Motor Carrier Safety
Commercial Vehicle Registration Program Has Kept Unsafe Carriers from Operating, but Effectiveness Is Difficult to Measure Gao ID: GAO-09-495 May 12, 2009To reduce the number of crashes involving commercial motor carriers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) within the Department of Transportation orders unsafe carriers out of service. To help keep these carriers off the road, FMCSA's voluntary Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) grant program, a small program funded at $5 million per year, helps states establish information systems connections between state vehicle registration and FMCSA's safety databases. These connections provide states with up-to-date information on carriers' safety status when carriers try to register or renew registrations with the state. For states to deny, suspend, or revoke registrations to out-of service carriers, states must pass legislation enabling them to do so. As directed by a congressional committee, GAO examined (1) PRISM's effectiveness and (2) the potential to fully implement the program nationally. GAO reviewed FMCSA data and discussed PRISM with a wide variety of federal, state, industry, and safety stakeholders
Twenty-five states have implemented PRISM to the point where they are able to keep carriers that FMCSA has ordered out of service from obtaining or maintaining vehicle registrations. However, PRISM's safety impact is hard to measure. FMCSA data show that vehicles associated with 972 out-of-service carriers in 2008 had registrations denied, suspended, or revoked--about 15 percent of carriers placed out of service that year. However, this is likely an underestimate because the data can be difficult to track. Officials from the 13 states GAO contacted that are denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations of out-of-service carriers and representatives from safety and industry associations said PRISM is worth the effort, but its impact on safety is hard to measure. An evaluation of the program sponsored by FMCSA in 2007 concluded that PRISM states show some improved safety over time compared with other states, indicating PRISM could have contributed to lower crash rates. However, because all FMCSA programs are aimed at reducing crash rates, isolating PRISM's effect is difficult. Nonetheless, the evaluation recommended that FMCSA adopt program measures to assess PRISM's effectiveness. FMCSA has not adopted all of these measures for various reasons, including a lack of resources. In GAO's view, applying such measures, while ultimately useful, may be premature since PRISM's success is undercut by the 25 states--including states with the greatest numbers of registered commercial motor vehicles--and the District of Columbia that do not yet have the ability to deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations of out-of-service carriers. National implementation may not occur for years if PRISM continues as a voluntary program. FMCSA data show that, on average, it took states about 3 years and 4 months to get to the point where they could deny, suspend, or revoke registrations once they decided to implement PRISM--a process that took as little as 10 months to more than 7 years. Officials in states GAO contacted said that PRISM implementation was facilitated by such things as hiring a contractor to help with the program's technical components, and was hindered by such things as difficulty in passing state legislation needed to implement the program. According to officials in states GAO met with, FMCSA has been helpful in encouraging states to adopt and implement the program, but can do little in other areas, such as when state legislation is needed. Officials in some states and representatives from safety associations told GAO that Congress should require PRISM implementation so that no state becomes a refuge for registering out-of-service carriers. Other officials said that such a requirement is unnecessary, since only three states have not committed to implementing PRISM. While there are benefits to a congressional requirement that could lead to speedier national implementation, there are several significant potential drawbacks to doing so (for example, some states may require substantial money to adapt their information systems to make PRISM work) that lead GAO not to recommend such a requirement.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-09-495, Motor Carrier Safety: Commercial Vehicle Registration Program Has Kept Unsafe Carriers from Operating, but Effectiveness Is Difficult to Measure
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Report to Congressional Committees:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
May 2009:
Motor Carrier Safety:
Commercial Vehicle Registration Program Has Kept Unsafe Carriers from
Operating, but Effectiveness Is Difficult to Measure:
GAO-09-495:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-09-495, a report to congressional committees.
Why GAO Did This Study:
To reduce the number of crashes involving commercial motor carriers,
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) within the
Department of Transportation orders unsafe carriers out of service. To
help keep these carriers off the road, FMCSA‘s voluntary Performance
and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) grant program,
a small program funded at $5 million per year, helps states establish
information systems connections between state vehicle registration and
FMCSA‘s safety databases. These connections provide states with up-to-
date information on carriers‘ safety status when carriers try to
register or renew registrations with the state. For states to deny,
suspend, or revoke registrations to out-of-service carriers, states
must pass legislation enabling them to do so.
As directed by a congressional committee, GAO examined (1) PRISM‘s
effectiveness and (2) the potential to fully implement the program
nationally. GAO reviewed FMCSA data and discussed PRISM with a wide
variety of federal, state, industry, and safety stakeholders.
What GAO Found:
Twenty-five states have implemented PRISM to the point where they are
able to keep carriers that FMCSA has ordered out of service from
obtaining or maintaining vehicle registrations. However, PRISM‘s safety
impact is hard to measure. FMCSA data show that vehicles associated
with 972 out-of-service carriers in 2008 had registrations denied,
suspended, or revoked”about 15 percent of carriers placed out of
service that year. However, this is likely an underestimate because the
data can be difficult to track. Officials from the 13 states GAO
contacted that are denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle
registrations of out-of-service carriers and representatives from
safety and industry associations said PRISM is worth the effort, but
its impact on safety is hard to measure. An evaluation of the program
sponsored by FMCSA in 2007 concluded that PRISM states show some
improved safety over time compared with other states, indicating PRISM
could have contributed to lower crash rates. However, because all FMCSA
programs are aimed at reducing crash rates, isolating PRISM‘s effect is
difficult. Nonetheless, the evaluation recommended that FMCSA adopt
program measures to assess PRISM‘s effectiveness. FMCSA has not adopted
all of these measures for various reasons, including a lack of
resources. In GAO‘s view, applying such measures, while ultimately
useful, may be premature since PRISM‘s success is undercut by the 25
states”including states with the greatest numbers of registered
commercial motor vehicles”and the District of Columbia that do not yet
have the ability to deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations of
out-of-service carriers.
National implementation may not occur for years if PRISM continues as a
voluntary program. FMCSA data show that, on average, it took states
about 3 years and 4 months to get to the point where they could deny,
suspend, or revoke registrations once they decided to implement PRISM”a
process that took as little as 10 months to more than 7 years.
Officials in states GAO contacted said that PRISM implementation was
facilitated by such things as hiring a contractor to help with the
program‘s technical components, and was hindered by such things as
difficulty in passing state legislation needed to implement the
program. According to officials in states GAO met with, FMCSA has been
helpful in encouraging states to adopt and implement the program, but
can do little in other areas, such as when state legislation is needed.
Officials in some states and representatives from safety associations
told GAO that Congress should require PRISM implementation so that no
state becomes a refuge for registering out-of-service carriers. Other
officials said that such a requirement is unnecessary, since only three
states have not committed to implementing PRISM. While there are
benefits to a congressional requirement that could lead to speedier
national implementation, there are several significant potential
drawbacks to doing so (for example, some states may require substantial
money to adapt their information systems to make PRISM work) that lead
GAO not to recommend such a requirement.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that FMCSA measure PRISM effectiveness when a sufficient
number of states have the ability to deny, suspend, or revoke
registrations to out-of-service carriers. In commenting on a draft of
this report, the department generally agreed with the recommendation.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-495]. For more
information, contact Susan A. Fleming at (202) 512-2834 or
flemings@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Background:
PRISM Has Helped Keep Unsafe Carriers from Registering, but Its Impact
on Safety Is Hard to Measure:
National PRISM Implementation May Not Occur for Years if PRISM Is
Maintained as a Voluntary Program:
Conclusions:
Recommendation for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Applicability of Mandatory and Voluntary Approaches to
Implementing PRISM:
Table 2: State Agencies and Industry and Safety Associations
Interviewed:
Figures:
Figure 1: States Participating in PRISM, as of April 2009:
Figure 2: Time Taken for States to Reach Ability to Deny, Suspend, or
Revoke Vehicle Registrations:
Figure 3: Progress in Implementing PRISM, 2000 through April 2009:
Abbreviations:
BAC: blood alcohol concentration:
DOT: Department of Transportation:
FMCSA: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:
IRP: International Registration Plan:
NDR: National Driver Registry:
PRISM: Performance and Registration Information Systems Management:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
May 12, 2009:
The Honorable Patty Murray:
Chairman:
The Honorable Christopher Bond:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and
Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate:
The Honorable John W. Olver:
Chairman:
The Honorable Tom Latham:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and
Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
House of Representatives:
In the United States, commercial motor carriers account for fewer than
5 percent of all highway crashes, but these crashes result in about 13
percent of all highway deaths, or about 5,500 of the approximately
43,000 highway fatalities that occur nationwide each year.[Footnote 1]
In an attempt to reduce the number and severity of crashes involving
large trucks and buses, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
(FMCSA) within the Department of Transportation (DOT) identifies unsafe
motor carriers and takes them off the road by ordering them out of
service. Carriers that have been ordered out of service by FMCSA may
not operate until their safety performance improves and FMCSA rescinds
the out-of-service order.
The primary way that FMCSA ensures that carriers the agency has ordered
out of service do not continue to operate is the Performance and
Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) grant program.
PRISM works by allocating grant money to states to establish
information systems connections between state commercial vehicle
registration databases and FMCSA's safety databases that, when fully
implemented, (1) provides up-to-date information on the safety status
of the carrier responsible for the safety of a commercial vehicle prior
to issuing or renewing the vehicle registration and (2) generates a
daily list of vehicles registered in the state that are associated with
carriers that have just been ordered out of service by FMCSA. For new
registrations or renewals, when state personnel enter carrier and
vehicle information into the system, it automatically checks the
information against FMCSA databases, and a notice will appear to deny
the registration if the carrier is out of service. For vehicles already
registered in the state, state personnel use the list the state creates
each night to suspend or revoke the vehicle registrations associated
with newly ordered out-of-service carriers. To implement PRISM, states
must pass enabling legislation, providing state registration agencies
(motor vehicle administrations) with the ability to deny, suspend, or
revoke vehicle registrations of carriers ordered out of service by
FMCSA.
