Vigillo, LLC, a company based in Portland Oregon, believes it can create a better scoring system. The system called “Just” will work alongside the Federal Motor Carrier Administration’s (FMCSA) Compliance, Safety & Accountability (CSA) program.
Could the controversial CSA scoring be privatized?
In an announcement dated October 20th, 2015 the company CEO, Steve Bryan said: ““Vigillo is upending how the industry views CSA and its known flaws by introducing a parallel scoring system, built on the same principles as CSA, that provides a true picture of the compliance, safety and accountability of our nation’s motor carriers.” The announcement goes on to say: “No longer willing to sit back and hope for fixes from the FMCSA that are not forthcoming, Vigillo looked to the model of other disruptive technology companies to develop the solution for JUST.”
The companies system takes into account not only the information it can glean from the CSA scoring system but also data supplied by its trucking company customers.
The announcement goes on:
“There are four fundamental flaws in CSA that make it unjust and punitive: Crash Preventability, Disparate Enforcement, Safety Event Groups, and Un(der) Inspected Carriers. JUST corrects these flaws and rescores the carrier:
“Crash Preventability Currently, all DOT recordable crashes count under CSA, including clearly non-preventable crashes, such as a car running into a parked truck at a rest stop. Via a network of current and former law enforcement officials who will review all submitted crash reports, photographs, and in-cab video, the JUST system will remove clearly non-preventable crashes from the Crash score.
“Disparate Enforcement CSA treats every mile — city, country, mountain, winter, or border crossing, as if it is exactly the same. Commercial vehicle law enforcement officials across the country know better and adapt, whereas CSA does not. JUST mathematically adjusts scores to account for state disparity.
“Safety Event Groups Under the current system, carriers are not grouped and compared to similar carriers. Additionally, they are not grouped geographically, or by truck type, or line of business. JUST compares like-carriers based on criteria that is accurate, fair and makes sense.
“Un(der) Inspected Carriers Under the current system the FMCSA ignores 89% of all motor carriers for purposes of CSA scoring. This huge gap means smaller operations go scoreless in any CSA BASIC category. This results in 678,147 regulated motor carriers flying under the radar of CSA. The remaining 11% of all regulated motor carriers have CSA scores and must compete for business with this invisible ‘fleet.’ JUST finds them and scores them all, leveling the playing field.”
Using crowd sourced big data Vigillo believes that it can deliver a better score for motor carrier customers to review. Crowd Sourced Data is data collected from many sources. Data from the crowd, in this case, motor carriers, is aggregated into what is called Big Data. The company believes that its collection of Big Data will paint a more accurate picture of motor carriers safety.
As Evidence Solutions’ Experts have written before: the FMCSA is looking into changing the scoring formula after admitting to CSA Accident Scoring Issues.