Presenting with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Registration Office Director Ken Riddle March 27, Department of Transportation CIO Pavan Pidugu revealed the name Motus for what's planned as a "one-stop shop" for carriers "to be able to do any and every transaction with FMCSA related to registration, biannual updates" and more, all the way to managing inspection data and filing DataQs requests for review.
This piece of Pidugu and Riddle's presentation slides shows the Motus logo and areas in which carriers will use it to manage business with FMCSA, from account registration through to DataQs (event handling).FMCSA
He made the analogy to the intuitive nature of customer-facing applications like those from banks. "They don’t need to give us a 30-minute long training on how to use a banking app," he said. "That’s what we want to get to. Not just to support what’s available and necessary today -- but what comes later."
Ken Riddle said that when the Motus system rolls out later this year, it will be in three phases:
- First it will become available to supporting companies to create their accounts -- "industry service providers who assist registrants," he said, from "financial responsibility providers" like insurers and bond providers to "BOC3 process agents." First step will be to provide limited access to support orgs to "create their accounts. They need to be ready to support everybody else."
- It will open to all new and existing registrants.
- Continuous improvements, then, will follow user feedback and the "what comes later" Pidugu referenced with respect to FMCSA requirements and carrier needs.
The system will add identity verification tools for account creation that FMCSA's previously announced with its Idemia tech partner. (At FMCSA's MATS booth in the North Wing lobby, the agency is demo'ing the verification protocol, allowing individuals to go through the process live.)
"The fraud experienced in the industry," Riddle said, is "coming from every corner and it's coming hard. We want to help mitigate that."
Enhanced verification for principal places of business will be part of the new system's registration function, too, he noted.
[Related: The criminal element lurking in FMCSA's registration system]
MC numbers are safe -- for now
Ken Riddle went on to clarify that, in response to feedback from stakeholders, including carriers and brokers, "we had to take an appetite suppressant" in relation to all the "great things that will come" with registration modernization unveiled at last year's MATS.
FMCSA as such will not yet be eliminating MC#s from the authority process, he said.
[Related: FMCSA to end MC numbers, overhaul registration system to stamp out fraud]
Pushback against those plans was one of three big themes the agency heard during last year's series of stakeholder meetings to take feedback from industry. "We're going to wait on that a little longer," he said, likewise the idea to issue a "safety registration," described last year as a potential new requirement of every motor carrier operating in interstate commerce.
The BOC3 filing process, thirdly, will remain the same as it is today, where requested BOC3 process agents filed on carriers' behalf -- FMCSA had planned to give that filing process over to the full control of carriers. Yet negative feedback was swift from process agents who'd built their businesses on the current filing system and carriers, too, who noted they didn't want the added hassle of filing themselves, according to Riddle. "Not doing this," he said of all three of these items, "will allow us to get [Motus] out more quickly."
Watch for more reporting around the Motus system in the coming months, and Riddle noted FMCSA's registration website is and will continue to be a good source for news about the revamp.