PRISM's innovation is that it associates vehicle identification numbers
with out-of-service carriers to prevent the carrier from registering or
reregistering its vehicles (either under the carrier's original name
or, more importantly, disguised under a new name) until FMCSA lifts the
out-of-service order. Once the out-of-service order is lifted, the
carrier may obtain valid vehicle registrations. Preventing unsafe motor
carriers from obtaining or maintaining vehicle registrations deters
these carriers from operating, since state law enforcement agencies
continually check commercial vehicles for valid registrations.[Footnote
2]
In the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991,
Congress mandated the PRISM pilot demonstration project to evaluate the
potential benefits of using state commercial motor vehicle registration
sanctions as an incentive to improve motor carrier safety. Five states
participated in the pilot, which ended in 1997, and a final report
assessing the program was submitted to Congress in 1998. In 1998,
Congress authorized additional funding to implement the program
nationwide. As of April 2009, 47 states and the District of Columbia
participate in it to some degree. Twenty-five of these states have
implemented PRISM to the extent that they can automatically identify
out-of-service carriers and then deny, suspend, or revoke their vehicle
registrations.[Footnote 3]
The Senate Committee on Appropriations directed that we assess (1) the
PRISM grant program's effectiveness in removing unsafe motor carriers
from U.S. roadways and (2) the potential to fully implement the program
nationally.
To report on the extent to which the PRISM grants program has
effectively removed unsafe carriers from the roadway, we obtained FMCSA
data on the number of motor carriers that had vehicle registrations
denied, suspended, or revoked as a result of an FMCSA out-of-service
order. We interviewed FMCSA officials to discuss how data are collected
and verified and how the data are used to assess PRISM's effectiveness.
We also conducted semistructured interviews with a nongeneralizable
sample of state motor vehicle administration officials and state law
enforcement officials from 13 states that deny, suspend, or revoke
vehicle registrations to discuss their experience implementing PRISM,
how effective the program has been, and the soundness of reported data.
We obtained the view of state officials and representatives from motor
carrier industry and safety associations on the extent to which PRISM
has improved states' ability to identify unsafe carriers and take them
off the road by denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations
and any factors that impact PRISM's effectiveness. We reviewed a 2007
Volpe National Transportation Systems Center evaluation of the PRISM
program that reported on the extent to which PRISM has improved the
safety and limitations of FMCSA's data on the denial, suspension, or
revocation of vehicle registrations of out-of-service carriers[Footnote
4]. We reviewed information from interviews and the Volpe report to
identify and describe the factors that limit PRISM's effectiveness.
To report on the potential to fully implement the program nationally,
we met with officials from FMCSA, state motor vehicle administrations,
and state law enforcement in 26 selected states, as well as
representatives from industry and safety associations. We conducted
semistructured interviews with state motor vehicle administrations from
13 states that deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations; 3 states
that are implementing PRISM but do not yet have the capability to
affect vehicle registrations; 8 states that have committed to implement
PRISM but are not far along in implementation; and 2 states that do not
participate in PRISM at all. We analyzed testimonial evidence to
identify factors that enabled states to deny, suspend, and revoke
registrations and factors that have delayed or prevented other states
from moving forward with PRISM implementation. We analyzed the
information to identify the factors FMCSA can affect and those it
cannot. We also conducted a general literature search to identify the
conditions for when either a mandatory approach or a voluntary approach
is preferred for achieving program participation and certain desired
outcomes. In addition, we identified and analyzed drawbacks to
requiring state implementation of PRISM and potential options available
to Congress for encouraging--rather than mandating--state legislative
or regulatory action that could speed nationwide PRISM implementation.
As part of our review, we assessed the reliability of FMCSA's data on
the number of motor carriers that had vehicle registrations denied,
suspended, or revoked because of an FMCSA out-of-service order. While
we identified some shortcomings to the data (discussed later in this
report), we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for our
purpose, which was to provide a general sense of the extent to which
PRISM implementation has resulted in vehicle registration sanctions. We
conducted this performance audit from June 2008 to May 2009 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives. (See appendix I for
additional information on our scope and methodology.)
Background:
The interstate commercial motor carrier industry is large and dynamic.
According to FMCSA data, there are about 716,000 interstate carriers
registered with FMCSA to operate. While the largest motor carriers
operate upward of 50,000 vehicles, most carriers are small, with
approximately 80 percent operating between one and six vehicles.
Commercial motor vehicles travel over 222 billion miles each year over
the nation's extensive road network.
FMCSA's primary mission is to reduce the number and severity of crashes
involving large commercial trucks and buses involved in interstate
commerce. It carries out this mission by issuing, administering, and
enforcing federal motor carrier safety regulations and hazardous
materials regulations and gathering and analyzing data on motor
carriers, drivers, and vehicles, among other things. FMCSA also takes
enforcement actions itself and funds and oversees enforcement
activities at the state level through Motor Carrier Safety Assistance
Program grants.
FMCSA ensures that motor carriers comply with safety regulations
primarily through compliance reviews of carriers already in the
industry and safety audits of carriers that have recently started
operations. Compliance reviews and safety audits help FMCSA determine
whether carriers are complying with its safety regulations and, if not,
to take enforcement action against them, including placing carriers out
of service.[Footnote 5] FMCSA makes its compliance determination based
on a carrier's performance in six areas: one area is the carrier's
crash rate, and the other five areas involve the carrier's compliance
with regulations, such as insurance coverage, driver qualifications,
and vehicle maintenance and inspections. In addition, FMCSA places
carriers out of service for failure to pay civil penalties levied by
FMCSA, failing a safety audit, and for failing to schedule a safety
audit. Out-of-service carriers must cease operations and cannot resume
operations until FMCSA determines that they have corrected the
conditions that rendered them out of service. If a carrier fails to
comply with or disregards an out-of-service order, FMCSA may assess a
civil monetary penalty each time the vehicle is operated in violation
of the order. In 2008, FMCSA ordered 6,707 carriers out of service.
FMCSA and state law enforcement agencies are dwarfed by the size of the
industry and, as a result, are only able to conduct compliance reviews
on a very small percentage of carriers--about 18,400 in fiscal year
2008.[Footnote 6] Safety audits are required for all new entrants to
the trucking industry; approximately 37,400 safety audits were
conducted in fiscal year 2008. In addition to compliance reviews and
safety audits, FMCSA and state law enforcement agencies conduct about
2.3 million vehicle inspections each year at weigh stations and other
locations to assess the safety compliance of individual vehicles.
FMCSA and state law enforcement agencies use several methods to ensure
that carriers that have been ordered out of service do not continue to
operate. For example, FMCSA and its state partners monitor data on
roadside inspections, moving violations, and crashes to identify
carriers that may be violating an out-of-service order. FMCSA will
visit some suspect carriers that it identifies by monitoring crash and
inspection data to determine whether those carriers violated their
orders. Also, recently, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance[Footnote
7] began to require checking for carriers operating under an out-of-
service order during roadside inspections and to take enforcement
action against any that are. However, given the large size of the
industry, the nation's extensive road network, and the relatively small
size of federal and state enforcement staffs, it is difficult to catch
motor carriers that are violating out-of-service orders. In addition,
some carriers change their identities by changing their names and
obtaining new DOT numbers[Footnote 8]--which are generally referred to
as chameleon carriers--to avoid being caught.
FMCSA allocates PRISM grants to states to address the problems of out-
of-service carriers registering or reregistering vehicles (when renewal
is needed), including chameleon carriers. PRISM grants enable states to
work through the registration protocol--known as the International
Registration Plan (IRP)[Footnote 9]--that state motor vehicle
administrations use to register vehicles of carriers involved in
interstate commerce. In 2008, over 2 million vehicles had IRP
(interstate) registrations. PRISM grants provide the state motor
vehicle administration where the vehicle is registered--called the
"base state"--with the capability to check the safety status of motor
carriers, using the carrier's DOT number and the vehicle identification
number, prior to issuing or renewing a carrier's registration.
According to FMCSA, sanctioning the IRP (interstate) registrations of
commercial motor vehicles is a powerful enforcement tool in deterring
out-of-service carriers from operating on U.S. roadways. If the carrier
or vehicle is associated with an out-of-service order at the time of
registration, the state motor vehicle administration will deny the
registration of that carrier if the state has implemented PRISM to the
point where it can deny registrations to out-of-service carriers. In
addition, state motor vehicle administrations also suspend or revoke
the registrations of vehicles associated with out-of-service carriers,
without waiting for the carrier to attempt to reregister. States use
various methods to inform a carrier that its vehicle registrations have
been suspended or revoked. For example, some states notify the carrier
via letter, and some states request that the carrier return the vehicle
license plates. Other states send motor vehicle administration
personnel or state law enforcement to the carrier's place of business
to retrieve the license plates following a registration suspension or
revocation.
Another benefit of PRISM is that it helps prevent an out-of-service
carrier from registering in a state other than its base state in an
attempt to avoid having its registration denied. This works to the
extent that the nonbase state or states in which the carrier seeks to
register participate in and have fully implemented the PRISM program
(that is, deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations to out-of-
service carriers). As of April 2009, 25 states have this capability.
