SafeStat
Carrier Overview Help

Carrier name: The legal name of the motor carrier.

DBA: Any name identifying the carrier, other than the legal name. This may be a trade name under which the carrier does business.

Address: Refers to the physical location of the motor carrier's principal place of business. The following data elements are included:

• STREET - Identifies the street address where the motor carrier's principal place of business is physically located.
• CITY - Identifies the city where the motor carrier's principal place of business is located.
• STATE - Identifies the state where the motor carrier's principal place of business is located. Two-letter postal abbreviation for the state.
• ZIPCODE - Zip code that corresponds to the street address of the carrier's principal place of business.

Mailing Address: An alternative address for motor carriers whose mailing address is different than their principal place of business.

Telephone: The motor carrier's telephone number at the principal place of business.

Fax: The motor carrier's fax number at the principal place of business.

Number of Power Units: Identifies the number of owned, term leased and trip lease trucks, tractors, hazmat tank trucks, motor coaches, and school buses for the carrier's operation.

Number of Drivers: Total number of drivers employed by the motor carrier.

Transports HM: Indicates whether a motor carrier is engaged in the transport of hazardous materials. (Yes or No)

Date of Last FMCSA Compliance Review: The date of the last Compliance Review.

Date of Last MCS-150 Update: The date the carrier's information was updated in the MCMIS database from an MCS-150 form.

Summary of Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs)

SafeStat uses available federal motor carrier safety data to measure the relative safety status of motor carriers in four Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs): Accident, Driver, Vehicle and Safety Management. SEA values range between (0-best to 100-worst) and are calculated for carriers with sufficient safety data related to each SEA.  As displayed in the bar chart, the value approximates the carrier's percentile rank relative to all other carriers with sufficient data to be assessed within the same SEA. The higher the SEA value, the worse its safety status.  For example, a carrier with an Accident SEA value of 80 indicates that approximately 80% of the carrier population with sufficient data had a better safety performance than that carrier with respect to crashes. The remaining 20% of carriers with an Accident SEA had a worse safety performance.  For details on the calculation of each SEA value refer to the SafeStat Methodology document.

Performance vs. Available Data

The Performance vs. Available Data matrix summarizes the available safety performance data (number of available SEA values) and its relationship to the ranked performance in the four Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs).  A blue circle on the matrix indicates this relationship.

Available Data Group – Identifies the number of SEAs where there is sufficient performance data to evaluate the carrier’s safety performance for that SEA.  For example, a carrier with sufficient performance data for all 4 SEAs would be classified in Group 1 (Extensive).  A carrier with sufficient data for only 1 SEA would be classified in Group 3 (Minimal).  The data sufficiency rules for each SEA are established in the SafeStat Methodology document.

Table 1. Available Data Group Categories

Performance Group – The carrier’s SEA value measures the carrier’s safety performance, which is determined by the SEA percentile value (0-best to 100-worst).  This value is calculated for each of the four SEAs (Accident, Driver, Vehicle, Safety) where there are sufficient data.  Based on the SEA value, carriers are assigned to one of four Performance Groups. The Performance Groups range from good safety performance (All SEAs below the 50th percentile) to poor safety performance (2 or more SEAs above the 75th percentile). The Performance Groups are defined in Table 2.

When there are insufficient data available to determine a value for all of the four Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs), the following message will appear in the Perfomance vs. Available Data matrix.

SafeStat

SafeStat Score : The primary purpose of the SafeStat score is to identify and prioritize carriers for FMCSA safety improvement programs. For this purpose, SafeStat does not give SafeStat scores to all carriers. To obtain a SafeStat score, a carrier must be deficient in at least two SEAs.  A SEA with a value from 75 to 100 is defined as deficient.  This range approximates the worst 25% of the carriers assessed within a particular SEA.  Therefore, SafeStat requires a "critical mass" of poor performance data before a carrier is scored.

Carriers that meet the criterion of two deficient SEAs are given a SafeStat score that is equal to the sum of the deficient SEA values for the Vehicle and Safety Management SEAs, plus 2 times the deficient Accident SEA Value plus 1.5 times the deficient Driver SEA value. SEA values that are less than 75 are not used by SafeStat in calculating the SafeStat score.

Category: Categories are assigned to carriers with safety deficiencies. SafeStat assigns each scored carrier into Category A, B, or C, as defined by the SafeStat score ranges shown in Table 3.

SafeStat computes an overall SafeStat score only for carriers with poor safety status (i.e. 2 or more deficient SEAs) so that these carriers can be identified and prioritized for FMCSA compliance reviews.

SafeStat also assigns categories to carriers that did not receive a SafeStat score, but had enough information on bad safety events to be evaluated as deficient in one SEA. These categories, D to G, help to prioritize carriers for roadside inspections in the Inspection Selection System-D (ISS). Carriers that are deficient in one SEA, either Accident, Driver, Vehicle, or Safety Management, are ranked in Categories D, E, F, and G, respectively, as shown in Table 4.

SafeStat calculates SafeStat scores to rank carriers by their safety status. The carrier list is sorted in descending order by safety status (i.e. a carrier with the highest SafeStat score is the first ranked carrier in terms of poor safety status). SafeStat does not assign SafeStat scores to all carriers. To obtain a SafeStat Score, a carrier must be deficient in at least two different Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs).  A SEA with a value from 75 to 100 is defined as deficient (highlighted in Bold type). SEA Values that are less than 75 are not used in the calculation of a SafeStat Score.

[Click here to access the SafeStat design document that describes the details of the methodology used to quantify and monitor the safety status of motor carriers. This document is the most recent version of the SafeStat methodology.  This document is in Adobe Acrobat Reader format.]