The Department of Transportation has awarded a contract to use predictive tech to help crack down on fraud and cabotage, and it could lead to preliminary safety ratings to the masses.
The contract, awarded in April, specifically mentions needing safety ratings for the "thousands of new and unrated entrants that dominate the spot market."
That's likely music to the ears of just about everyone in trucking.
Carrier and broker associations, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision shifting broker liability, have been crying out for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to issue safety ratings to the more than 90% that remain unrated.
[Related: Brokers want FMCSA to publish list of 'high risk' motor carriers]
Owner-ops have reported being locked out of freight from C.H. Robinson for lacking safety ratings, and brokers have complained of an "impossible" task of assessing carrier safety for movement of millions of loads each year.
The contract, with DOT's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, seeks to close the gap.
The contract, awarded to freight data firm Bluewire, is "focused on tackling fraud and cabotage while advancing a broader, data-driven framework to better understand -- and ultimately rate -- every motor carrier operating under DOT authority," Bluewire CEO Steve Bryan wrote on LinkedIn. "No more unrated carriers."
[Related: Will FMCSA safety ratings be key to owner-ops' access to freight?]
Bryan told Overdrive that DOT initially reached out about its efforts to tackle the problem of "cabotage," the illegal practice of Mexican- and Canadian-domiciled carriers hauling point-to-point within the U.S.
Bluewire's contract awarded in April called for creating a "predictive actuarial model that assigns an Interim Risk Rating to unrated Mexican-domiciled carriers with authorities to operate along the US-Mexico commercial border zone or to conduct long-haul international transport."
Bryan told Overdrive Bluewire is engaged with DOT to create a "statistically defensible model" as a candidate to potentially "replace today’s safety ratings."
Bryan said Bluewire will deliver the model to DOT at the end of September, but that won't result in safety ratings for all on October 1.
"Even if we invent something that is utter perfection, DOT will have to take that to Congress and the rulemaking process," said Bryan. "It's a long road, and that’s assuming our customer accepts what we give them."
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