"Reminder Commercial Motor Carriers: Update your VMT and PU data now!"
Article published on Friday, January 06, 2012
Did You Know…As a motor carrier, your Vehicle Miles Traveled
(VMT) and Power Unit (PU) data from your Motor Carrier Registration
form, known as the MCS-150, are used to calculate your Unsafe
Driving and Crash Indicator Behavior Analysis and Safety
Improvement Category (BASIC) percentiles.
If your VMT data is 2009 or older, it will not be used in your
calculations when the January Safety Measurement System (SMS)
snapshot is posted at the beginning of February.
Update your MCS-150 now with your 2010 or 2011 VMT/PU data to
ensure FMCSA is using the most accurate data available to calculate
your percentiles. Visit
https://li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov/LIVIEW/PKG_REGISTRATION.prc_option
to update your MCS-150 information. Under the "Existing
Registration Updates" section, choose the first option - "I need to
update my USDOT number registration information or file my biennial
update."
PLEASE NOTE: The SMS website is updated monthly, so your MCS-150
changes will not be reflected on that site until the next monthly
update. You can find the schedule of SMS updates at
http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS/InfoCenter/#question5. MCS-150 updates
show up faster on SAFER and the FMCSA Portal websites.
Below are a few questions and answers that help to explain the
situation.
1) If the VMT data is not updated and is 2009 or older,
what impact will this have when the snapshot is posted in the
beginning of February? SMS uses VMT data if it has been
provided within the last 24 months and references one of the two
previous years. So, the January 2012 snapshot (released in
early February 2012), will only include data provided within the
last 24 months and that has a VMT year of 2010 or later.
2) What will be affected? This could potentially
impact a motor carrier's Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs
results - both which use VMT data in their calculations.
3) How will motors carrier be affected? Motor
carriers that currently receive a VMT-based adjustment due to high
truck utilization (i.e. more VMT per PU than the average) will
cease receiving that adjustment if they do not update their MCS-150
form to reflect more recent data (i.e. VMT year of 2010 or
2011).
4) If they update the information during the month of
January will the change be reflected in the January snapshot that
is posted in early February? Motor carriers must update
their VMT information in the first few weeks of January to avoid
this potentially detrimental effect on their Unsafe Drive and Crash
Indicator BASIC percentiles.
Source: FMCSA, 1/6/2012
