North Dakota - Welcome to the 90% Club!!

Illinois - 98.18%
Maine - 96.23%
Alabama - 93.52%
Indiana - 92.70%
North Dakota - 90.04%

It's been a pretty wild couple of days around here as we prepare for the 2010 UCR registration campaign, but I felt the need to post a couple of observations pertaining to 2009 and 2010 registration anyway.

First, North Dakota hit 90% for 2009! Way to go, Frank and Company! I still intend to try and catch you, however, on the 2009 unregistered carriers, though. Today, it's North Dakota 350 and Illinois 397. No pressure!

Second, I love the energy that Alabama is still putting into 2009 registration. Their registration percentage climbs every day. By my calculation, they've still got to reduce their unregistered list by at least another 225-250 to catch Maine, but I think it's possible --- assuming Maine doesn't have another 2009 surge. Interesting race - too close to call.

And speaking of Maine, they are out of the gate early on 2010 registration. Nobody's going to have to worry about them on May 28th! Nice work, folks.

My final observation pertains to the 397 carriers I have left on my Unregistered List. Assuming they register at the levels in MCMIS, they represent $21K in revenue - and we all know that's a stretch. The "business guy" inside me is screaming, "Forget it!" ... but the "get to zero" side of me is saying, "Let's get them all!" 335 of them are Bracket 1 carriers and most of those 335 are located in the boonies. And yet, I want them all in the fold. I don't know ... I'll keep you posted.

Have a great weekend!

We Have 2010 Fees!!

Illinois - 98.06%
Maine - 96.29%
Alabama - 93.28%
Indiana - 92.70%

As I've indicated in previous posts, the arrival of 2010 fees - which is a WONDERFUL development - may necessitate closing out the UCR5000 Project blog. We just don't have the resources to chase down the last 400 unregistered carriers and, at the same time, carry out a full-fledged registration campaign - although those same carriers do, in fact, have to register for 2010 as well. I need to do a little more thinking about it.

Meanwhile, I don't plan to stop blogging. I need to do some more thinking about that, too. The UCR5000 project was intended as a kind of "journal" to document our pursuit of "Getting to Zero". As far as I'm concerned, anybody who doubts that we can't close out the last 400 carriers hasn't been paying attention. We're still right on schedule for mid-to-late June.

The next blog could be used to document the 2010 UCR campaign - or some other aspect of working with FMCSA.

If you have thoughts about it, please let me know. The blogging experience has been great! I'm now ready to direct my mediocre writing talents to "the next big thing" - whatever that turns out to be.

What A Difference A Month Makes!

Illinois - 98.00%
Maine - 96.26%
Alabama - 93.12%
Indiana - 92.70%

One month ago today, we only led Maine by .92% and Indiana actually led Alabama by .52%. In fact, Maine had a higher percentage a month ago (96.34%) than they have today! It's those darned "sideways adds"!

Today, I was having lunch with the guy who heads up the IL IRP program. Their agency just finished their IRP registration season, of course, and he said that they had registered 14,000 fleets. But we've done over 21,000 registrations! I THINK that means that if the IRP folks were also in charge of doing the UCR program, they would have done at least 7,000+ fewer registrations because they would have only registered the people who came in to do IRP. I hope somebody will let me know if I'm wrong about that and, if so, exactly how I'm wrong. I'm inclined to believe it's one more way that states are leaving money on the table.

Have a great weekend!

Beep, beep ... Alabama Zips Into 3rd!

Illinois - 98.00%
Maine - 96.32%
Alabama - 93.05%
Indiana - 92.71%

Man, that was impressive! Alabama's percentage jumped .22% in one day, catapulting them right past Indiana into 3rd place. Good job, Alabama!

Incredible as it may seem, we are still contacting carriers every day who are not familiar with UCR. Most of them are private, so the commercial vehicle thing is secondary to their real business, but I'm still surprised. I just talked to two guys who received tickets from our cops ---- they were not on our UCR Unregistered List and I honestly believe they have never heard of UCR.

We hit 98% right on the head on the COB 4/21. This morning's magic number was 436, with ND at 360. Look out, Frank! We had a decent day with 9 registrations and several deactivations, so, with any luck, we'll bump it up a little tomorrow morning.

Alabama Coming Up On the Outside!!!

Illinois - 97.88%
Maine - 96.32%
Indiana - 92.74%
Alabama - 92.72%

In case you haven't been paying attention, Alabama is about to pass Indiana for the #3 registration percentage spot. Alabama has never really let up. Hats off to them! Of course, now that I've pointed it out, I'll probably jinx them forever!

Meanwhile, Maine was at 96.31% one month ago today. Like the old adage says, "If you're not moving forward, you're slipping behind." Or something like that.

Tomorrow is the 21st and you know what that means - I anticipated that we would be at 98% by the COB tomorrow. Yikes!

We have a new "secret weapon" in the UCR registration arena. I'll write about it when I have a little more experience with it.

Later!

Z-Day --- An Update

Illinois - 97.86%
Maine - 96.32%
Indiana - 92.74%
Alabama - 92.67%

Approximately three weeks ago, I declared Z-Day to be June 17th ... with the caveat that "getting to zero" was an inexact science at best. I mentioned at the time that the wild card is going to be "sideways adds". Since then, we have gotten an inordinate number of sideways adds, which has complicated things just a bit. I'm going to stick with the 17th for now, assuming that the sideways adds are going to "revert to the mean". Otherwise, we may need to adjust the date a little. Not a lot, just a little!

How Low Can You Go?

Illinois - 97.87%
Maine - 96.32%
Indiana - 92.73%
Alabama - 92.65%

OK - call me competitive. I don't care.

I was noticing the other day that there are three participating states with fewer unregistered carriers than IL. Granted, it doesn't really matter. Our goal is to get to zero - not pass those three states. But it makes it more fun! It's like playing that game at the carnival where you roll the golf ball to make the horses move in the horse race. In this case, the goal is just to finish - but what's the harm in making it more like a carnival game!

