Project Goal

To collect electronic logging device (ELD) and crash data from property-carrying and passenger-carrying commercial motor vehicle (CMV) carriers to assess risks posed by alternative schedules as they relate to various aspects of hours of service (HOS) provisions.
 

Background

FMCSA needs additional data to answer questions related to driver schedules and how these factors impact overall driver performance and fatigue. This project will collect additional information to improve decision making regarding various aspects of the HOS provisions, how HOS provisions are being used, and the impact of driver schedules on crash risk. The preamble of FMCSA’s 2011 Final HOS Rule stated, “FMCSA is committed to an analysis of the relative crash risk by driving hour, the impact of the changes in the HOS provisions, and examine difference in crash risk after restarts that include two nights and those that do not…FMCSA will work with the OMB on the methodologies of these new statistical data collections.”
 

Summary

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine completed the 2015 report “Research Needs on CMV Driver Fatigue, Long-Term Health and Highway Safety.” One of their recommendations was “FMCSA should incentivize those who capture driver performance data (e.g., large fleets, independent trucking associations, companies that collect telematics data, insurance companies, researchers) to increase the availability of those data relevant to research issues of operator fatigue, hours of service, and highway safety. Any such efforts should ensure that data confidentiality is maintained, perhaps through restricted access arrangements or use of statistical techniques for disclosure protection…Clearly, such carrier-collected data could offer a rich opportunity for analysis of various questions of interest concerning HOS regulations, fatigue, and crash frequency. If data from a number of large carriers across the commercial trucking industry could be collected, organized in a database, and made available to researchers, these data could represent an important segment of the trucking industry.”
 

Contractor

Pulsar Informatics