Yesterday, I moderated a shipper-carrier roundtable discussion at Manhattan Associates’ Momentum 2010 User Conference. In my opening comments, I joked that Manhattan had lied to me when it asked me to moderate the session. “Manhattan told me there would be a steel cage in the room, like an Ultimate Fighting Championship match, and they promised me blood.” In reality, the room set-up was much more civilized and the conversation was very informative and productive.

I presented the following questions and topics as “food for thought” for the participants:

  • Back in 2004, we were in a “capacity crunch” cycle. Over the past 18-24 months, we’ve been in an “excess capacity” cycle. What lessons have we learned from these past two cycles to help us create more constructive and productive relationships moving forward?
  • Is over-the-road trucking (one-way freight) dead? Over the past couple of years, many truckload carriers have exited the market, others have “right-sized” their fleets and are investing more in intermodal. At the same time, many shippers have been shifting more of their freight to intermodal for cost, sustainability, and other reasons and they are looking at private/dedicated fleets as an alternative. What do these trends mean for shippers and carriers?
  • How are “green” initiatives and new regulations/legislation impacting the market from a cost and operations perspective? What can shippers and carriers do to minimize the impact?
  • Collaboration: has the time finally come to “walk the talk?” What barriers still exist and how do we overcome them?
  • How can technology further enable and facilitate business processes between shippers and carriers? How can emerging technologies like mobile applications and social media help?

The session was only an hour long, so we didn’t get a chance to discuss all of these questions. I don’t have the time today to comment on all of these points, but I’ll address some of them in future postings. Today, I want to highlight one of my key takeaways from the conversation: Many shippers are not aware of the Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010) initiative and its impact on the transportation industry.

CSA 2010 is a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiative to “improve large truck and bus safety and ultimately reduce commercial motor vehicle (CMV)-related crashes, injuries and fatalities. It introduces a new enforcement and compliance model that allows FMCSA and its State partners to contact a larger number of carriers earlier in order to address safety problems before crashes occur.”

You can learn all about CSA 2010 by visiting the website, which contains several factsheets and brochures. Below is a graphical overview of the CSA 2010 Operational Model.

CSA 2010 Operational Model (Source: FMCSA; click to enlarge)

In a nutshell, CSA 2010 is a more comprehensive and detailed system for identifying and resolving carrier and driver safety issues. While improving safety is the main objective, the carriers in yesterday’s roundtable discussion highlighted some anticipated ancillary effects, including further reduction in capacity as some carriers will be unable to comply with the new requirements, and increased costs, especially in driver wages, as carriers compete to retain drivers with excellent safety records (a separate initiative, called the Pre-Employment Screening Program, will also affect driver hiring and retention). All of these things will ultimately impact shippers.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) generally supports CSA 2010, but it did send a letter to the FMCSA in February detailing several problems it sees with the initiative. For example, as the ATA letter states, “the biggest problem and ATA’s most pressing concern is the lack of a crash accountability determination prior to the data being entered and used in the program. In measuring each carrier’s safety performance, CSA 2010 considers all DOT-defined crashes, including those for which the motor carrier and/or driver could not easily be held accountable. This is a huge problem since the majority of serious truck-involved crashes are multi-vehicle crashes involving cars, many of which are caused by the driver of the other vehicle.”

You can read FMCSA’s response to the ATA’s concerns here, and the ATA’s response back here.

The bottom line: Shippers, if you haven’t heard about CSA 2010, you will soon from your carriers. Take the time to learn more about this initiative now. Then schedule your own roundtable discussion with your carriers. But rather than just focusing on this one issue, make it part of a broader conversation on how you can work together to create more constructive and productive relationships as you enter a new cycle of reduced capacity, higher costs, increased regulation, and greater uncertainty. The broader the focus, the more win-win opportunities you will uncover. No steel cage required.

(Note: Manhattan Associates is an ARC client. We will highlight our main takeaways from the user conference in a later post).

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