Those three states, by the way, are:

Maine - 113
Alaska - 212
North Dakota - 363

Illinois is at 470.

On the state percentage side (see above) Alabama is creeping up on Indiana and I expect them to pass Indiana in the next week or two. I'm not the only person in this program that's competitive! My old friend Scott is not far behind me ... but he is behind me! Just kidding, Scott!

Have great rest of the weekend!

UCR, FMCSA Data and Due Diligence

Illinois - 97.75%
Maine - 96.38%
Indiana - 92.71%
Alabama - 92.57%

I know that UCR was never intended to fix FMCSA data. In fact, I remember several discussions where we specifically said the fixing the data was NOT a goal. But I have to tell that I have a hard time deactivating a carrier without exercising a fair amount of due diligence.

We are working on a new due diligence protocol that has to be at least as good as the Feds' protocol --- and maybe better. And, we are running into situations that are a little strange.

Here's an example:

The other day I had a carrier that, for all practical purposes, looked inactive. Phone disconnected, address no good, corporation not in good standing, etc. But .... he showed an active federal authority. What? He's paying for insurance ... and not even paying the phone bill?

So, I called up the insurance company, asked if the filing was still valid (because they're good until cancelled!), informed the underwriter that they were still on the risk for the guy, and, voila, the filing got cancelled and the authority will be going away shortly.

NOW, I can deactivate the number in good conscience!

UCR and FMCSA Data

Illinois - 97.72%
Maine - 96.48%
Indiana - 92.70%
Alabama - 92.44%

The other day, I was having lunch with our State FMCSA Director.

We were at a buffet and busy stuffing our faces, but, as I recall, he said something to the effect of, "Do you know we had 4,500 New Entrants last year? That's head-and-shoulders above every other mid-western state --- and right up there with CA and TX."

For better or for worse, I felt that we had a lot to do with that "achievement" because of UCR. In fact, I think it's the best part of UCR.

We haven't been just out collecting money. We have been out "scaring up" carriers who needed to register for UCR because they needed to have USDOT numbers all along ... and many of them didn't even have USDOT numbers yet. I ask again --- why didn't they have them? Most of them weren't new carriers. It's not a rhetorical question.

In the process, we have also been finding Federal data records that need to be deactivated or corrected. In theory, this type of effort should be coming out of programs like MCSAP, but isn't.

I think UCR is a great example of a State-Fed partnership. And, quite honestly, I bristle a little when I hear people say that they program is just about "collecting money". That's not the way we view the program here.

Just ask our FMCSA Director!

Sideways Drops ... The Rest Of The Story

Illinois - 97.69%
Maine - 96.51%
Indiana - 92.74%
Alabama - 92.24%

First, let me point out that I think I've been jinxing all of the 89%+ states - they have just stagnated - so I'm removing them from the blog for now. They were doing better before I started including them, which may have been a function of 2010 IRP renewal season.

Now, let's get down to the exciting business of "sideways drops".

First, we need to review how a carrier gets on the Unregistered List.

Obviously, they have to NOT be registered for 2009 yet.

In addition to that, they also have to be designated (according to MCMIS) as an Active, Interstate Carrier.

Finally, they have to had at least one of the following:

an MCS-150 update in the past 12 months
an inspection within the past 15 months
an accident within the past 15 months
a UCR registration for some year within the past 12 months

If they qualified yesterday but no longer qualify today, they get dropped from the list - just like that!

As luck would have it, I had two sideways drops this morning. I had two carriers on my UL who qualified by way of their "MCS-150 Update" dated 4/9/09. Since they didn't have any of the other three criteria ... and since today marks "one year and one day" since their MCS-150 update, they miraculously dropped off our Unregistered List. No muss, no fuss ... Rest assured that we had tried to register these guys numerous times over the past year, but they just never responded. Frankly, I think they both might be out of business, but that is not directly germane to this discussion.

So there you have it! Everything you always wanted to know about "Sideways Drops"! They're like termites - you can have them and never know it unless you look really close and you know what you're looking for.

Have a great weekend!

"Sideways Drops" And Tsunamis - Which Is Easier To Predict?

Illinois - 97.65%
Maine - 96.54%
Indiana - 92.76%
Alabama - 92.14%
Kentucky - 89.71%
Oklahoma - 89.62%

I've been doing a little more thinking about the criteria for "Sideways Drops" ... and wondering if I couldn't come up with a better way for predicting these drops. So far, my short answer is "No".

Just to review, here's my un-scientific "back of the envelope" definition for the term "sideways drops":

Carriers who are on the Unregistered List one day and fall off the Unregistered List the next day without anybody doing anything proactive to get them off the list.

Here are two situations that DO NOT qualify as "Sideways Drops":

We change a "carrier" to a "registrant".

We deactivate a USDOT number.

In both of these situations the carriers come off the UL, but we did something proactive to get them off of the list.

Confused??? I'll try to clarify all of this in my next post.

Besieged By "Sideways Adds"!

Illinois - 97.60%
Maine - 96.51%
Indiana - 92.77%
Alabama - 92.12%
Kentucky - 89.74%
Oklahoma - 89.62%

Yesterday, it was 14. Today, it was 10. 24 sideways adds in two days! From the looks of things, about half were due to MCS-150 updates and half were due to inspections being filed by somebody. The inspections aren't posted anywhere I can look at them yet, so I don't know who submitted them. It's all good, however. More folks to register!

While I'm thinking about "sideways" stuff, it has occurred to me that I never write about "sideways drops" - the opposite of "sideways adds". These are carriers that "drop off" the list because they pass the "no UCR, no MCS-150 update, no crashes and no inspections" threshhold from one day to the next. Quite honestly, we don't keep up quite as well with people who leave the list as we do with people who get added on, but these "drops" are a legitimate piece of Unregistered List business as well. Perhaps I'll write more about them in the next few posts.