(See figure 1.) Six other states are collecting vehicle identification
numbers and the DOT number of the carriers associated with those
vehicles and may be checking the safety status of the carrier at the
time of registration. Sixteen other states and the District of Columbia
have entered into an agreement with FMCSA to implement PRISM grants but
have not yet moved forward substantially to implement the program. The
remaining three states do not participate.
Figure 1: States Participating in PRISM, as of April 2009:
[Refer to PDF for image: map]
Entered into an agreement with FMCSA to implement PRISM but have not
yet moved forward substantially to implement the program (16 states and
D.C.):
California:
Colorado:
District of Columbia:
Florida:
Hawaii:
Illinois:
Massachusetts:
Mississippi:
Montana:
New Jersey:
New York:
North Dakota:
Rhode Island:
Virginia:
Wisconsin:
Wyoming.
Collecting vehicle identification numbers and the DOT number of the
carriers associated with those vehicles and may be checking the safety
status of the carrier at the time of registration (6 states):
Arizona:
Louisiana:
Oklahoma:
Oregon:
Pennsylvania:
Texas.
Denying, suspending, and revoking vehicle registrations of out-of-
service carriers(25 states):
Alabama:
Alaska:
Arkansas:
Connecticut:
Delaware:
Georgia:
Idaho:
Indiana:
Iowa:
Kansas:
Kentucky:
Maine:
Minnesota:
Missouri:
Nebraska:
New Hampshire:
New Mexico:
North Carolina:
Ohio:
South Carolina:
South Dakota:
Tennessee:
Utah:
Vermont:
Washington:
West Virginia.
Do not participate (3 states):
Maryland:
Michigan:
Nevada.
Source: FMCSA (data); and MapArt (map).
Note: While Alaska and Hawaii do not participate in IRP, each state has
a system that provides them with the capability to deny, revoke, or
suspend the commercial vehicles regulated by FMCSA.
[End of figure]
Within FMCSA's 2008 budget (including grants) of about $530 million,
the PRISM grants program is very small. Under the Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users,
PRISM is authorized $5 million annually from fiscal years 2005 through
2009.[Footnote 10] These amounts have been appropriated each year.
FMCSA officials told us that they annually allocate about $4 million to
participating states in the form of grants and $1 million for FMCSA
program administration.
States use PRISM grant funds--approximately $500,000 per state--to
implement several requirements.[Footnote 11] For example, for
registration requirements, states create and maintain information
technology connections to FMCSA's safety databases and the state's IRP
system to collect and validate the DOT number of the carrier each
vehicle is associated with and to check the safety status of those
carriers. States also develop the programs necessary to load and
retrieve data and correctly process the information to its system. In
addition, in order to capture the DOT number and other carrier
information on each vehicle record, states will need to modify existing
forms, screen formats, and information storage. States also develop
procedures to check the carrier safety status on each registration or
renewal and train staff on how to do such checks. Although PRISM grants
are intended to pay for the total costs to carry out all program
requirements, states contribute some funds for program implementation.
FMCSA uses its PRISM funds for technical support for its databases, as
well as for travel costs. Although FMCSA did not use PRISM funds to
support PRISM program personnel's travel in fiscal year 2008, FMCSA
officials told us that it has done so to date in fiscal year 2009 due
to general agency travel budget constraints associated with the fiscal
year 2009 continuing resolution.
PRISM Has Helped Keep Unsafe Carriers from Registering, but Its Impact
on Safety Is Hard to Measure:
PRISM Has Enabled 25 States to Identify and Keep Unsafe Carriers from
Obtaining or Maintaining Vehicle Registrations:
FMCSA data show that PRISM has resulted in the denial, suspension, or
revocation of the commercial motor vehicle registrations of 972
carriers in 2008.[Footnote 12] According to FMCSA data, 671 unsafe
motor carriers had vehicle registrations suspended or revoked, while
301 unsafe motor carriers had vehicle registrations denied--together
representing about 15 percent of carriers that were ordered out of
service in 2008.[Footnote 13] These results are likely understated
because some states that are reporting are not able to track the data
in a systematic or verifiable way. Three of the 13 states we contacted
that deny, suspend, and revoke vehicle registrations based on an out-
of-service order do not track the number of registration denials.
Officials in one of those three states told us that no record is
created when registrations are denied. Rather, after a carrier
attempting to register or reregister a vehicle associated with an out-
of-service DOT number in that state is told the out-of-service order
precludes registration, the carrier typically leaves the office, ending
the matter. Officials in another state manually track denials, but have
no method of verifying the data. FMCSA officials acknowledge that there
are limitations to the data and that the data probably underestimate
the number of denials, suspensions, and revocations that occur.
Stakeholders Contacted View PRISM Implementation as Worth the Effort,
Although Its Impact on Safety Is Difficult to Measure:
Officials from each of the 13 states we contacted that deny, suspend,
or revoke registrations told us that they believe PRISM is worth the
effort to implement because the grant program provides a deterrent
against unsafe carriers. State officials told us that the deterrent can
increase safety, but they could not quantify improved safety outside of
tracking the number of denials, suspensions, and revocations of vehicle
registrations to out-of-service carriers. Law enforcement officials in
one state we met with told us that PRISM grants may enable them to
identify these carriers by providing officials with wireless
connections to safety databases, allowing officials to check a
carrier's safety status at weigh stations on the roadside. As a result,
several state officials believe that PRISM has helped keep their
roadways safer. For example, officials in one state told us that PRISM
implementation is worth the effort--even if it has only prevented a few
out-of-service carriers from registering. The state official said that
if PRISM implementation prevents a major, expensive crash, then the
program would be a success.
FMCSA officials told us that state denial of vehicle registrations
associated with out-of-service carriers serve as a sufficient deterrent
to prevent some unsafe carriers from attempting to obtain valid
registrations. Representatives from industry and safety groups echoed
these comments. Representatives from a safety association we met with
told us that PRISM is the only program that establishes a safety
connection between a vehicle and the motor carrier company on an up-to-
date basis.
We believe that the PRISM program appears to have a very strong
potential cost-benefit component. The overall cost of implementing the
program ($5 million per year) is relatively small in comparison to the
potential benefit of increased roadway safety as a result of reduced
out-of service carriers operating on U.S. roadways, especially as more
states deny, suspend, and revoke the registrations of vehicles
associated with out-of-service carriers.
FMCSA Has Looked for Ways to Measure PRISM's Impact on Safety, but Has
Not Yet Adopted Measures:
FMCSA sought to understand PRISM's effectiveness by sponsoring an
evaluation of the PRISM program and the extent to which PRISM has
improved safety. In 2007, the Volpe Center, which conducted this
evaluation, concluded that states with denial, suspension, and
revocation capability show some improved safety over time compared with
other states, indicating that PRISM, when fully implemented, could have
contributed to lower crash rates, although its results were
inconclusive in several areas.[Footnote 14] The Volpe report used two
measures to assess how PRISM's registration sanction component affected
commercial vehicle safety:[Footnote 15]
* Comparison of commercial vehicle crash rates in pre-PRISM versus post-
PRISM states and in PRISM versus non-PRISM states by year. The report
found that the comparison of crash rates in eight states that
progressed from nonparticipating to denying, suspending, and revoking
vehicle registrations between 2000 and 2005 revealed a potential
downward influence on crash rates in states that fully implemented
PRISM. While almost all eight states had rising crash rates over time,
the increase was lower for these states compared with other states that
did not fully implement PRISM over the same time period. Comparisons
between commercial vehicle crash rates in states that do not
participate in PRISM and states that deny, suspend, and revoke vehicle
registrations by year were inconclusive.
* States' success in denying registrations to out-of-service carriers.
The report found that, with few exceptions, PRISM states did not
erroneously issue registrations to out-of-service carriers.
The Volpe report concluded that PRISM cannot succeed alone, as it works
in conjunction with other FMCSA and state programs (for example,
compliance reviews, new entrant safety audits, and roadside
inspections) to reduce crashes and safety violation rates. Because all
FMCSA programs are aimed at reducing crash rates and because numerous
factors contribute to crash rates, isolating PRISM's effect is
difficult.
Although isolating PRISM's impact on safety is difficult, measuring
performance when a significant number of states fully implement PRISM
could help FMCSA assess PRISM's effectiveness in achieving the program
goal of improved safety. The 2007 Volpe report suggested that FMCSA
evaluate the program's effectiveness by using the measures discussed
above, which Volpe initially used to assess PRISM's effect on
commercial vehicle safety (that is, comparison of crash rates and state
success in sanctioning registrations). FMCSA officials told us they
have not evaluated crash rates in states pre-and post-PRISM
implementation because of insufficient resources and because of the
difficulty of isolating PRISM's effect on crash rates. For example, the
benefits of PRISM implementation may not be seen in the state that
implemented the program (that is, a vehicle denied registration in one
state may have had a crash in another state). As such, isolating
PRISM's effect on state crash rates is complicated, particularly when
only about half the states have fully implemented PRISM. Consequently,
changes in crash rates pre-and post-PRISM may be attributable to other
factors. FMCSA officials told us that this may simply represent a
correlation, rather than a cause and effect relationship, or may be the
result of the state implementing a variety of safety-related actions.
