30-day FR

jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with NOTICES

Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 160 / Tuesday, August 18, 2020 / Notices
iteration of this ICR, it was assumed that
all motor carriers were storing hard
copy records offsite, which is less costly
than storing hard copy records onsite
due to reduced space requirements. In
the current iteration of this ICR, FMCSA
is assuming that (1) approximately 15
percent of motor carriers are storing
their Accident Registers electronically,
at no extra cost, and (2) approximately
85 percent of motor carriers are storing
hard copy versions of their Accident
Registers. FMCSA is further assuming
that motor carriers that maintain paper
records are storing their Accident
Registers at their principal place of
business, so that they have easy access
to such records during an FMCSA
investigation. This change in storage
location increases the cost of storage,
from $0.07 to $0.68 per accident
recorded. While FMCSA is now
assuming that some motor carriers are
storing documents electronically at no
extra cost, the overall number of
responses has increased over prior
years, overtaking the reduction in
number of carriers storing hard copy
records.
On April 28, 2020, FMCSA published
a Federal Register notice allowing for a
60-day comment period on this ICR.
Two comments were received in
response to this notice. The first
respondent, Denise Quinehan, reported
that she was involved in a level 4
motorcycle accident in 2016 and the
driver that hit her had no insurance or
registration. Four years after the
accident she found that the reporting
officer altered the crash report and that
report was being used in other claims
that resulted in identity fraud. She
wrote that some limits of reports should
not be released until the involved party
has access to it. Second, the National
Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc.
concluded that ‘‘FMCSA will benefit
from greater use of accident
information, such as police accident
reports, that support greater accuracy
and fairer portrayal of a carrier’s safety
practices. FMCSA could more
effectively use its enforcement resources
if it can better identify motor carriers
who bore responsibility for commercial
motor vehicle accidents.’’ Neither of the
respondents addressed whether the
proposed collection is necessary for the
performance of FMCSA’s functions; the
accuracy of the estimated burden; nor
the ways the burden could be
minimized without reducing the quality
of the collected information.
Public Comments Invited: You are
asked to comment on any aspect of this
information collection, including: (1)
Whether the proposed collection is
necessary for the performance of

VerDate Sep<11>2014

17:50 Aug 17, 2020

Jkt 250001

FMCSA’s functions; (2) the accuracy of
the estimated burden; (3) ways for
FMCSA to enhance the quality,
usefulness, and clarity of the collected
information; and (4) ways that the
burden could be minimized without
reducing the quality of the collected
information.
The agency will summarize or include
your comments in the request for OMB’s
clearance of this information collection.
Issued under the authority of 49 CFR 1.87.
Kenneth Riddle,
Acting Associate Administrator, Office of
Research and Registration.
[FR Doc. 2020–18013 Filed 8–17–20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910–EX–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration
[Docket No. FMCSA–2018–0328]

Agency Information Collection
Activities; Approval of a New
Information Collection Request:
Beyond Compliance
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA),
Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice and request for
comments.
AGENCY:

In accordance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995,
FMCSA announces its plan to submit
the Information Collection Request (ICR)
described below to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for
review and approval. The primary
purpose of the ICR is to assess the
effectiveness of various technologies,
programs, and policies on motor carrier
safety performance in support of the
implementation of the Fixing America’s
Surface Transportation Act, 2015 (FAST
Act) Beyond Compliance requirements.
DATES: Please send your comments by
September 17, 2020. OMB must receive
your comments by this date in order to
act quickly on the ICR.
ADDRESSES: Written comments and
recommendations for the proposed
information collection should be sent
within 30 days of publication of this
notice to www.reginfo.gov/public/do/
PRAMain. Find this particular
information collection by selecting
‘‘Currently under 30-day Review—Open
for Public Comments’’ or by using the
search function.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Nicole Michel, Mathematical
Statistician, Office of Analysis,
Research, and Technology’s Research
SUMMARY:

