The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has suspended the rollout of its new online Unified Registration System until technical issues are resolved.

While the suspension is in place, the agency said that motor carriers and other entities needing to file required registration and biennial update information will “follow the same procedures and forms used to submit information to FMCSA as they do today.”

In a notice posted in the Federal Register for Jan. 17, the agency said that petitions for reconsideration (comments) on the suspension must be received by February 16, 2017. Such petitions should be submitted to: Administrator, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, DC, 20590-0001.

All background documents, comments, and materials related to this rule may be viewed here within the FMCSA-1997-2349 docket.

FMCSA said in the notice that it is extending the implementation date of the final stage of the URS 1 rule because “additional time is needed to securely migrate data from multiple legacy platforms into a new central database and to conduct further compatibility testing with its State partners.”

The agency pointed out as well that it recently migrated its information technology systems to a “cloud” environment. “This migration effort was a necessary step in order to provide a foundation to successfully implement URS,” according to FMCSA.

URS is described as a simplified online registration process. It combines multiple legacy reporting forms into a single, online “smart form” that is designed to streamline the registration and renewal process.

When fully implemented, URS will allow FMCSA to identify unfit carriers and detect unsafe truck and bus companies that are trying to evade enforcement actions. The agency said that offending companies often attempt to regain U.S. DOT registration by registering as a different or unrelated business entity.