CMV Safety | Freight Logistics & Policy | Truck Size & Weight | TACT | Wireless, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication

<< Back to News

Visual Analytics, Modeling, and Simulation (VAMS) Group Need for Strategic Thinking

Truck Safety and Security in 2020: The Context for Commercial Vehicle Enforcement

Current trends strongly suggest that commercial motor vehicle enforcement practices will undergo significant change by 2020. The 'context' for these changes will be shaped by factors such as projected increases in freight tonnage, the continued dependence upon trucks for the transport of that tonnage, increasing congestion and limited infrastructure expansion, labor costs and availability, increased requirements for cargo tracking and security in a global, multi-modal environment, the increasing technical sophistication of commercial vehicle 'platforms,' and the growing role of telematics. Simply doing 'more of the same' will not be an effective enforcement strategy. Neither will it be possible for enforcement to continue to exist solely within a 'regulatory' and 'compliance-based' environment.

The future will clearly be about 'operations' global, multi-modal, seamless, and integrated. The responsibilities of 'modal' administrations within the USDOT will have to become more seamless and better integrated as the focus shifts from single mode to inter-modal in a global freight management environment. View a paper (PDF:1.7MB) presented to TRB Truck and Bus Safety and Security: Research and Technology Futures' Conference, March 23-24, 2005, Washington, D.C.

The need for 'strategic' thinking in the area of commercial motor vehicle operations in North Carolina is outlined. This information was the basis of a discussion on April 10, 2002 between Dr. Hughes of the UNC Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC), Major Charlie Carden of the NC DMV-Enforcement Section (representing the MCSAP program in NC), and the personnel of the FMCSA State Office in North Carolina.

Increased availability and use of occupant protection in passenger vehicles indicated as a possible contributor to improved safety in CMV-involved collisions. Over the past several years, the number of fatal CMV-involved crashes has been on the decline in North Carolina. While this is likely to be, in part, due to increased levels of motor carrier enforcement, the present data suggest that one additional underlying factor may be the increased availability and utilization of improved occupant protection measures (lap/shoulder belts, airbags, etc.) in the passenger vehicles involved in these crashes. The present analysis represents a very preliminary view of crashes between CMVs and passenger car vehicles and focuses on crashes between a single commercial motor vehicle and a single passenger car vehicle and the likelihood of serious injuries or fatalities as a function of whether lap/shoulder belts and/or airbags were used/deployed in the crash. The following was prompted by a discussion with a senior member of NC State Highway Patrol who was expressing some degree of frustration over the Patrol's own perceived lack of effectiveness in reducing fatalities on the State's roadways. The remarks in the document are consistent with previous ITRE positions expressed to the CMV Working Group of the NC Governor's Executive Committee on Highway Safety, i.e., that highway safety needs to be a 'shared' responsibility on the part of a number of different agencies and that the strategic goals of each agency need to bear a direct and logical relationship to strategic crash and injury reduction goals adopted at the State level.