PO 00000

Frm 00079

Fmt 4703

Sfmt 4703

50875

Division, Department of Transportation,
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, 6th Floor, West
Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE,
Washington, DC 20590–0001.
Telephone: 202–366–4354; Email
Address: [email protected]. Office
hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday
through Friday, except Federal
Holidays.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title: Beyond Compliance.
OMB Control Number: 2126–00XX.
Type of Request: New information
collection.
Respondents: Motor carrier
operational managers.
Estimated Number of Respondents:
112 participating carriers and 113 nonparticipating carriers.
Estimated Time per Response: 70
minutes (5 minutes to read email invite,
10 minutes for webinar, 5 minutes to
read instructions, 40 minutes to respond
to actual survey, 5 minutes for reminder
email 1, 5 minutes for reminder email
2).
Expiration Date: N/A. This is a new
information collection.
Frequency of Response: Once.
Estimated Total Annual Burden: 150
hours [(225 email invitation
respondents × 5 minutes) + (112
webinar respondents × 10 minutes) +
(112 survey instruction respondents × 5)
+ (112 survey respondents × 40 minutes)
+ (225 email reminder #1 respondents ×
5 minutes) + (113 email reminder #2
respondents × 5 minutes)].
Background
FMCSA requests OMB’s review and
approval of a new ICR to implement the
Beyond Compliance Program, required
by Section 5222 of the Fixing America’s
Surface Transportation Act, 2015 (FAST
Act) (Pub. L. 114–94, 129 Stat. 1312,
Dec. 4, 2015).
The FAST Act requires FMCSA to
allow recognition, including credit or an
improved Safety Measurement System
(SMS) percentile, for motor carriers that:
(1) Install advanced safety equipment;
(2) use enhanced driver fitness
measures; (3) adopt fleet safety
management tools, technologies, and
programs; or (4) satisfy other standards
determined appropriate by the
Administrator.
The FAST Act also requires the
FMCSA Administrator to carry out the
Beyond Compliance provisions through:
(1) Developing a process for identifying
elements of technology and safety
programs as a basis for recognition; (2)
seeking input from stakeholders; (3)
using a third party for a monitoring
program; and (4) providing a report to
Congress.

E:\FR\FM\18AUN1.SGM

18AUN1

jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with NOTICES

50876

Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 160 / Tuesday, August 18, 2020 / Notices

The primary purpose of the ICR is to
assess the effectiveness of various
technologies, programs, and policies on
motor carrier safety performance in
support of the implementation of the
FAST Act Beyond Compliance
requirements.
To accomplish this, the study will
complete the following three objectives:
(1) Identify high-performing carriers
in terms of safety performance.
(2) Determine the safety technologies,
programs, and policies employed by
these carriers.
(3) Gauge the relative effectiveness of
those safety technologies, programs, and
policies based on the expert opinion
and performance metrics of the high
performing carriers.
The data being collected for this study
consists of responses from a select group
of motor carriers on the most effective
technologies, programs, and policies for
achieving safe operations. The study
does not attempt to conduct a full
survey of the motor carrier population.
Instead, it relies on expert opinion from
carriers that are objectively determined
to exhibit safe operations that exceed
industry averages as indicated by driver
out-of-service rates, vehicle out-ofservice rates, and crash rates. To
identify these carriers, the study will
utilize existing data from the Motor
Carrier Management Information System
(MCMIS) database.
FMCSA will collect data through an
electronic survey of a panel of industry
experts. The experts will be recruited
from motor carriers who have safety
performance records that are better than
national averages. These carriers will be
identified by examining Department of
Transportation-reportable crash rates,
driver out-of-service rates at roadside
inspections, and vehicle out-of-service
rates at roadside inspections. Only those
carriers that perform near the top
quartile across all three categories are
potential participants.
Participants would first be invited to
participate in an online webinar that
explains the evaluation design (i.e.,
analytic hierarchy process, or AHP).
AHP is a tool for dealing with complex
decision-making that employs a series of
structured, pairwise comparisons in
which respondents must express a
preference for one alternative over
another according to various evaluation
criteria. Participants may not know how
to proceed through the pairwise
comparisons. Instead of solely relying
on written instructions to explain to
participants how to complete the
survey, the project team believes it
would be useful to conduct an
information session via a webinar so an
example can be provided and any