An IRP-UCR Twist

Illinois - 97.60%
Maine - 96.41%
Indiana - 92.75%
Alabama - 92.06%
Kentucky - 89.77%
Oklahoma - 89.62%

As we narrow down our last 500 guys, we are taking a closer look at each carrier to better understand who's left on the list and why they're still on there.

In quite a few instances, we are seeing guys who say they are active interstate motor carriers but who don't register for IRP or IFTA.

After talking with our FMCSA Director, Steve Mattioli, we are kind of "stuck" in the position of having to continue to pursue these guys on the assumption that they MIGHT be operating only vehicles under 26,000 pounds. Doubtful ... but certainly possible.

The most problematic of these guys are the ones who don't get back to us and who are in out-of-the-way locations.

Never fear - we will find out the real scoop on each one! And the truth will set one of us free!

The truth will also write some of them tickets!

Getting To Zero - One More Thing

Illinois - 97.59%
Maine - 96.38%
Indiana - 92.74%
Alabama - 92.00%
Kentucky - 89.73%
Oklahoma - 89.62%

In yesterday's post, I forgot to talk about one more thing that may make "getting to zero" a little misleading - carriers who are "in process".

In addition to the "sideways adds", we are always going to have a few carriers on any given day who are "in process". In other words, there will always be a few registrations "in between" the carrier and us. Usually, this is in the mail or FedEx. They could also be planning to fax their registration in today or drop by in person. Or, they might be waiting for a permit agent to open so they can have the P/A do the registration.

When we get right down to the last few, I'm sure we'll find a couple more reasons why we can't get it right down to zero on a given day. Maybe, since we don't have direct access to MCMIS, we're going to be waiting to get status changes - from carrier to registrant or active to inactive or interstate to intrastate - in MCMIS.

At any rate, I'm thrilled that we can even contemplate these last few piddly issues. But who knows ... maybe the last 50 registrations will prove to be much tougher than I think they will. Only time will tell.

Z-Day (Getting To Zero Day) - What Does That Really Mean?

Illinois - 97.53%
Maine - 96.38%
Indiana - 92.71%
Alabama - 91.97%
Kentucky - 89.77%
Oklahoma - 89.65%

Now that I've declared on/about June 17th to be Z-Day, I've decided to give some thought as to what GTZ actually means in practical terms. Can we really get to zero on/about that day? Probably not.

Here's why:

On any given day, we are "blindsided" by a set of carrier data I have labelled "sideways adds". These are carriers who show up on today's unregistered list, but who weren't on the list yesterday. For those of you who may have forgotten, these additions can happen a couple of different ways.

First, a carrier may have gotten re-classified. In other words, they were classified as something other than an active, interstate carrier yesterday. Perhaps they were labelled as intrastate, inactive or a registrant.

Second, some state may have uploaded to MCMIS an inspection or a crash where there were none for a carrier yesterday. This creates carrier "activity", which moves the carrier into the hallowed inner ring of the UCR Universe.

On a typical day, we here in Illinois generate a "sideways add" list of about 6 carriers. Some days it's a dozen and some days it's two, but 6 is about the norm.

So .... even if we register the last ten carriers on today's list, we will probably get some new carriers via the "sideways add" process tomorrow morning. It's kind of like the half-life of uranium.

And so it goes ... "Getting to Zero" probably really means "Getting To Six", but that's OK --- we're going to call it "Getting To Zero" anyway!

And if we get fees, who knows?!?

Have a great holiday weekend!

KY and OK - Sorry About That!

Illinois - 97.49%
Maine - 96.41%
Indiana - 92.70%
Alabama - 92.02%
Kentucky - 89.79%
Oklahoma - 89.68%

Since I started including KY and OK in the blog to see which one would cross 90% first, the race has gone backwards! My apologies to both of you! In fact, there are actually four states in the running - ND at 89.59% and NY at 89.24% are also getting close. Frankly, I'd like to see all of you get to 90% soon. We can use all the states we can get at that level.

Interestingly, Maine hasn't budged in the last week. I don't know if that's a data upload problem or the fact that IRP season is over. They were going like a house afire for a couple weeks.

Finally, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Z-Day ("Getting-To-Zero Day) is going to occur on/about June 17th. It's certainly an inexact science, but I'm pretty comfortable with the pace that we're on. That could all change, of course, if we get 2010 fees, in which case I'd be happy to ASSUME we were going to make it to zero and move on to 2010 registration!

Show Me The Money! On the Road to 98%

Illinois - 97.44%
Maine - 96.41%
Indiana - 92.68%
Alabama - 91.99%
Kentucky - 89.83%
Oklahoma - 89.69%

As of this morning, we have 556 carriers left on our Unregistered List. If they all pay in accordance with the MCMIS numbers, we'll generate another $59,564. Not exactly the stuff of financial dreams, but ... very consistent with the "average of $80-100 per registration theory".

You may find this surprising, but I like to develop little spreadsheets that tell me different things about UCR stats. One of my favorites is a report I call the UCR Daily Activity report, where I monitor all of today's different UCR activities like registration, deactivations, buffer additions, carrier additions, etc. and attempt to decipher where our percentage is likely to wind up tomorrow morning. It's trickier than it sounds, because we don't know how many carriers the Feds are going to add overnight. Also, as you know, not every registered carrier comes off the Unregistered List.

I have an extra little section on that worksheet that contains the data about the other leading registration states and where we stand compared to them. Since we're almost half-way to 98%, I decided to calculate what the other states would have to do to get to 98%. It goes something like this:

We will have to take approximately 116 of carriers off our remaining 556 unregistered carriers (about 21%) to get to 98%.

Maine would have to take approximately 48 carriers off their remaining 110 unregistered carriers (about 44%) to get to 98%.

Indiana would have to take approximately 725 carriers off their remaining 993 unregistered carriers (about 73%) to get to 98%.

Alabama would have to take approximately 475 carriers off their remaining 636 unregistered carriers (about 75%) to get to 98%.

Hey, it ain't easy!

Which Comes First - We Get To Zero ... or 2010 Fees?

