On April 23, 2015, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued an initial Federal Register Notice seeking comment on the impacts of considering a company’s proactive voluntary implementation of state-of-the-art best practices and technologies when evaluating the carrier’s safety. In addition, the April 2015 notice asked specific questions and requested supporting data to be considered in the development of a Beyond Compliance program. Additionally, FMCSA tasked its Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee with reviewing this concept and providing recommendations on how to proceed with implementation of a Beyond Compliance program.
The FAST Act refined this initiative and formally mandated that the Agency provide recognition to motor carriers for voluntary use of advanced technologies or enhanced driver fitness measures. Per the FAST Act FMCSA may authorize qualified entities to monitor motor carriers that receive recognition, including credit or an improved Safety Measurement System (SMS) percentile. The Agency hosted four listening sessions on this topic in order to receive input on how to implement Beyond Compliance.
On April 20, 2016, FMCSA issued a second Federal Register Notice seeking public comment on the proposed Beyond Compliance program developed to meet the FAST Act requirements. The docket is FMCSA-2015-0124 and can be accessed at www.regulations.gov.
Once comments to the docket are reviewed, the Agency will finalize the program details and complete implementation. A subsequent Federal Register notice will be published to announce the start of this program.