Safety Management In Small Motor Carriers

TRB's Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Synthesis Program (CTBSSP) Synthesis 22: Safety Management in Small Motor Carriers explores small motor carriers' strengths and weaknesses in safety management, and identifies potentially effective safety practices.

TRB's Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Synthesis Program (CTBSSP) Synthesis 12: Commercial Motor Vehicle Carrier Safety Management Certification examines information on existing commercial motor vehicle safety certification, selfevaluation, benchmarking, and best practices programs; identifies major common elements and protocols; and explores the crash-reduction effectiveness of the programs.

TRB's Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Synthesis Program (CTBSSP) Synthesis 1: Effective Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Management Techniques focuses on the problems commercial truck and bus fleet managers confront, and the methods that are available to address problems in the areas of driver and vehicle safety, and more.

Every year roughly 100,000 fatal and injury crashes occur in the United States involving large trucks and buses. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in the U.S. Department of Transportation works to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses. FMCSA uses information that is collected on the frequency of approximately 900 different violations of safety regulations discovered during (mainly) roadside inspections to assess motor carriers' compliance with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, as well as to evaluate their compliance in comparison with their peers. Through use of this information, FMCSA's Safety Measurement System (SMS) identifies carriers to receive its available interventions in order to reduce the risk of crashes across all carriers. Improving Motor Carrier Safety Measurement examines the effectiveness of the use of the percentile ranks produced by SMS for identifying high-risk carriers, and if not, what alternatives might be preferred. In addition, this report evaluates the accuracy and sufficiency of the data used by SMS, to assess whether other approaches to identifying unsafe carriers would identify high-risk carriers more effectively, and to reflect on how members of the public use the SMS and what effect making the SMS information public has had on reducing crashes.

To transport people and materials safely, it is essential that everyone involved in a transportation system be adequately trained, supervised, and monitored. Detailed data and incident reports must be maintained to identify trends and problem areas, and to implement process and safety improvements.Motor Fleet Safety and Security Management provides

"Tragically, safety statistics show that truck and commercial bus-related fatalities are on the rise. As a result, motor carrier safety programs and enforcement activities have been under considerable scrutiny. It is my hope that much good can come from this extensive analysis and that in the long term truck and bus safety can be improved and fatalities reduced"--Page 1