Illinois - 97.36%
Maine - 96.41%
Indiana - 92.58%
Alabama - 91.84%
Kentucky - 89.81%
Oklahoma - 89.71%

It's interesting that our "Getting to Zero" (GTZ) date projections appear to be on a crash course with the 90-day OMB deadline. As you know, I have mixed feelings about that. But since GTZ is still approximately 2.64 months away, it makes me wonder what in the world OMB is reviewing! Or, more likely, is the rule just sitting at the bottom of a pile on somebody's desk (which will necessitate a 90-day extension)? Who knows?

For what it's worth, here's my prognostication: I'm betting on GTZ to win, publication of the final 2010 fee rule to show - yes, show - and the Tea Party wildly embracing massive public debt to place.

J-u-s-s-s-s-s-t kidding!

Oklahoma Coming On Strong!

Illinois - 97.33%
Maine - 96.44%
Indiana - 92.43%
Alabama - 91.85%
Kentucky - 89.85%
Oklahoma - 89.72%

I've added Oklahoma to the stats because they are really making headway toward 90% registration and I'm interested to see if they get there before Kentucky. What difference does that make? Who knows? Maybe it's just the competitive side of me. Kentucky has been stuck in the same range for 2-3 weeks now. Maybe I'll send them an Unregistered List to help them get unstuck.

Speaking of Kentucky, there was a big accident on I-65 about 5:30 this morning south of Louisville. Apparently, a big rig crossed a median and hit a Mennonite church van head-on. 11 people are dead - most of them in the van and at least a couple of them infants. It's really tragic. I'm tempted to editorialize, but I think I'll just leave it alone. You probably know what I'd say anyway.

Have a great weekend!

UCR and FMCSA Out-Of-Service (OOS) Carriers

Illinois - 97.30%
Maine - 96.34%
Indiana - 92.36%
Alabama - 91.86%
Kentucky - 89.86%

Of the 586 carriers on today's Unregistered List, we have a handful of carriers who are classified by the FMCSA as "Out-Of-Service (OOS)". I have decided that it's not "reasonable" to expect us to register these carriers under UCR as they have been deemed unfit to operate by FMCSA and they will be detained and further penalized if they are caught operating.

FMCSA does not deactivate their USDOT numbers, however, so they will continue to show up on our Unregistered List.

We have decided, therefore, that we are going to "Buffer" these carriers (ask UCR-Link to "hide" them from our view) in order to get them off our radar. In the event that FMCSA allows these carriers back into service, we will "un-buffer" them.

UCR "Motivation and Fitness"

Illinois - 97.26%
Maine - 96.31%
Indiana - 92.37%
Alabama - 91.83%
Kentucky - 89.84%

I love tennis. More correctly, I love watching world-class tennis.

I also have a tendency to root for the underdog.

Last weekend, at a "world-class" tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California, a journeyman 31-year-old tennis player named Ivan Ljubicic - who was not even ranked in the world's top 20 players - beat America's best player, Andy Roddick, to win the tournament. Roddick is ranked 7th in the world. In order to get to the Roddick match, Ljubicic had to beat Rafael Nadal, the #2 player in the world. In order to get to the Nadal match, Ljubicic had to beat Novak Djokovic, the #3 player in the world.

When they interviewed Ljubicic after the match, they asked him how an "old guy" like him could beat all these young, top-notched guys in the same week. He answered, essentially, that it was not about age, but motivation. He said he has been spending 5 hours a day for the past few months working not on his tennis, but on his body because, to paraphrase Ljubicic, "in order to beat all of those guys in a a week, you have to be fit! The tennis comes naturally."

Since I love analogies, I got to thinking about UCR motivation and fitness. The higher we set the bar for our state, the more motivated and "fit" we have to be to get there. The approach that gets a state to 70% is probably not the approach that will get that same state to 80%. Same with 80% to 90%. And a state generally needs an "enhanced" approach to get from 90% to 95%.

Along the way, we decide - whether by design or default - what level is "good enough" for us.

I'm guessing that "good enough" is rarely a matter of "not enough people". It's more than likely a matter of motivation and fitness.

Pondering The Last 2.74%

Illinois - 97.26%
Maine - 96.34%
Indiana - 92.39%
Alabama - 91.87%
Kentucky - 89.82%

If you've read this blog over the last couple of months, you know that I'm fairly comfortable predicting a one-percent-per-month increase in our registration percentage from this point forward. At that rate, we'll "get to zero" in, let's see, approximately 2.74 months.

Admittedly, we're not there yet. But since Z-Day coincides so nicely with the expiration of the OMB rule review (and possible extension), we just might get there!

Part of me wants to get the 2010 fees and get the new registration going, but part of me wants to see this thing all the way through to the very end.

Why?

Because once it's been done, nobody can say it can't be done.

More importantly, we will have learned HOW to do it and what it takes to get there, which coverts it from an "impossibility" into a "best practice".

Happy Birthday, UCR 5000!!!

Unregistered Carriers on 03/17/2009 - 656
Unregistered Carriers on 03/18/2010 - 640

Illinois - 97.05%
Maine - 96.40%
Indiana - 92.24%
Alabama - 91.83%
Kentucky - 89.83%

Exactly one year ago today, we constructed our first UCR5000 spreadsheet after publicly declaring at the UCR Board Meeting that Illinois was going to attempt to register everybody in our UCR Universe for 2009.

You may recall that our first "Unregistered List" contained 5,123 carriers - and we had already registered somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 IL carriers for 2009 at that point!

UCR-Link didn't exist at that point. Our first UCR reports actually came out of our CVIEW. Eventually, we tried to jam so many UCR-related things into CVIEW that Chris finally said, "Why don't we just make a separate UCR software product out of this." We both agreed that other states might be interested in a product like that.

We can now see the light at the end of the "getting to zero" tunnel. If there's any bad news, it's that we've needed a registration year of 18 months ... and counting.... to get there. But the good news is that we are now smarter, we have better tools, we have some experience under our belts, and we're are ready for 2010 --- if we can just get some fees!!!

