A New Era for Transportation Risk Management

With the Compliance, Safety, Accountability Program of 2010 (CSA 2010), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is bringing unprecedented transparency to the transportation industry, installing a wholly new, comprehensive and detailed system for identifying and resolving carrier and driver-safety issues. It has introduced into industry vernacular several new benchmarks upon which operators and drivers are now publicly judged, from unsafe-driving violations and fatigued driving to controlled-substance use and improper loading.

A cottage industry has sprung up to support operators in monitoring their all-important CSA scores. They aim to help companies intent on, as one vendor puts it, “improving the public face of safety under CSA.” Putting the best public face forward is indeed critical: Shippers are watching—and using the mounting piles of data on truckers to assess who they do and do not want hauling their freight.