Did You Know…As a motor carrier, your Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) and Power Unit (PU) data from your Motor Carrier Registration form, known as the MCS-150, are used to calculate your Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) percentiles.

If your VMT data is 2009 or older, it will not be used in your calculations when the January Safety Measurement System (SMS) snapshot is posted at the beginning of February.

Update your MCS-150 now with your 2010 or 2011 VMT/PU data to ensure FMCSA is using the most accurate data available to calculate your percentiles. Visit https://li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov/LIVIEW/PKG_REGISTRATION.prc_option to update your MCS-150 information. Under the “Existing Registration Updates” section, choose the first option - “I need to update my USDOT number registration information or file my biennial update.”

PLEASE NOTE: The SMS website is updated monthly, so your MCS-150 changes will not be reflected on that site until the next monthly update. You can find the schedule of SMS updates at http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS/InfoCenter/#question5. MCS-150 updates show up faster on SAFER and the FMCSA Portal websites.

Below are a few questions and answers that help to explain the situation.
 
 
1)      If the VMT data is not updated and is 2009 or older, what impact will this have when the snapshot is posted in the beginning of February?  SMS uses VMT data if it has been provided within the last 24 months and references one of the two previous years.  So, the January 2012 snapshot (released in early February 2012), will only include data provided within the last 24 months and that has a VMT year of 2010 or later.

2)      What will be affected?  This could potentially impact a motor carrier’s Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator BASICs results – both which use VMT data in their calculations.

3)      How will motors carrier be affected?  Motor carriers that currently receive a VMT-based adjustment due to high truck utilization (i.e. more VMT per PU than the average) will cease receiving that adjustment if they do not update their MCS-150 form to reflect more recent data (i.e. VMT year of 2010 or 2011).

4)      If they update the information during the month of January will the change be reflected in the January snapshot that is posted in early February? Motor carriers must update their VMT information in the first few weeks of January to avoid this potentially detrimental effect on their Unsafe Drive and Crash Indicator BASIC percentiles.