Have a great weekend!

97% Coming Up - Right On Schedule!

Unregistered Carriers on 03/17/2009 - 660
Unregistered Carriers on 03/18/2010 - 656

Illinois - 96.98%
Maine - 96.30%
Indiana - 92.22%
Alabama - 91.80%
Kentucky - 89.83%

Barring a catastrophe, we're going to go over 97% tomorrow. As you know, I'm estimating a one percent per month improvement in our registration percentage, with the 21st of the month being the actual measurement date. Since the 21st of this month is a Sunday, we're right on target!

Some interesting things are happening with regard to this phase of the UCR5000 project, which I like to refer to as "drying up the lake".

First, lots more carriers are contacting us requesting that their USDOT number be deactivated. This seems to be the direct result of our "relentless" contact efforts. The beauty of these types of requests ("please deactivate my USDOT number") is that there is no potentially-contentious procedure discussion between us and the Feds. The carrier's request to deactivate is all either one of us need for justification.

Second, we are increasingly able to "zero in" on the remaining folks and actually intensify our efforts at getting them registered. Rest assured that we are not going to stop contacting them until we 1) register them, 2) deactivate them or 3) bust them. We really are trying to stop short of busting them unless we can establish that they are just "thumbing their noses at us".

656 unregistered carriers seems, in some ways, like a lot, but compared to where we started, it's looking more and more manageable!

Incorrigible Unregistered Carriers

Unregistered Carriers on 03/16/2009 - 660
Unregistered Carriers on 03/17/2010 - 660

Illinois - 96.96%
Maine - 96.34%
Indiana - 92.20%
Alabama - 91.85%
Kentucky - 89.84%

Ok, I understand that the UCR program is confusing at the moment. I also understand that some carriers are thinking that they can wait until 2010 fees come out before they have to register --- and then they think that they won't have to register for 2009 at all. I get all that.

But there is also a group of carriers who KNOW that they are supposed to register ... and they just sandbag us. I make no apologies for not registering these guys. Many of them are in out-of-the-way locations. Usually, they are little guys. They don't see many of our cops ... or MCSAP cops either, for that matter. We continue to contact them and try to get them to register. If our cops see them, they're toast ... MCSAP guys, not so much.

The time may soon be coming, however, when the Feds will have to help us out by taking action against these carriers - probably by way of the DOT number. Perhaps a deactivation of the number and/or an Out-Of-Service designation.

What I'm suggesting will be difficult for the Feds. UCR is not really on their radar ... except for that pesky fee rule! Nevertheless, I think they will be the first to admit that deactivating a USDOT number gets the attention of roadside motor carrier safety officers and inspectors everywhere. They instantly know that something is wrong with the guy - which, in turn, causes them to dig deeper.

We have to be patient - but persistent - on this issue. At then end of the day, I think we're all after the same thing - safe, fit and accountable carriers. A little help from our friends at the Fed will take us a long way in that direction.

Vendor As State "Proxy" - Part 3

Unregistered Carriers on 03/15/2009 - 687
Unregistered Carriers on 03/16/2010 - 660

Illinois - 96.96%
Maine - 96.34%
Indiana - 92.17%
Alabama - 91.82%
Kentucky - 89.87%

Today, we'll focus on the actual activities surrounding UCR registration.

The way I see it, our vendor (state "proxy") might consider offering several different types of registration - just like a state would - but they would focus on and encourage registration via the Web as their primary registration preference. Ideally, they would encourage registration on the Indiana site in order to avoid the overhead of creating and maintaining the State's own Web site.

But that is not the vendor's real edge. The vendor's real edge is in the amount of "people power" required to manage the registration side of the program - more specifically, their ability to scale the amount and cost of the personal effort required.

Let's assume that, unlike most states, a vendor can hire talented temporary help in whatever quantities they see fit. These talented temps usually come in at an hourly rate and are provided no benefits. In an economy like this, they are definitely out there - and happy to get the work! And, the vendor can adjust the amount needed as they go.

Now, couple that notion with the Move The Needle (MTN) ratio I've been writing about.

This morning, I asked my people if they thought one person could handle all of the UCR registration work for a state with a low MTN. They said yes. By "handle", I mean they would take care of the mail, the walk-ins, the phone calls, the registration processing and responding to emails. Keep in mind that what I'm really asking is whether one full-time-equivalent (FTE) can handle the work. This could be accomplished by one person working at the job full-time, two people working at the job half-time, etc.

A state might say "no way" to one FTE doing the work, but the vendor has no problem making this the actual "job description" for the temp - one full time equivalent (FTE) for the UCR registration job. With regard to cost, I'm guessing that temps in the area of $12-14 per hour could handle the work with some up-front instruction and ongoing access to someone who can handle the exceptional situations.

Meanwhile, if a state is paying their staff FTE a salary of $20K plus current overhead rates in the neighborhood of, say, 65%, they are paying an overall hourly rate of around $18 per hour. (Many of us are, I believe, paying a lot more than that!) Meanwhile, the full-time help is not really all that scalable. And, they take vacations, sick days and personal days.

Now please understand that I am not knocking full-time state help. I have said many times that I have a remarkable staff and I will tell that to anybody, anytime. And, they deserve the time off to which they are entitled.

Here's what I AM saying: I think a vendor with the right tools and some reasonably-talented temporary help might very well end up "netting" more UCR money for a state than if that state runs their own program with their own full-time people.

Don't think of it as running government "as a business". Think of it as running government in a business-like fashion. There's a difference.

Score
-----
Vendor Proxy - 2
State - 0

Vendor As State "Proxy" - Part 2

Unregistered Carriers on 03/12/2009 - 686
Unregistered Carriers on 03/15/2010 - 687

Illinois - 96.83%
Maine - 96.24%
Indiana - 92.12%
Alabama - 91.76%
Kentucky - 89.84%

In my last post, I said that the registration side (as opposed to the enforcement side) of UCR involves two major tasks:

1) Carrier contact
2) Act of carrier registration

Let's look at Carrier Contact first. I can tell you that when it comes to carrier contact, any state that is not using capabilities comparable to those found in the UCR-Link product will lose the carrier contact battle to the vendor every time.

