PHILADELPHIA — Vigillo LLC, the transportation-oriented data mining and software product company, announced a service that gives a parallel and it says fairer score that the government’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

Called "Just" because it seeks to offer justice to fleets, it creates an alternative method of scoring based on findings of independent enforcement experts, explained Steve Bryan, Vigillo’s founder and CEO, during the American Trucking Associations' annual management conference and exhibition. And it makes the results available for use by fleets who are challenging CSA points assessed from specific events by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

A fleet pays a fee for a Just review of each event and scoring, whether or not the finding agrees with the fleet's contention. Bryan said charging the fee even for unsuccessful challenges makes the system credible and believable, and also covers payments for the reviewers' time and expertise. 

“Vigillo is upending how the industry views CSA and its known flaws by introducing a parallel scoring system, built on the same principles as CSA, that provides a true picture of the compliance, safety and accountability of our nation’s motor carriers,” he said.

“CSA unduly penalizes carriers not for their non-compliance, but for the limitations of the CSA scoring system itself. Just will correct the fundamental flaws of CSA” that FMCSA has not addressed, Bryan said.

Just uses a network of current and former law enforcement officials who will assist in correcting the most talked about flaw, Crash Accountability, and fixes the math of CSA. Initial users have had many at-fault findings reversed by the officials who viewed carrier-presented evidence and decided the fleets’ drivers and trucks were in fact not at fault.

Two members of the panel review each set of challenges presented by fleets and decide to uphold or reject CSA scoring and declarations, Bryan explained. If the two disagree, a third panel member reviews the same evidence and decides either way, thus breaking the tie.

The results do not change an official CSA score, but are published for use by fleet representatives in dealing with interested parties. Those might include shippers who threaten to take away business because of an unfavorable CSA rating given a carrier by FMCSA. Presenting the credible alternative score, a fleet can argue that it is in fact safe, and the shipper might agree and continue tendering loads.

Bryan said there are four fundamental flaws in CSA that make it unfair and punitive:  

1. Crash Preventability Currently, all Department of Transportation recordable crashes count under CSA, including clearly non-preventable crashes, such as a car running into a parked truck at a rest stop. Just’s reviewers consider all submitted crash reports, photographs, and in-cab video, and will remove clearly non-preventable crashes from the Crash score.

2. Disparate Enforcement CSA treats every mile — city, country, mountain, winter, or border crossing, as if it is exactly the same. Commercial vehicle law enforcement officials across the country know better and adapt, whereas CSA does not. Just mathematically adjusts scores to account for state disparity.

3. Safety Event Groups Under the current system, carriers are not grouped and compared to similar carriers. Additionally, they are not grouped geographically, or by truck type or line of business. Just compares like-carriers based on criteria that is accurate, fair and makes sense, Bryon said.

4. Un(der) Inspected Carriers Under the current system the FMCSA ignores 89% of all motor carriers for purposes of CSA scoring. This huge gap means smaller operations go scoreless in any CSA BASIC category. This results in 678,147 regulated motor carriers flying under the radar of CSA. The remaining 11% of all regulated motor carriers have CSA scores and must compete for business with this “invisible fleet.” Just finds them and scores them all, leveling the playing field.

This past July, under pressure from the industry, Congress started demanding fixes to fundamental CSA flaws that identify some safe carriers as risky and ignore motor carriers that may pose a safety risk. A bill passed by a Senate Committee called the DRIVE Act details necessary CSA fixes. JUST addresses them all.

“Clearly, the CSA system is broken and the long and unjust wait for a solution by the government has been damaging to the motor carriers that are unfairly scored,” said Bryan. “At Vigillo, we believe that enough is enough, so we are going to partner with the industry and fix the problems with CSA.”