A white paper from Drivewyze that details the benefits of new transponder technology and the challenges impacting FMCSA and state enforcement agency efforts to improve highway safety is now available from the company. According to Brian Heath, chief executive officer of Drivewyze, there are 4.5 million trucks required to report to weigh stations across North America, yet there are only 13,000 inspectors certified by CVSA to conduct vehicle inspections. There are also approximately 3.5 million roadside inspections conducted annually.
The new white paper from Drivewyze details how new Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) transponder technology can enhance the capability of agencies to improve roadside safety and reward industry compliance efforts.
“What we’ve outlined in this white paper is the potential for CMRS technology to grow beyond helping trucks bypass inspection sites,” Heath said. “CMRS offers capabilities that go one step further to potentially automate a new class of inspection that does not require a truck to stop at an inspection facility. This wireless inspection, what we call e-inspection, holds the potential for state agencies to better utilize their resources, for FMCSA to improve its CSA program, and for carriers to improve the ROI on their compliance efforts.”
According to Heath, the white paper explores the merits of using e-inspections as an alternative compliance tool to support the Safety Measurement System (SMS) program within the CSA operating model. “The CSA model depends on roadside inspection data and e-inspections can automate and dramatically increase the amount of roadside inspection data made available to CSA,” he said.
CMRS transponders are unique in that they do not require any roadside hardware to work and instead communicate using commercially available cellular and Internet networks. The technology, Heath noted, makes it possible for a fleet to voluntarily provide electronic logs and driver’s license information directly from a truck as it approaches an inspection site. That would allow an agency to essentially perform an automated CVSA Level III credential inspection on participating vehicles.
This paper calls for FMCSA to develop policies and a program around alternative compliance and e-inspections. Policy development can tackle issues on e-inspection weighting versus manual inspections and the leveraging of existing federal programs to fast-track e-inspection adoption.