First, you will be contacting only the current crop of unregistered UCR Universe carriers. That list changes every day and is impossible to keep up with without functionality of this kind.

Second, you have the Emailer, which provides the capability to automatically contact all unregistered carriers with email addresses every fifteen days - free! Hands-off!

These capabilities put a vendor or state in the position of being able to contact only the appropriate carriers relentlessly. You are virtually guaranteed to increase your registration percentage with that kind of activity going on.

So, in my opinion, the best a state can do is achieve a "draw" against a vendor
when it comes to Carrier Contact.

Next time, we'll focus on the second major task - the actual act of registration.

Vendor as "State Proxy" - Part 1

Unregistered Carriers on 03/10/2009 - 741
Unregistered Carriers on 03/12/2010 - 686

Illinois - 96.84%
Maine - 96.24%
Indiana - 92.10%
Alabama - 91.69%
Kentucky - 89.85%

In Wednesday's post, I said that a vendor that "acted like a state on behalf of the state" - via outsourcing - might very well out-perform the state for which the vendor was the proxy. Please understand that this idea is sort of hypothetical, but, having been on the vendor side, I know the idea to be workable as well.

Let's assume at the outset of this "thought experiment" that the quality of service provided by the vendor would be at least as good as the state would provide - whatever that means. I'll leave it to your imagination as to how high that bar would be set.

Let's also assume that the vendor is operating under the following - and only the following - contraints.

First, the vendor can't do illegal, unethical or immoral stuff.

Second, the vendor will be told by the state what, specifically, will constitute "acceptable or unacceptable" registrations, and will use the same acceptability decision-making mechanism as the state. ("This guy claimed 1,000 power units and paid for one! Why did you accept that?")

Those assumptions will do for starters. We may need to add some as we go.

OK, as I see it, the registration side (as opposed to the enforcement side) of UCR involves two major tasks: carrier contact and then the actual act of carrier registration.

In my next post, we'll compare the state approach to the vendor approach and see who would likely come out on top.

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!

Unregistered Carriers on 03/09/2009 - 746
Unregistered Carriers on 03/10/2010 - 741

Illinois - 96.59%
Maine - 96.20%
Indiana - 92.00%
Alabama - 91.46%
Kentucky - 89.77%

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on a beach in Florida thinking about UCR. That statement, in and of itself, should raise a bunch of red flags!

But then, I had this thought, which should be taken as nothing more than the ramblings of a man who's not smart enough to think about something other than UCR while he's basking in the sun - or who's been out in the sun too long.

My thought was this:

What if a state completely outsourced its UCR registration operation to a "UCR Vendor"? Lock, stock and barrel. Not enforcement, just registration. Which one would do the job better?

Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that 1) the vendor could legitimately claim to carriers that they represented the state ("Hi, this is the state of Illinois calling"), 2) the vendor had capabilities equivalent to UCR-Link and 3) there was some kind of incentive for the vendor to do their best job - performance clauses, bonuses, or whatever - just like there are for states (except, of course, for those crazy caps!). Perhaps the following would work: the vendor gets the same percentage of the agreed-upon compensation as the state's UCR registration percentage. Sold!

I have to be honest - I kind of like the vendor's chances. Why? Because it could be run very similarly to a for-profit project. Combine that with enforcement and you've got a winner!

What The MTN Ratio DOESN"T Tell You

Unregistered Carriers on 03/08/2009 - 783
Unregistered Carriers on 03/09/2010 - 746

Illinois - 96.56%
Maine - 95.88%
Indiana - 91.96%
Alabama - 91.35%
Kentucky - 89.76%

Actually, there are LOTS of things the MTN Ratio doesn't tell you. The "thing" I was thinking about was that the MTN Ratio does not reflect when a state like New York or Texas registers lots of non-participating state carriers. The MTN ratio only applies to carriers domiciled in the states under discussion at the time.

Take New York, for example. Please! Take New York! (Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here through Saturday night.)

New Jersey - a neighboring non-participating state - has 13,000 carriers. A great many of them are registered by our good friend in New York, Bill Leonard. So ... if you add NJ's MTN ratio of 130 to New York's 170, you could argue that Bill has an MTN Ratio of close to 300. And that's just one extra jurisdiction that Bill deals with - there are also carriers from another 8 to 10 jurisdictions who could choose NY if they so desired.

So, we could surmise that if you were going to seek out exclusive registration of carriers from a non-participating state, you might get a rough idea of how much work you were in for by using the MTN Ratio. That's the theory, at least.

More About The Move The Needle (MTN) Ratio

Unregistered Carriers on 03/05/2009 - 763
Unregistered Carriers on 03/08/2010 - 783

Illinois - 96.39%
Maine - 95.88%
Indiana - 91.93%
Alabama - 91.34%
Kentucky - 89.72%

First, let me say that we were "lambasted" by a bunch of USDOT number "adds" - looks like most of them were an upload of inspections for carriers not previously in the UCR Universe. We also got a notification from FMCSA that they had a file problem. We'll have to sort it all out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've been doing more thinking about the MTN ratio, which, I'm convinced, is destined for whatever the Oscar-equivalent is for cool numbers.

As nearly as I can tell, this number may also be a reflection of the range of effort required of states - and the efficiency of that effort - in administering UCR registration next year. See if this makes sense.

I have a total of 21,684 carriers in my current universe. One percent of that total is 216.84. In 2010, I will have to register 217 carriers in order to ratchet my registration percentage up one percent. If I have 3 FTE's working on my UCR registrations, I'm going to need roughly 72 registrations per FTE per percentage point.

Meanwhile, a number of states (ME, RI, NM and MT) have ratios between 28 and 30, meaning they have to register 28 to 30 carriers to ratchet their percentage up one percent.