However, as the Volpe report noted, an effective control method for
factors that influence motor carrier crash occurrence (for example,
highway infrastructure or weather) is to observe the impact of PRISM
implementation one state at a time, comparing pre-and post-PRISM crash
rates within the same states over time. The Volpe report added that
while such an approach does not eliminate the problem of external
factors that influence crash rates, it provides a degree of control not
possible in simple comparisons of crash rates between PRISM and non-
PRISM states.
While the current FMCSA data on PRISM--the number of denials,
suspensions, and revocations--are useful, they do not fully measure
PRISM's effectiveness. In particular, the number of denials is an
imperfect measure. As the Volpe report points out, a reduction in the
number of denials over time may imply either that PRISM is not doing a
good job or that PRISM has had a substantial positive influence by
functioning as a deterrent that discourages carriers from attempting to
register vehicles while under an out-of-service order. Over time and as
more states participate in PRISM, the number of denials may decrease
because carriers will know that they will not be able to receive valid
registrations if they are out of service.[Footnote 16] Furthermore,
until all--or nearly all--states are fully implementing PRISM, the
numbers of suspensions and revocations are also imperfect measures,
since out-of-service carriers can obtain vehicle registrations in the
states that are not fully implementing PRISM. According to FMCSA
officials, since the Volpe evaluation, PRISM has implemented an alert
report that identifies vehicles when they are placed out of service.
State officials then suspend these vehicles in a timely manner, leaving
very few vehicles that are available to fit into the category of denial
of registration at renewal.
FMCSA officials also told us that the number of carriers that have
vehicle registrations suspended and revoked under PRISM will not be
equal to the number of carriers ordered out of service in a given year
for several reasons. First, according to FMCSA data, the majority of
carriers (about 87 percent) ordered out of service in 2008 were new
entrants. These entrants may not have tried to register vehicles, so
there may not be any vehicle registrations to suspend or revoke, or
they may have mistakenly registered as an interstate carrier when they
should have registered as an intrastate carrier or a registrant only.
[Footnote 17] According to FMCSA officials, these registrants provide a
DOT number at the time of registration for the carrier responsible for
safety. Since the DOT number is not associated with a carrier that is
out of service, the vehicles will not be suspended even if the
registrant's number is associated with an out-of-service order. Second,
for those carriers ordered out of service for failure to pay fines
(about 8 percent in 2008, according to FMCSA data), FMCSA advises
states to check with the state FMCSA Division Office before they go
through the work of denying, suspending, and revoking vehicles. FMCSA
advises this action because the fines may be resolved within a couple
of days, and it would not be worth the effort of sanctioning the
registrations to reinstate them hours or days later. In addition, there
are also out-of-service carriers in non-PRISM states that will not have
their vehicle registrations suspended. Last, the numbers of out-of-
service carriers include interstate carriers that operate vehicles that
weigh between 10,000 and 26,000 pounds. IRP does not require carriers
to register vehicles that weigh less than 26,000 pounds. Since PRISM
only affects IRP registrations--these carriers are not included in
PRISM.
The Volpe report indicated that PRISM will struggle to achieve its full
potential until most states (perhaps 90 percent) are implementing PRISM
to the extent that they can deny, suspend, and revoke vehicle
registrations. FMCSA officials said that other than collecting data on
the number of out-of-service carriers that had vehicle registrations
sanctioned, it is difficult to measure PRISM's effectiveness. One
official told us that as long as the program is executed correctly,
PRISM enables states to deny, suspend, or revoke the vehicle
registrations of out-of-service carriers. When most states have the
capability to sanction registrations, it may be easier to demonstrate
PRISM's effect on safety. FMCSA officials have suggested that this
might be from about 38 to 40 states.
In response to the Volpe evaluation, FMCSA developed performance
measures for state participants, such as suspending or revoking the
registration of vehicles associated with an out-of-service carrier for
all reasons permitted by state law, and for the PRISM team, such as
performing annual implementation reviews on six states, assisting
states in preparing their implementation plans, and publishing two
newsletters each year. For the most part, these measures seem to be
process-oriented and do not appear to demonstrate the achievements of
the program.
In our view, applying outcome performance measures such as Volpe's two
measures and measuring the percentage of out-of-service carriers
affected by PRISM, while ultimately useful, may be premature at this
time. Currently, PRISM's success is undercut by the 25 states and the
District of Columbia that either do not yet have the capability to
deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations of out-of-service
carriers or do not participate in the program.
Patchwork Implementation Is One of Several Factors Limiting PRISM's
Effectiveness:
According to FMCSA data, 22 states and the District of Columbia are not
far enough along in implementing PRISM to deny, suspend, or revoke
vehicle registrations of out-of-service carriers, and 3 states do not
participate in PRISM at all. As a result, out-of-service carriers in
these 25 states and the District of Columbia can register and
reregister vehicles and keep operating with valid registrations, albeit
in violation of FMCSA's out-of-service orders. In addition, carriers
that had been denied registration in PRISM states may be able to
register vehicles in non-PRISM states or PRISM states that do not yet
have the capability to deny, revoke, or suspend registrations for out-
of-service carriers. Of the over 2 million vehicles with IRP
registrations in 2007, about 1.3 million vehicles (or 65 percent) were
registered in states that are not denying, suspending, or revoking
vehicle registrations. States with some of the largest numbers of
commercial vehicle registrations, such as Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma,
New Jersey, and California, have not fully implemented PRISM.
In addition, charter buses are exempt from IRP (interstate)
registration and thus not subject to PRISM.[Footnote 18] Charter bus
crashes are relatively rare but can be particularly deadly, since many
people may be involved. The American Bus Association commissioned a
2008 motor coach census, which found that in 2007, over 3,400 carriers
operated about 33,500 buses in the United States and Canada.[Footnote
19] Over 96 percent of carriers provided charter services. Although
some charter buses choose to register through IRP, many do not and,
therefore, are not included in PRISM. Representatives from IRP, Inc.,
the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, and the
United Motorcoach Association, as well as officials from FMCSA, told us
that charter buses are exempt from IRP registrations because the
vehicles are for hire and may not be able to reliably predict which
states they may travel to in order to properly apportion registration
fees. The representatives, however, were not able to provide a
rationale for why this exemption does not apply to for-hire trucking
companies that also may not be able to reliably predict the states in
which they may travel. Officials from FMCSA told us that charter buses
could be included in PRISM if charter buses were required to register
through IRP or if PRISM was expanded to include non-IRP vehicles.
Officials from nine states we met with that sanction vehicle
registrations of out-of-service carriers told us that charter buses
should be included in PRISM. According to representatives from IRP,
Inc., there has been some discussion on changing the exemption to
require charter buses to register through IRP; however, no changes have
been formally submitted for approval by its member states.
Finally, while PRISM helps states identify vehicles associated with an
out-of-service carrier, they are not always able to keep these vehicles
from being registered. Theoretically, when an out-of-service carrier
attempts to reregister a vehicle using a new carrier name and new DOT
number, states implementing PRISM would know that the vehicle
identification number is or has been associated with an out-of-service
DOT number. In some states, officials said that they deny registrations
to carriers they suspect of being chameleon carriers because the IRP
system alerts them that the vehicles are associated with an out-of-
service carrier. However, officials from 6 of the 13 states we
contacted that deny, suspend, and revoke vehicle registrations told us
that they provide registrations because they cannot conclusively link
the new carrier to the old out-of-service carrier at the time of
registration--even if the vehicle identification number is or has been
associated with an out-of-service carrier--especially when the new
carrier is presenting legitimate documentation of the new company. In
one state, officials told us that if a vehicle identification number
for a new registration is identified through PRISM as being associated
with an out-of-service DOT number, the carrier is notified that the
vehicle is attached to the out-of-service DOT number. If the carrier
provides proper documentation to support ownership (for example, proof
of an established place of business in the state, proof of title for
the vehicles being registered, and other documents), the vehicle is
registered[Footnote 20]. Officials added that they would also provide
registration for these carriers because it would be next to impossible
to prove differently based on speculation.
In another state, officials told us that once a chameleon carrier
obtains a new DOT number, the motor vehicle administration is unable to
prevent the carrier from obtaining an IRP registration--even if they
know the carrier is a chameleon carrier--because they do not deny the
registration until FMCSA connects the identity of the "new" carrier
with the out-of-service carrier. According to those state officials,
they issue new registrations to carriers that have valid paperwork
showing a new name and DOT number, among other things. Those officials
also told us that they contact the state FMCSA division office when
they suspect that a carrier may be evading an out-of-service order. An
official from the FMCSA state division office told us they investigate
the carrier by reviewing carrier, driver, and vehicle records to
determine whether the carrier is in fact a chameleon carrier. If they
are able to prove that the carrier reinvented itself to evade an out-
of-service order, the out-of-service order will be transferred to the
new DOT number, and the state can then suspend the vehicle
registrations associated with the new DOT number.
Chameleon carriers may also remain in operation in many states by
registering as intrastate carriers, but continuing to operate as
interstate carriers. By registering as intrastate carriers, these
carriers are no longer subject to federal regulation. Officials in 12
of the 13 states we contacted were not using vehicle identification
numbers to check for federal out-of service orders prior to issuing an
intrastate registration to a carrier. According to FMCSA officials,
FMCSA has been recommending that states modify their laws to prohibit
the issuance of any vehicle registration to a carrier that has received
a federal out-of-service order. FMCSA has also allocated a supplemental
grant to Washington state to incorporate non-IRP registrations into the
PRISM network to ensure that state motor vehicle administrations check
federal out-of-service orders before issuing registrations to non-IRP
vehicles. Georgia officials told us they requested funds to expand
PRISM to non-IRP commercial vehicles. According to FMCSA officials, the
agency provides funds to expand PRISM's registration sanction framework
to include vehicles exempt from IRP registrations. Most states have two
databases for registering motor vehicles--one for vehicles that are
required to obtain IRP registrations and one for vehicles that are
exempt, such as charter buses that are under FMCSA's oversight and
intrastate carriers. Thus, even though intrastate carriers are not
generally under FMCSA's regulatory authority, they are included within
the registration database of other vehicles that are under FMCSA's
regulatory authority.