VerDate Sep<11>2014

17:50 Aug 17, 2020

Jkt 250001

questions answered. The webinar would
be conducted multiple times and
participants would be given the option
to select the one that best suits their
schedules. In addition to the webinar,
an online video would be made
available to participants that explains
the AHP.
Once participants complete the
webinar, they will be given a link to
complete the survey online using an
online survey tool such as Survey
Monkey or Qualtrics. In the context of
Beyond Compliance, the AHP-based
survey would work by presenting
experts with alternatives for what an
ideal safety program looks like and
allowing them to systematically
compare the major elements of these
programs. The survey results would
then be analyzed to determine the safety
program elements that were most
frequently scored the highest across
participants. The resulting information
would reveal the elements of safety
programs that these motor carriers are
using and their achieved results and
what these motor carriers believe to be
the most effective for achieving safety
and should be included in a Beyond
Compliance program.
In addition to those carriers invited by
FMCSA to participate in the survey,
FMCSA will also be reaching out to the
National Association of Small Trucking
Companies and Owner-Operator
Independent Drivers Association to
invite them to voluntarily survey
members as a supplemental data
collection to the structured design. This
would enable greater participation by
smaller carriers and owner-operators,
and would also enable a wider
perspective of responses.
The results of the data collection will
be analyzed and integrated into the pilot
study report. Data collection will be
completed within 90 days of the end of
the pilot program period and followed
by a statistical analysis in 180 days.
Both descriptive and analytical methods
will be employed during the data
analysis. The results of the study will be
documented in a technical report that
will be delivered to and maintained by
FMCSA. This report will be available to
the public on the FMCSA website, at
www.fmcsa.dot.gov. The contents of the
technical report will be utilized in
developing the report that FMCSA is
required to provide to Congress,
pursuant to Section 5222 of the FAST
Act.
Public Comments Invited: You are
asked to comment on any aspect of this
information collection, including: (1)
Whether the proposed collection is
necessary for the FMCSA to perform its
functions; (2) the accuracy of the

PO 00000

Frm 00080

Fmt 4703

Sfmt 4703

estimated burden; (3) ways for the
FMCSA to enhance the quality,
usefulness, and clarity of the collected
information; and (4) ways that the
burden could be minimized without
reducing the quality of the collected
information.
Issued under the authority delegated in 49
CFR 1.87.
Kenneth Riddle,
Acting Associate Administrator, Office of
Research and Registration.
[FR Doc. 2020–18014 Filed 8–17–20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910–EX–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration
[Docket No. FMCSA–2020–0081]

Inspection, Repair and Maintenance;
Inspector Qualifications; Intermodal
Association of North America (IANA)
Application for an Exemption
Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice of final disposition.
AGENCY:

The Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration (FMCSA)
announces its decision to grant
Intermodal Association of North
America’s (IANA) application for a
limited 5-year exemption to allow
individuals who complete a training
program consistent with a set of
Intermodal Recommended Practices
(IRPs) and associated requirements that
has been developed by IANA to be
considered a qualified inspector or
qualified brake inspector for intermodal
equipment (IME) under the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Regulations
(FMCSR), in lieu of having one year of
training or experience or a combination
thereof prior to becoming a certified
inspector/brake inspector. The Agency
has determined that granting the
exemption to allow individuals who
complete a performance-based training
program consistent with the IRPs and
associated requirements developed by
IANA, instead of the time-based training
and experience requirements specified
in the FMCSRs, would likely achieve a
level of safety equivalent to or greater
than the level of safety provided by the
regulation.
DATES: This exemption is effective
August 18, 2020 and ending August 18,
2025.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr.
Luke Loy, Vehicle and Roadside
Operations Division, Office of Carrier,
Driver, and Vehicle Safety, MC–PSV,
SUMMARY:

E:\FR\FM\18AUN1.SGM

18AUN1