With the Compliance, Safety, Accountability Program of 2010 (CSA2010), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is bringingunprecedented transparency to the transportation industry,installing a wholly new, comprehensive and detailed system foridentifying and resolving carrier and driver-safety issues. It hasintroduced into industry vernacular several new benchmarks uponwhich operators and drivers are now publicly judged, fromunsafe-driving violations and fatigued driving tocontrolled-substance use and improper loading.

A cottage industry has sprung upto support operators in monitoring their all-important CSA scores.They aim to help companies intent on, as one vendor puts it,“improving the public face of safety under CSA.” Putting the bestpublic face forward is indeed critical: Shippers are watching—andusing the mounting piles of data on truckers to assess who they doand do not want hauling their freight.

As a direct result of CSA 2010, best-in-breed freight carriers(and those that aspire to this elite class) are investing instate-of-the-market technologies that many previously dismissed astoo costly. Once viewed as luxuries, these technologies aresuddenly seen as necessities as operators seek to outshinecompetitors in compliance and safety marks.