National PRISM Implementation May Not Occur for Years if PRISM Is
Maintained as a Voluntary Program:
Time States Need to Implement PRISM Varies:
PRISM will be most effective when all--or nearly all--states have the
ability to deny, suspend, and revoke registrations; only about half of
them have this capability now. At the outset of PRISM implementation,
FMCSA works with each state to create an implementation plan, which
includes identifying responsible parties, how the state will meet the
program requirements, timelines for completion, and estimated costs.
States are also required to report their progress to FMCSA on a regular
basis, as designated in the implementation plan. While some states have
implemented PRISM relatively quickly, it has taken other states much
longer. FMCSA data show that the average time it took states to affect
vehicle registrations after the states committed to implementing PRISM
was 3 years and 4 months, but it can take as little as 10 months or as
long as 7 years and 4 months. (See figure 2.) In addition, FMCSA data
show that nine states have been implementing PRISM for 5 years or more
but are not yet able to deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations
of out-of-service carriers for reasons discussed later in this report.
FMCSA officials stated, however, that in comparison with other
voluntary programs, such as IRP and the International Fuel Tax
Agreement (a fuel use tax agreement that establishes uniform
administration of motor fuel taxation laws for interstate motor
vehicles), states are implementing PRISM at a satisfactory pace. IRP
began in 1973, while the International Fuel Tax Agreement began in
1983. Neither program had participation among all 48 contiguous states
until the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991
encouraged state participation.[Footnote 21]
Figure 2: Time Taken for States to Reach Ability to Deny, Suspend, or
Revoke Vehicle Registrations:
[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph]
Time taken: Less than 1 year;
Number of states: 1.
Time taken: 1 year to less than 2 years;
Number of states: 3.
Time taken: 2 years to less than 3 years;
Number of states: 7.
Time taken: 3 years to less than 4 years;
Number of states: 4;
Time taken: 4 years to less than 5 years;
Number of states: 4.
Time taken: 5 years or more;
Number of states: 4.
Source: GAO presentation of FMCSA data.
Note: Iowa and Minnesota also have the ability to deny, suspend, or
revoke registrations. These states were part of the pilot of PRISM and
had this ability while in the pilot stage. Therefore, their data are
not included in this figure.
[End of figure]
State officials we met with identified several factors that affected
the time states needed to fully implement PRISM. Officials in all 13
states we met with that are denying, suspending, and revoking vehicle
registrations identified one or more of the following three key factors
that facilitated implementation:
* Hiring a contractor to implement technical aspects of PRISM, rather
than implementing PRISM with current state staff. Ten states hired a
contractor to implement technical aspects of PRISM. State officials
told us that an experienced contractor often provides states with the
expertise to properly implement PRISM's technical components in a
timely manner. Officials from one state told us that hiring a
contractor that had been used by other states to implement technical
aspects of PRISM made implementation easy.
* Having one agency responsible for motor carrier issues. Officials
from five states told us that having one agency responsible for issuing
motor carrier registrations and providing motor-carrier safety
oversight helped facilitate implementation. Officials from one of those
states told us that three separate motor vehicle agencies
(registration, enforcement, and oversight) came together into a single
motor carrier services division, which made PRISM implementation much
easier. Prior to that time, agreeing on an agenda and coordinating
between the agencies was difficult.
* Sufficient financial support to fully implement the program. Each
year, FMCSA allocates $4 million to various states to implement PRISM.
Some states receive more grant funds or a second grant allocation.
Officials from 11 states told us that these PRISM grant allocations
were sufficient; 6 of these 11 states received a second grant.
Officials from the 26 states we contacted identified one or more of the
following three key factors that prevented or delayed PRISM
implementation:
* Overhauling outdated commercial vehicle registration systems that
have difficulty incorporating technical aspects of PRISM. Officials in
nine states cited having outdated state IRP registration systems that
needed significant updating to incorporate PRISM functions. One state
was implementing a new, updated IRP system. According to officials from
that state, the cost of the new system was approximately $11 million.
FMCSA officials told us that they were aware that the state had to
improve its technical connectivity because its system was insufficient
to support PRISM.
* Competing priorities within state motor vehicle registration
administrations. Officials from eight states told us that competing
priorities within state motor vehicle administrations delayed or
hampered PRISM implementation. State motor vehicle administrations
typically have multiple responsibilities (such as licensing drivers and
registering passenger vehicles), and the registration of commercial
vehicles may only be a small part of these responsibilities. Officials
in one state told us that they prioritize programs that deal with
licensing drivers and registering passenger vehicles due to those
registration volume demands. Also, officials from four states said that
they were working on other commercial vehicle safety efforts, such as
the commercial vehicle information exchange window system, and unable
to move forward with PRISM implementation.[Footnote 22] Furthermore,
PRISM may conflict with a state motor vehicle administration's focus on
timely and efficient customer service. State motor vehicle
administrations often focus on processing registration applicants as
quickly as possible. PRISM may impose some time-consuming requirements,
depending on the state's registration system capabilities. For example,
two states have to manually check an applicant's safety status and work
with the carrier to update carrier information (also required by
PRISM),[Footnote 23] which can slow down the registration process.
* Inability to or difficulty in passing enabling legislation needed to
deny, suspend, or revoke commercial vehicle registrations based on a
federal out-of-service order. Officials from five states told us that
their states do not have PRISM-enabling legislation to revoke, deny, or
suspend registrations of out-of-service carriers. States need the legal
authority to impose vehicle registration sanctions against motor
carriers that FMCSA has prohibited from operating. State trucking
associations, however, may stall or block such enabling legislation.
For example, officials from one state told us that in trying to pass
legislation, the state trucking association was initially concerned
about the timeliness for carriers to get vehicle registrations
reinstated once the out-of-service order is rescinded. Once the
association understood that timeliness would not be an issue, it
supported PRISM.
FMCSA Is Limited in Accelerating National PRISM Implementation:
FMCSA has worked to address some of the factors states cited that delay
or prevent PRISM implementation, but is limited in its ability to speed
national implementation. Due largely to its voluntary nature, FMCSA is
limited in its ability to compel states to pass PRISM-enabling
legislation, prioritize PRISM implementation, or overhaul outdated
commercial vehicle registration systems. However, FMCSA has taken some
action to address these factors. First, FMCSA has drafted model PRISM-
enabling legislation that is available on its Web site. State
legislatures, however, may meet infrequently and may not value PRISM-
enabling legislation as an important agenda item, thereby delaying the
passage of needed legal authority to deny, suspend, or revoke the
registration of out-of-service motor carriers. Second, FMCSA holds a 2-
day training session with states to identify and begin to work through
the issues related to implementing PRISM, and develops an
implementation plan that presents step-by-step procedures to implement
PRISM. FMCSA cannot, however, compel states to move quickly on taking
those steps. Finally, FMCSA works with older state registration systems
(referred to as legacy systems) to facilitate connectivity to FMCSA
databases, and FMCSA staff provide technical assistance to help states
identify and address technical barriers to establishing connectivity.
FMCSA officials, however, told us that PRISM grants cannot fund a
multimillion dollar overhaul of the state's legacy system just to
establish PRISM connectivity, since PRISM connectivity is a relatively
minor aspect of such a registration system.
States we contacted that do not have the ability to deny, suspend, or
revoke vehicle registrations had differing views regarding actions that
FMCSA could have taken to help them implement PRISM more quickly.
Officials in three of the nine states that have been implementing PRISM
for 5 years or more without the ability to deny, suspend, or revoke
vehicle registrations of out-of-service carriers did not identify
actions that FMCSA could have taken to encourage them to implement
PRISM more quickly.[Footnote 24] Most state officials we contacted in
states not fully implementing PRISM told us that FMCSA consistently
offered to provide whatever support it could to help the state move
forward with implementation, although as previously mentioned, FMCSA
was often limited in its ability to influence certain factors.
Officials in two states, however, told us that FMCSA officials could
have contacted them more often or otherwise put more pressure on them
to raise PRISM's priority to ensure their state's participation in
PRISM. In addition, states that have fully implemented PRISM were
generally satisfied with FMCSA's actions to assist them in continuing
to operate PRISM.
Requiring Full PRISM Implementation Would Accelerate National
Implementation, but Faces Significant Drawbacks:
We conducted a general search of public policy literature for when a
mandatory or voluntary approach is preferred for program participation
and to achieve certain desired outcomes. Our review indicates that
requiring states to fully implement PRISM--thereby enabling them to
deny, suspend, or revoke the commercial vehicle registration of
carriers that FMCSA has ordered out of service (the desired outcome)--
may be a quicker approach toward achieving national PRISM
implementation than the current voluntary approach. PRISM
implementation and the program's desired safety outcome are consistent
with conditions indicating that a mandatory, rather than voluntary,
approach would work best. (See table 1.)
