCSA concurred with GAO's recommendation and has taken actions to address these recommendations.