I guess I'm speculating that they should be able to "move their needle" about 2.5 percent for each FTE they are assigning to UCR if their productivity per FTE is about the same as ours here in IL.

I've got to think about this some more. If you have thoughts about today's post, let me know.

My New "Move The Needle" Performance Ratio

Unregistered Carriers on 03/02/2009 - 796
Unregistered Carriers on 03/05/2010 - 763

Illinois - 96.48%
Maine - 95.68%
Indiana - 91.86%
Alabama - 91.24%
Kentucky - 89.72%

I was sitting around contemplating the notion that some states have to work a lot harder than others in order to significantly move their registration percentage "needle" when, inspired by the fact that even Al Gore can win a Nobel prize, I decided to invent a new ratio to reflect the level of effort required by each state to "move the needle". I call it, appropriately enough, the "Move the Needle" (MTN) ratio.

Essentially, the MTN ratio is a function of how many percent a state has left before they reach full (100%) registration divided into how many unregistered carriers they have left. The ratio represents the number of carriers by which a state must reduce its unregistered list in order to "move the needle" 1%.

Here are the MTN ratios for the current top 5 states registration percentage states:

IL - 216.76
ME - 30.56
IN - 134.89
AL - 79.34
KY - 88.81

Here are five highest MTN ratios:

CA - 292.62
TX - 220.95
IL - 216.76
PA - 187.65
NY - 167.83

I'm certain that the history books will eventually acknowledge the importance of this ratio right up there along with the Fibonacci series and the multiplication tables. For now, I have to be content with the knowledge that I have a sound mathematical excuse for getting beat by everybody except CA and TX.

Have a great weekend!

We May Just Get To Zero Yet!!!

Unregistered Carriers on 02/26/2009 - 832
Unregistered Carriers on 03/02/2010 - 796

Illinois - 96.32%
Maine - 95.23%
Indiana - 91.80%
Alabama - 90.95%
Kentucky - 89.70%

In case you're not aware of it, the FMCSA indicated today - despite the furlough - that the 2010 fee rule was sent to OMB yesterday, with a potential publication date in mid-June. That development reminded me of a cartoon I saw once that showed two guys fishing in a boat with a huge mushroom cloud in the background. I don't remember the whole caption, but the gist of it was, "I'll tell you what that means, Bob. It means we don't need a license anymore and screw the limit!" Talk about making your lemonade out of your lemon!

Now ... while I hope that OMB moves the 2010 fee rule through their process much faster than mid-June, we could very well be looking at three more months of 2009 registration. That's roughly 60 more work days. If you divide 796 by 60, you get something like 14, which is the NET number of unregistered carriers we would have to remove daily from our list either through registration or deactivation to "get to zero". That's not a small task, but it certainly seems within reach.

So, .... we shall see what we shall see! And Maine will probably beat me to it!

Number Weirdness

Unregistered Carriers on 02/25/2009 - 838
Unregistered Carriers on 02/26/2010 - 832

Illinois - 96.16%
Maine - 94.91%
Indiana - 91.80%
Alabama - 90.78%
Kentucky - 89.74%

There's sort of a friendly competition going on among, at the very least, Alabama, Maine and Illinois. By "friendly competition", I mean that all of us are watching our percentages pretty closely, diligently working the UCR program, and thinking, "I think we could wind up on top of the registration percentage heap for 2009!". And, as I've said many times in this blog, "It's all good!" From a performance standpoint, all states should be engaged in whatever it takes (as long as it's legal) to raise that UCR registration percentage.

I mentioned yesterday that I think Maine is the odds-on favorite to wind up on top - and even "get to zero" - if they keep doing what they've been doing over the past couple of weeks. Why? Number Weirdness!

Maine has registered 2,906 carriers and currently has 156 carriers on their unregistered list for a registration percentage of 94.91%. If their unregistered list was reduced by just another 40 carriers, they would be tied for the lead with me. Meanwhile, Alabama has registered 7,208 carriers and currently has 732 carriers on their unregistered list for a registration percentage of 90.78% In order to get to the same spot, they will have to reduce their unregistered list by roughly another 450 carriers. That's a lot when you only have 732 to start with! Meanwhile, us folks in Illinois don't plan to be standing still, so whatever improvements we make in our percentage only raises the bar a little more.

One think I think we all agree on: the Unregistered List is invaluable! All of us have slightly different approaches, but since we have the list of carriers who haven't registered, we at least know who to go after.

It's all good!!

Maine is Rockin'!

Unregistered Carriers on 02/24/2009 - 843
Unregistered Carriers on 02/25/2010 - 838

Illinois - 96.13%
Maine - 94.87%
Indiana - 91.79%
Alabama - 90.68%
Kentucky - 89.75%

I'm not going to lie to you - I think if Maine keeps doing what they've been doing over the past couple of weeks, they stand a good chance of "getting to zero" before Illinois ... and I'm going to be rooting them on all the way!

They are doing two things that I think are crucial. First, they are actively working from an Unregistered Carrier List. They know which carriers should be registering but haven't yet registered. Second, they are "suspending commercial plates, commercial driving privileges and cab cards" - or at least threatening to suspend them - if carriers don't comply. That is a recipe for UCR success ... as long as it's legal in the state.

You go, Maine!

West Virginia, We Salute You!

Unregistered Carriers on 02/23/2009 - 849
Unregistered Carriers on 02/24/2010 - 843

Illinois - 96.10%
Maine - 94.42%
Indiana - 91.80%
Alabama - 90.58%
Kentucky - 89.76%

My good friend Scott Morris points out that West Virginia deserves some kudos for the work they have done in the last 30 days --- raising their registration percentage a full three percentage points! Way to go, folks! That's not easy to do at this stage of the registration cycle.

I'd also like to point out once again that Maine is coming on strong, raising their registration percentage a full percentage point in the last couple of weeks and knocking down the number of carriers on their unregistered list by a full 15%!

Git 'er done!

Come on, Kentucky!