Table 1: Applicability of Mandatory and Voluntary Approaches to
Implementing PRISM:
Approach: Mandatory approach;
Condition of success: Desired outcome cannot be achieved through
voluntary efforts;
Applicability of approach to implementing PRISM: Uncertain; After 10
years, 25 states and the District of Columbia still do not deny,
suspend, or revoke the commercial vehicle registration of carriers that
FMCSA has ordered out of service. While all states may eventually have
this desired outcome, a mandatory approach that includes timelines
would achieve the desired outcome more quickly.
Approach: Mandatory approach;
Condition of success: Uniform application of a desired outcome is
sought;
Applicability of approach to implementing PRISM: Yes. After 10 years,
25 states and the District of Columbia still do not deny, suspend, or
revoke the commercial vehicle registration of carriers that FMCSA has
ordered out of service. While all states may eventually have this
desired outcome, a mandatory approach that includes timelines would
achieve the desired outcome more quickly.
Approach: Mandatory approach;
Condition of success: Regulating agency seeks assurance that its
compliance policies will be followed and establishes accountability;
Applicability of approach to implementing PRISM: Yes; Some out-of-
service carriers continue operating, thereby increasing the public's
safety risk. Having all states denying, suspending, or revoking the
registration of these carriers better provides FMCSA with the assurance
and accountability that unsafe carriers are not operating.
Approach: Voluntary approach;
Condition of success: Safety risks can be easily identified;
Applicability of approach to implementing PRISM: No; Out-of-service
carriers are not easy to identify, particularly chameleon carriers that
change their identities.
Approach: Voluntary approach;
Condition of success: Regulator has a strong sense of duty to achieve a
desired outcome; Applicability of approach to implementing PRISM: No;
Denying, suspending, or revoking the registration of out-of-service
carriers is generally not the principal concern of state motor vehicle
administrations.
Approach: Voluntary approach;
Condition of success: Regulator faces a tight budget and increasing
pressure to find cost-effective tools;
Applicability of approach to implementing PRISM: Yes; Federal costs
would almost certainly increase if the remaining 25 states and the
District of Columbia were to fully implement PRISM over the short term.
Thus, voluntary approaches may enable cost savings for FMCSA over
mandates. In addition, states are facing tight budgets in this
recessionary period.
Source: GAO analysis of public policy literature on preferable
attributes of mandatory and voluntary approaches.
[End of table]
Stakeholders we met with differed on whether Congress should enact
legislation that would require states to fully implement PRISM.
According to officials in 12 states and representatives from safety
associations we interviewed, Congress should require all states to
fully implement PRISM. These officials and representatives suggested
that all states should be required to implement PRISM to ensure
nationwide coverage so that no state becomes a "dumping ground" for
unsafe or chameleon carriers. In addition, requiring states to
implement PRISM by a certain date could result in timely national
implementation. Conversely, officials in 3 of the 26 states supported
keeping PRISM a voluntary program.[Footnote 25] These officials noted
that a mandate was unnecessary, since only 3 states have not committed
to PRISM implementation. Furthermore, several state officials that are
currently implementing PRISM told us that even though they did not
implement PRISM quickly, the factors that prevented them from moving
forward were eventually overcome. In addition, states are making
progress in fully implementing PRISM. Since 2000, state participation
and implementation of PRISM has increased steadily. (See figure 3.) For
example, in 2000, 33 states and the District of Columbia were not
participating in PRISM, and as of April 2009, only 3 states were not
participating. FMCSA data also indicate progress toward increased PRISM
participation.
Figure 3: Progress in Implementing PRISM, 2000 through April 2009:
[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph]
Year: 2000;
States not participating in PRISM: 33;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 15;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 2.
Year: 2001;
States not participating in PRISM: 29;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 17;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 4.
Year: 2002;
States not participating in PRISM: 22;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 22;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 6.
Year: 2003;
States not participating in PRISM: 21;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 18;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 11.
Year: 2004;
States not participating in PRISM: 13;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 21;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 16.
Year: 2005;
States not participating in PRISM: 8;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 23;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 19.
Year: 2006;
States not participating in PRISM: 5;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 24;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 21.
Year: 2007;
States not participating in PRISM: 5;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 23;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 22.
Year: 2008;
States not participating in PRISM: 4;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 21;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 25.
Year: April, 2009;
States not participating in PRISM: 3;
States implementing or committed to implementing PRISM: 22;
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations based on
federal out-of-service order: 25.
Source: GAO presentation of FMCSA data.
Note: This figure does not include the District of Columbia, which
began its participation in 2008 when it committed to implementing
PRISM. Its status remains unchanged as of April 2009.
[End of figure]
While our review of public policy literature indicated that requiring
states to fully implement PRISM may be a quicker approach toward
achieving national PRISM implementation than the current voluntary
approach, requiring states to implement PRISM within a certain time
frame faces significant potential drawbacks and barriers--both
technical and legal. First, such a requirement will likely cause PRISM
implementation to move toward the top of a state motor vehicle
registration administration's priority. PRISM implementation, however,
may not be the most important activity for a state motor vehicle
administration and may inhibit the administration's ability to complete
other responsibilities, such as processing driver's licenses. Second,
some states with significant barriers to PRISM implementation may need
to obtain substantial funds in order to comply with a PRISM
requirement. States with legacy registration systems that do not allow
connectivity to FMCSA safety databases, for example, may need
substantially more funds to enable them to fully implement PRISM than
PRISM grants generally can provide. This could be problematic in
today's recessionary climate. PRISM grants are intended to fund the
costs of creating technology interfaces between the states' systems and
FMCSA databases and not to fund complete registration system overhauls,
which could cost millions of dollars. In addition to these technical
issues, Congress may not have the legal authority to require states to
implement PRISM. Congress can impose nationwide requirements pursuant
to authorities specified in the Constitution. Under the Tenth
Amendment, however, Congress cannot require states to enact laws or
regulations that would compel a state to enforce a federal regulatory
program.[Footnote 26]
While Congress is limited in its ability to require state adoption of
PRISM, it has three options that may enable it to strongly encourage
state participation. First, Congress can attach conditions upon the
receipt of federal funds. For example, as it has done in the past,
Congress could require that states will lose a certain percentage of
highway construction funds if they fail to fully implement PRISM within
a given time. In DOT's 2001 appropriations act,[Footnote 27] Congress
provided the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with the
ability to encourage states to adopt stricter standards for making it
illegal for people to drive with a specified blood alcohol
concentration (BAC) of .08 percent.[Footnote 28] Under this provision,
later codified, states that did not adopt a conforming .08 percent BAC
law by October 1, 2003, would have a percentage of highway construction
funds withheld each year.[Footnote 29] Consequently, by July 2004, the
legislatures in all 50 states and the District of Columbia passed laws
defining it as a crime to drive with a BAC at or above .08 percent,
whereas in 1999, only 16 states had enacted such a law. If this
approach was applied to PRISM, a state motor vehicle administration
that chooses not to implement PRISM would trigger a reduction in that
state's transportation department's highway construction funds. As a
result, Congress may be withholding funds from a state agency that is
not responsible for implementing PRISM. But, such a scenario is similar
to states adopting .08 percent BAC laws.
A second option available to Congress is to provide financial
incentives to states that speed PRISM implementation. Congress can
provide an incentive payment, such as a one-time payment for
implementing PRISM within a predetermined number of years. Furthermore,
Congress can require states that do not stay in the program for a
predetermined period to return the payment to ensure states stay
committed to full PRISM implementation. States, however, may find that
financial incentives such as payments are insufficient to overcome the
factors that prevent or delay them from fully implementing PRISM--
particularly in states that need expensive overhauls of outdated
registration systems. Furthermore, as more states move forward with
PRISM implementation, Congress may end up allocating a substantial
amount of financial incentives to states that eventually would have
fully implemented PRISM without such an enticement. In addition,
according to FMCSA officials, states that have already implemented
PRISM may find this option unfair.
Finally, Congress can strongly encourage state participation by
developing associated mandatory elements. As discussed earlier,
Congress, through the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act
of 1991,[Footnote 30] developed mandatory elements of enforcement,
regulation, and reporting that strongly encouraged states to
participate in IRP and the International Fuel Tax Agreement. With the
IRP, the act stated that after September 1996, a nonparticipating state
could not establish or enforce its own motor vehicle registration laws
and regulations on vehicles that have IRP registrations from other
states.[Footnote 31] With the International Fuel Tax Agreement, the act
stated that after September 1996, a state can establish or enforce a
law or regulation that has a fuel tax reporting requirement or provides
for the payment of fuel tax only if it does so in a way that meets the
requirements of the International Fuel Tax Agreement.[Footnote 32] In
applying a similar approach to PRISM, Congress could condition states'
ability to issue IRP registrations on using PRISM functions to check or
deny a carrier's operating status prior to issuing such registrations.
Such strong encouragement to impose PRISM, however, may cause problems
for states that do not have the money needed to overhaul an outdated
registration system to enable PRISM functionality.
Similar to IRP and the International Fuel Tax Agreement, Congress can
look to the National Driver Registry (NDR) as a comparison of a
voluntary roadway safety initiative that achieved significant state
participation following strong federal encouragement. The National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration administers the NDR database
system, which is similar to PRISM in its purpose and framework. Similar
to PRISM, states are not required to participate in the NDR. The NDR
facilitates the exchange of driver information between participating
states to ensure that commercial vehicle drivers who have had their
licenses suspended or revoked or who have been convicted of serious
traffic violations (for example, driving while impaired by alcohol or
drugs) in one state do not receive a new or renewed license in another
state. State motor vehicle administrations provide the NDR with the
names of individuals who have lost driving privileges or who have been
convicted of a serious traffic violation. When a person applies or
reapplies for a driver's license, the state queries the system--
maintained by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators-
-to see if that applicant is listed on the NDR. If a state has reported
the applicant on the NDR as a problem driver, the state may deny the
applicant's request for a license.
