Motor Carrier Industry Profile Study:
Analyzing Safety Performance by Industry Segment

The primary mission of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is to prevent commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries. FMCSA contributes to ensuring safety in motor carrier operations through public education and regulatory enforcement. The motor carrier industry is diverse and competitive, consisting of many unique types of operations and hauling many different types of commodities. In an effort to better understand the diverse nature of the industry and explore safety and operational differences among its major segments, the FMCSA, with the University of Maryland, College Park, has undertaken the Motor Carrier Industry Profile Study. The goal of the study is to analyze safety performance by major industry segment, identify worst- and best-performing segments, and use the results in FMCSA policy and program development.

Study Approach

Safety data for the period March 1998 through September 2000 were obtained from the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) and the Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System (SafeStat) to examine the safety performance of 11 for-hire and 10 private commodity segments. Commodity segments evaluated in this analysis were: Building Materials, Bulk Freight, Refrigerated (non-produce), Household Goods, Intermodal, Large Machinery, Passenger, Produce, Tank, General Freight-TL, and General Freight-LTL (for-hire carriers only).

The performance of each segment was evaluated on nine safety measures: Driver Safety Evaluation Area (SEA) Score, Driver Out-of-Service (OOS) Rate, Vehicle SEA Score, Vehicle OOS Rate, Accident SEA Score, Fatal Crash Rate, Total Crash Rate, Safety Management Review Measure (SMRM), and Enforcement Severity Measure (ESM).

Each segment's mean score on each safety measure was compared with that of its peers. A segment was identified as best or worst on each measure (at a confidence level of 95 percent) using ranking and selection procedures (a subset of statistical inference procedures known as Multiple Comparisons Procedures). A segment was considered overall "best" or "worst" based on the number of times it appeared as "best" or "worst" on each of the nine safety measures.

Results

• For-Hire Segments, "Best" and "Worst" Overall: The Passenger and General Freight-LTL segments were identified as the best-performing for-hire segments overall: each appeared as a "best performer" on six of the nine measures (although LTL carriers also appeared as a "worst performer" on two measures). The Intermodal and Produce segments were identified as the worst performing for-hire segments overall: each appeared as a "worst performer" on four of nine measures.

• Private Segments, "Best" and "Worst" Overall: For the private sector, there is no clear overall "best" or "worst" segment. Many private segments appeared as best performers on certain measures and as worst performers on others. On measures where we identified three or more best- or worst-performing segments, it was usually due to the small sample sizes of carriers being compared or to the mean scores being similar. Poorly performing segments included Large Machinery and General Freight-TL, which appeared as "worst" performers on five and four of nine measures, respectively, and did not appear as "best" on any. However, we cannot characterize them as overall worst.

• For-Hire vs. Private Segments Overall: As a group, private carriers were somewhat safer, displaying significantly lower mean scores than for-hire carriers on three of the nine safety performance measures—Driver SEA, Accident SEA and Total Crash Rate. For-Hire carriers displayed a significantly lower mean score on the Safety Management Review Measure.

For a copy of the complete research paper and more information on the Motor Carrier Industry Profile, please contact Mr. Tom Keane, FMCSA Analysis Division, at 202-366-4025 or tom.keane@fhwa.dot.gov.

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