An ad hoc panel will carry out a consensus study in response to Section 5211 of the Fixing America’s Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015. The purpose of this study is to determine as best possible:

1. The accuracy with which the Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) safety measures used by the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) Safety Management System (SMS):
   1. Identify high risk carriers.
   2. Predict or are correlated with future crash risk, crash severity, or other safety indicators for motor carriers, including the highest risk carriers.
2. The methodology used to calculate BASIC percentiles and identify carriers for enforcement, including the weights assigned to particular violations, and the tie between crash risk and specific regulatory violations, with respect to accurately identifying and predicting future crash risk for motor carriers.
3. The relative value of inspection information and roadside enforcement data.
4. Any data collection gaps or data sufficiency problems that may exist and the impact of those gaps and problems on the efficacy of the CSA program.
5. The accuracy of safety data, including the use of crash data from crashes in which a motor carrier was free from fault.
6. Whether BASIC percentiles for motor carriers of passengers should be calculated separately than for motor carriers of freight.
7. The differences in the rates at which safety violations are reported to FMCSA for inclusion in the SMS by various enforcement authorities, including States, territories, and Federal inspectors.
8. How members of the public use the SMS and what effect making the SMS information public has had on reducing crashes and eliminating unsafe motor carriers from the industry.

The study should also consider:

1. Whether the SMS provides comparable precision and confidence, through SMS alerts and percentiles, for the relative crash risk of individual large and small motor carriers.
2. Whether alternatives to the SMS would identify high risk carriers more accurately.

c. The recommendations and findings of the Comptroller General of the United States and the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation, and independent review team reports, issued before the date of the act.

The panel will issue a report with findings and recommendations at the end of the study.