According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official,
before 1986, the NDR was not fully effective since not all states were
checking the NDR prior to issuing commercial driver's licenses.
Congress, however, passed the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of
1986,[Footnote 33] which required states to check the NDR prior to
issuing new commercial driver's licenses in the state. Still, while all
states checked the NDR when new licenses were issued, not all states
were checking the system during renewals. Consequently, commercial
vehicle drivers who were convicted of serious traffic violations in a
state other than where they were licensed were still able to have their
licenses renewed in their home states. Subsequently, Congress passed
the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999,[Footnote 34] which
required states to check the NDR for all new license issues and
renewals.[Footnote 35] A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
official told us that, partly due to this requirement, state queries of
the NDR went from 35 million per year in 2001 to over 100 million per
year in 2008.
Conclusions:
As a relatively small program, FMCSA's PRISM grants appear to have
great potential to improve highway safety by preventing motor carriers
that FMCSA has ordered out of service from obtaining or maintaining
valid vehicle registrations, thereby inhibiting their ability to
operate unlawfully. Although 47 states and the District of Columbia are
either committed to or already implementing PRISM, the program's impact
is unknown because FMCSA has not adopted measures of program
effectiveness. This makes some sense, since the program has not been
fully implemented in 25 states and the District of Columbia. Until a
sufficient number of states have the ability to prevent unsafe motor
carriers from obtaining or maintaining vehicle registrations,
attempting to measure the effectiveness of PRISM grants will not be
particularly fruitful. FMCSA officials have suggested that a sufficient
number of states might be 38 to 40 states.
Finally, despite the potential safety advantages in having all states
and the District of Columbia fully implement PRISM and a variety of
options for doing so, we are not suggesting that Congress legislate
such a requirement because of the drawbacks and challenges of doing so.
Recommendation for Executive Action:
In order to assess PRISM's effectiveness in keeping unsafe carriers off
the road, we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation direct the
Administrator of FMCSA to measure PRISM program effectiveness when the
number of states that have the ability to deny, suspend, or revoke
registrations to out-of-service carriers is sufficient to make such
measurements meaningful.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Transportation
for its review and comment. The department generally agreed with the
recommendation. It also offered one technical comment, which we
incorporated.
We are sending copies of this report to congressional committees
interested in motor carrier safety issues; the Secretary of
Transportation; the Administrator of FMCSA; and the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-2834 or flemings@gao.gov. Contact points for
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on
the last page of this report. Staff who made key contributions to this
report are listed in appendix II.
Signed by:
Susan A. Fleming:
Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To report on the extent to which the Performance Registration
Information Systems Management (PRISM) grants program has effectively
removed unsafe carriers from the roadway, we obtained Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) data on the number of motor
carriers that had vehicle registrations denied, suspended, or revoked.
These data are to be reported to FMCSA on a quarterly basis by states
that have implemented PRISM to the point where they are denying,
suspending, and revoking vehicle registrations of out-of-service
carriers. We interviewed officials from FMCSA to discuss how data are
collected and verified and how the data are used to assess PRISM's
effectiveness. We also conducted semistructured interviews with a
nongeneralizable sample of state motor vehicle administration officials
and state law enforcement officials from 13 states that deny, suspend,
or revoke vehicle registrations to discuss their state's experience
implementing PRISM, how effective the program has been, and the
soundness and conclusiveness of reported data. We selected the 13
states based on their progress implementing PRISM and their status as
states with the largest numbers of commercial vehicles registered
through the International Registration Plan (IRP).[Footnote 36] We
selected states with the most vehicles registered, assuming that the
proportion of out-of-service vehicles are distributed relatively evenly
across states. State data on out-of-service vehicles are incomplete,
and we did not test this assumption.
In determining the reliability of FMCSA's data on the number of motor
carriers that had vehicle registrations denied, suspended, or revoked
because of an out-of-service order, we interviewed officials from FMCSA
who are knowledgeable about the data and how the data are collected and
analyzed. We also attempted to obtain similar information from states
that are fully implementing PRISM. We identified shortcomings with
these data, which we disclosed in this report, but found the data
sufficiently reliable for our purpose, which was to provide a general
sense of the extent to which PRISM implementation has resulted in
vehicle registration sanctions.
We met with state officials and representatives from motor carrier
industry and safety associations and obtained their views on the extent
to which PRISM has improved highway safety or had other benefits. (See
table 2 at the end of this appendix for a list of industry and safety
associations we interviewed.) We reviewed a 2007 Volpe National
Transportation Systems Center evaluation of the PRISM program that
reported on the extent to which PRISM has improved roadway safety and
the limitations to FMCSA's data on the denial of commercial vehicle
registrations to motor carriers FMCSA placed out of service. Finally,
we reviewed information from interviews and the 2007 Volpe report to
identify and describe the factors that limit PRISM's effectiveness.
To report on the potential to fully implement the program nationally,
we met with officials from FMCSA, state motor vehicle administrations,
and state law enforcement offices in 26 selected states, as well as
representatives from industry and safety associations. We conducted
semistructured interviews with state motor vehicle administrations from
13 states that have fully implemented PRISM; 3 states that are
implementing the grant program (that is, they are collecting vehicle
identification numbers and the DOT numbers of the carriers associated
with those vehicles and may be checking the safety status of the
carrier at the time of registration) but do not yet have the capability
to affect vehicle registrations; 8 states that have entered into an
agreement with FMCSA to implement PRISM grants but have not yet moved
forward substantially to implement the program; and 2 states that do
not participate in PRISM at all. (See table 2 for a list of state
agencies we interviewed.) We selected these states based on their
progress implementing PRISM and their status as states with the largest
numbers of commercial vehicles registered through the IRP in 2006, the
latest year for which full data were available at the time we selected
states to interview. We reviewed FMCSA data regarding the time states
have taken to reach the ability to deny, suspend, or revoke vehicle
registrations of out-of-service carriers, after signing a statement of
intent to participate in the PRISM program. We analyzed testimonial
evidence to identify factors that enabled states to deny, suspend, and
revoke registrations and factors that have delayed or prevented other
states from moving forward. We also analyzed the information to
identify the factors FMCSA can affect and those it cannot.
As part of our work on the potential to implement the program
nationally, we conducted a general search of public policy literature
for when a mandatory or voluntary approach is preferred for program
participation and to achieve certain desired outcomes. Through our
literature search, which covered materials dating from 1998 to 2008, we
identified and analyzed five articles that listed conditions for when a
mandatory or voluntary approach works best. The articles described when
a mandatory or voluntary approach is preferable for implementing
environmental, animal production and processing, and food safety
regulations on private sector entities; we did not find literature that
identified conditions for when a federal agency should administer a
mandatory or voluntary approach on state governments to achieve a
certain desired outcome. Furthermore, we identified similar,
comparative programs that have mandatory elements. In addition, we
identified and analyzed drawbacks to mandating state implementation of
PRISM and potential options available to Congress for encouraging--
rather than mandating--state legislative or regulatory action that
could speed nationwide PRISM implementation. Finally, we assessed
FMCSA's oversight for those states that are denying, suspending, and
revoking registrations by obtaining testimonial information on FMCSA's
efforts to assist them in continuing to operate PRISM.
Table 2: State Agencies and Industry and Safety Associations
Interviewed:
States denying, suspending, or revoking vehicle registrations of out-
of-service carriers:
Alabama Department of Revenue:
Alabama FMCSA Division Office:
Georgia Department of Revenue:
Georgia Department of Public Safety:
Idaho Transportation Department:
Iowa Department of Transportation:
Iowa FMCSA Division Office:
Minnesota Department of Public Safety:
Minnesota FMCSA Division Office:
Minnesota State Patrol, Commercial Vehicle Division:
Missouri Department of Transportation:
Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles:
Nebraska State Patrol:
New Mexico Commercial Vehicle Bureau, Taxation and Revenue Department:
New Mexico Department of Public Safety:
New Mexico FMCSA Division Office:
North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles:
North Carolina FMCSA Division Office:
North Carolina State Highway Patrol:
Ohio Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Motor Vehicles.:
Ohio Contractor, Affiliated Computer Services, Inc.
Ohio FMCSA Division Office:
Ohio State Highway Patrol:
Tennessee Department of Revenue:
Tennessee Department of Safety, Highway Patrol:
Utah Division of Motor Vehicles:
Utah Department of Public Safety, Highway Patrol:
Washington Department of Licensing:
Washington FMCSA Division Office:
Washington State Patrol.
States that implement PRISM but do not yet have capability to sanction
vehicle registrations:
Indiana FMCSA Division Office:
Indiana Department of Revenue:
Indiana State Police:
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation:
Texas Department of Transportation.
States committed to implementing PRISM:
California Department of Motor Vehicles:
California Highway Patrol:
Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles:
Illinois Office of the Secretary of State:
Illinois FMCSA Division Office:
Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles:
Mississippi State Tax Commission:
Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Transportation Division:
Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles:
Virginia State Police:
Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
States not participating in PRISM:
Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration:
Michigan Department of State.
Industry associations:
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators:
American Trucking Associations:
United Motorcoach Association.
Safety associations:
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety:
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance:
Truck Safety Coalition.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Susan A. Fleming, (202) 512-2834 or flemings@gao.gov.
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, James Ratzenberger (Assistant
Director), Michelle Everett (Analyst-in-Charge), Samer Abbas, Brandon
Haller, Delwen Jones, Hannah Laufe, Joshua Ormond, and made key
contributions to this report.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Commercial motor carriers operate large commercial trucks and
buses. Large trucks are those with a gross vehicle weight greater than
10,000 pounds. A bus is a motor vehicle that carries more than eight
passengers (including the driver). Crashes involving motor carriers may
result from errors by truck, bus, or passenger vehicle drivers; vehicle
condition; and other factors. The fatality rate (deaths per 100 million
miles traveled) for commercial motor vehicles has been fairly stable
since 2002.
[2] There are three other components of PRISM. First, PRISM may provide
state law enforcement agencies with the funds to access systems to
check the safety status of the carrier for which vehicles stopped at
the roadside are operating, to ensure vehicles are not operating for
carriers that have been ordered out of service--if this capability does
not already exist. Second, PRISM includes the deployment of roadside
technologies, such as wireless access to FMCSA databases and bar-code
readers that read driver and vehicle information and automatically
populate data fields in roadside reports to improve the efficiency and
accuracy of data collection. Last, PRISM includes the Motor Carrier
Safety Improvement Process, which is a data-driven process that uses
current safety event information such as accidents, inspections, driver
violations, compliance review data, and other information, to assess
and monitor motor carrier safety performance. This report deals with
the commercial vehicle registration aspects of PRISM and not these
three other components.
[3] According to FMCSA officials, in addition to the 25 states, 4
states suspend and revoke vehicle registrations for of out-of-service
carriers; however, they do so on a case-by-case basis when requested by
FMCSA and do not have the capability to check the safety status at the
time vehicle registration renewals are requested in order to deny
registrations. These 4 states do not report any suspension or
revocation information to FMCSA. Additionally, there are 2 other states
that also deny, suspend, and revoke vehicle registrations of out-of-
service carriers, but these states do so when requested by FMCSA, not
through the regular structure of the PRISM program. As such, we did not
include these 6 states in our count.
[4] John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Motor Carrier
Safety Division for FMCSA Strategic Planning and Program Evaluation
Division, Performance & Registration Information Systems Management,
Program Evaluation Final Report (August 2007).
[5] Safety audits and compliance reviews also provide education and
outreach opportunities for motor carriers and drivers on safety and
hazardous materials regulations.
[6] FMCSA is developing a new initiative--Comprehensive Safety Analysis
2010--to extend its reach. See GAO, Motor Carrier Safety: The Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration Has Developed a Reasonable
Framework for Managing and Testing Its Comprehensive Safety Analysis
2010 Initiative, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-242R]
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 20, 2007) and FMCSA's Web site at [hyperlink,
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety-security/csa2010/home.htm].
[7] The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance is an international not-for-
profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial,
and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives
from the United States, Canada, and Mexico that establishes minimum
inspection and vehicle out-of-service criteria for highway enforcement
officials.
[8] The DOT number serves as a unique identifier when collecting and
monitoring a carrier's safety information acquired during audits,
compliance reviews, crash investigations, and inspections. Companies
that operate commercial vehicles transporting passengers or hauling
cargo in interstate commerce must be registered with the FMCSA and must
have a DOT number. Also, commercial intrastate hazardous materials
carriers that haul cargo requiring a safety permit must have a DOT
number.
[9] IRP is used to register commercial motor vehicles with a gross
vehicle weight of over 26,000 pounds that travel between two or more
states or Canadian provinces to ensure an equitable distribution of
registration fees, which is based on vehicle miles traveled in each
state or Canadian province. All states (except Alaska and Hawaii) are
members of IRP.
[10] Pub. L. No. 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144 (2005).
[11] Grants have ranged from $180,700 to $750,000. FMCSA determines the
grant amount based on a variety of factors, such as whether the state
uses a contractor for the IRP program or uses in-house support, the
level of current technology in the state, and the level of
communication for law enforcement. Also, some states receive a second
grant allocation. PRISM grants are reimbursable--that is, states incur
costs, and ask FMCSA to reimburse them with grant funds for eligible
expenditures.
[12] FMCSA compiles state-reported data on a quarterly basis. Beginning
in March 2006, FMCSA added fields for states to report the number of
denials, suspensions, and revocations. Prior to 2006, FMCSA officials
told us that they would call the limited number of PRISM states that
had implemented the denial, suspension, and revocation requirement to
gather the data. For 2008 data, at least 10 of the 25 states that
provided reports to FMCSA each quarter did not report data on denials,
suspensions, and revocations. FMCSA officials told us that they assume
that these states did not deny, suspend, or revoke any registrations
during that quarter. Officials do not follow up with states to
determine if this is the case or if the state had mistakenly not
reported data. As a result, data could be underreported.
[13] It is possible that carriers that were denied vehicle
registrations had their registrations suspended or revoked in the same
year. An FMCSA official, however, told us that this is unlikely since
suspensions and revocations occur during the registration year and
denials occur the following year--when a carrier attempts to register
new vehicles or reregister vehicles.
[14] John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Motor
Carrier Safety Division for FMCSA Strategic Planning and Program
Evaluation Division, Performance & Registration Information Systems
Management, Program Evaluation Final Report (August 2007).
[15] The Volpe report also compared driver and vehicle out-of-service
violation rates in PRISM to evaluate the effectiveness of one of
PRISM's other components--the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Process,
which helps to target high safety-risk carriers for roadside
inspections to improve their safety status. The analysis did not show a
conclusive relationship between these violation rates and PRISM.
[16] The number of carrier suspensions and revocations should be
relatively consistent with the number of carriers being ordered out of
service in a given year.
[17] Registrant-only entities register commercial motor vehicles but do
not operate as motor carriers under any circumstances; these entities
are usually comprised of leasing companies that do not have operating
authority and are not identified as the carrier responsible for safety
for IRP registration. Consequently, motor carriers that use the
registrant-only number may escape FMCSA oversight.
[18] Charter buses provide service to groups traveling together to a
specified location or for a particular itinerary.
[19] Nathan Associates, Motorcoach Census 2008: A Benchmarking Study of
the Size and Activity of the Motorcoach Industry in the United States
and Canada in 2007 (Dec. 18, 2008).
[20] Officials in this state also said that in many cases, when the out-
of-service DOT number is identified, it is usually an owner-operator
trying to register their vehicle under a different carrier that is not
out of service. Owner-operators own their own vehicles and may act as a
driver for another employer at certain times or may be self-employed at
other times.
[21] With IRP, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of
1991 stated that after September 30, 1996, a nonparticipating state
could not establish or enforce its own motor vehicle registration laws
and regulations on vehicles that are in the state but are registered in
participating states. With the International Fuel Tax Agreement, the
act stated that after September 30, 1996, a state may establish,
maintain, or enforce a law or regulation that has a fuel use tax
reporting requirement (including any tax reporting form) only if the
requirement conforms with the International Fuel Tax Agreement.
[22] The commercial vehicle information exchange window system consists
of a comprehensive database of motor carrier safety and credential
information, along with software that ensures the smooth flow of these
data to and from other federal and state motor carrier, vehicle, and
driver safety information systems. The system interfaces with a state's
existing information systems and exchanges data with federal safety
databases.
[23] PRISM also requires carriers to update an FMCSA carrier form (the
MCS-150), which details company information such as how many vehicles a
carrier operates. In PRISM states, carriers are required to update this
information annually, as opposed to once every 2 years.
[24] We interviewed four of the nine states that have been implementing
PRISM for 5 years or more but do not yet have the ability to deny,
suspend, or revoke vehicle registrations.
[25] Officials from the remaining 11 states did not or preferred not to
provide an opinion on requiring PRISM implementation. Representatives
from industry associations we met with told us they did not support a
mandate for various reasons. Those representatives said that states
lack the necessary resources to comply with such a mandate and that
there is no need for such a mandate, since roadside law enforcement has
the ability to identify and sanction any carrier operating after FMCSA
has placed the carrier out of service.
[26] The amendment states that "the powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." See, for
example, Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997); City of New York
v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992).
[27] Pub. L. No. 106-346, 114 Stat. 1356 (2000).
[28] A .08 percent BAC is the level at which a person's blood contains
8/100ths of 1 percent alcohol.
[29] Specifically, states that did not adopt a conforming .08 percent
BAC law by October 1, 2003, would have 2 percent of certain highway
construction funds withheld. The statute added that each year, the
withholding percentage would increase by 2 percent, up to 8 percent in
fiscal year 2007 and later. Those states that adopted a conforming .08
percent BAC law within 4 years of any withholding would be reimbursed
for those withheld funds. If a state had not adopted a conforming .08
percent BAC law by October 1, 2007, portions of the state's withheld
funds would begin to lapse and would no longer be available. 23 U.S.C.
§ 163(e).
[30] Pub. L. No. 102-240, 105 Stat. 1914 (1991).
[31] 49 U.S.C. § 31704.
[32] 49 U.S.C. § 31705 (a), (b).
[33] Pub. L. No. 99-570, title XII, § 12009(a)(20), 100 Stat. 3207
(1986).
[34] Pub. L. No. 106-159, 113 Stat. 1748 (1999).
[35] 49 U.S.C. § 30304(e).
[36] In two cases, we met with officials from states in the early
stages of our engagement, before we finalized our methodology. In
another case, we met with a state that was not fully implementing PRISM
at that time, but subsequently obtained full implementation status.
[End of section]
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