Unregistered Carriers on 02/22/2009 - 868
Unregistered Carriers on 02/23/2010 - 849

Illinois - 96.07%
Maine - 94.13%
Indiana - 91.77%
Alabama - 90.52%
Kentucky - 89.75%

I love what's going on in several states! Yesterday, I mentioned all the good work going on in Alabama. Maine actually jumped by .40 since yesterday! I'm going to assume that is a result of either IRP registrations or accumulated data updates sent to the Fed. I have also included KY in the states listed above because they are so close to 90%. It's worth noting that the lowest state in the "top 10" - Nebraska - is at 86.23%. These are serious percentages, people! Hopefully, we can begin to dispel the notion that 90% registration is some sort of lofty dream for a state. In fact, I continue to believe that every state can hit 90% if they employ the right methods.

Meanwhile, I don't want to short-change states like New York that have not only registered 88.38% of their own carriers, but have also assumed the responsibility for registering many non-participating state carriers.

For what it's worth, cumulative registration now sits at 76.33%, which some industry reps once publicly acknowledged could represent a "good faith registration effort by the states". Remember that???

Back From Florida and Feeling (and Looking) Good!!!

Unregistered Carriers on 02/12/2009 - 921
Unregistered Carriers on 02/22/2010 - 868

Illinois - 95.98%
Maine - 93.73%
Indiana - 91.75%
Alabama - 90.41%

Right out of the chute, I want to do two things.

First, I want to make a point of saying what a fine job the folks at the Alabama PSC are doing on UCR. The have now surpassed KY and ND on the registration percentage list and joined the "90% Club". We now have 4 states over 90% and the aforementioned KY and ND knocking on the door at 89.74% and 89.37% respectively.

Second, I want to give you an update on a post I made 1/21/10 regarding getting from 95% registration to 96% registration. Specifically, I ended the post by saying:

My gut feeling: we need about 300 more registrations and our average number of new adds and deactivations to get to 96%. With any luck, we can do it in about a month.

Let's see how close I get.

Since we will most likely surpass 96% after today's activity (right on target!!) I'm going to go ahead and give you a summary of our numbers. As of Friday, we had registered 242 carriers since 1/22 (we also have an additional 21 registrations today) and reduced our unregistered list from 1078 to 868.

Why is any of this important? Because UCR success - at least as it's been regarded to date - begins with understanding where we are in relation to the task ahead of us.

In other words, who are we supposed to be registering --- and how are we doing at getting them registered?

MCMIS, UCR & More - Part 5

Unregistered Carriers on 02/10/2009 - 934
Unregistered Carriers on 02/10/2010 - 921

Illinois - 95.73%
Maine - 93.66%

Today, I'd like to talk about State Corroboration of FMCSA data. I'm not talking about FMCSA state offices - I'm talking about actual state agencies who interact with FMCSA data.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

1) A motor carrier incorporates in Illinois. The corporation subsequently acquires a USDOT number. Later, that corporation is dissolved - voluntarily or involuntarily. According to everything we here in Illinois know, that corporation is no longer a viable legal entity and is no longer able to conduct business under the auspices of the corporation. Period! What should happen to the MCMIS record?

2) A motor carrier operates commercial vehicles interstate under a federal authority. The motor carrier doesn't register for a given year under the state's IRP program. What should happen to the MCMIS record?

3) A motor carrier with an "Active USDOT number" can be proven - via cancellation of policies and insurance filings - to be without insurance. What should happen to the USDOT number?

In conjunction with "cleaning up the data", we need to initiate an extensive dialogue about expanding and coordinating the collective database of knowledge we have about motor carriers. "Cleaning up the data" shouldn't just be about making sure that FMCSA has the correct name and address for a carrier. Cleaning up the data should also be about making sure that we - the FMCSA and the states - share and coordinate all the information we have about a carrier and making sure that carriers should even be on the highway. This is easier said than done ... but well worth the effort.

I'll be on R&R next week. The next post will be on or about 2/23.

MCMIS, UCR & MORE - Part 4

Unregistered Carriers on 02/09/2009 - 941
Unregistered Carriers on 02/10/2010 - 934

Illinois - 95.67%
Maine - 93.50%

Sooner or later, the State UCR agencies and the FMCSA - and maybe a few more entities - need to have the following discussion:

What does FMCSA mean when they classify a motor carrier as "Active"?

Here, in a nutshell, is what I think they mean. I think they mean that when a MCMIS record is created, a carrier's status is set to "Active". From there, it takes an "Act of God" to make that carrier "Inactive". (Just kidding!)

Here's what we can pretty much say that it doesn't mean:

It doesn't mean that the carrier has had any "activity" lately. The FMCSA hasn't seen or heard from some of these carriers in years.

It doesn't mean that the carrier is "legal". An active carrier whose operation is listed as for-hire can have his authority revoked in L&I for years and still be "active".

It doesn't mean the carrier should be operating. The carrier can be classified as "Out-Of-Service" and still also be classified as "Active".

It doesn't mean the carrier is "safe". Plenty of unsafe carriers are classified as "active".

So, if "Active" doesn't mean any of those things, what does it mean? And how do we get it changed???

MCMIS, UCR & More - Part 3

Unregistered Carriers on 02/08/2009 - 953
Unregistered Carriers on 02/09/2010 - 941

Illinois - 95.64%
Maine - 93.43%

Let's review about those MCMIS carrier records that look like UCR Universe Carriers but which actually do not represent carriers in the "UCR Universe". There are thousands of them. Who are these carriers, exactly?

They are carriers which MCMIS shows as "Active, Interstate Carriers" - just as UCR Universe carriers are shown as "Active, Interstate Carriers - but, unlike UCR Universe Carriers, these records do not show any associated inspections, crashes, MCS-150 updates or previous-year UCR registrations in the past 12 months.

The assumption is that since these carrier records had no "activity" attached to them, they are less likely to actually still be in business.

The States have had some experience contacting these carriers, but the outcomes have been less than stellar. My own personal guess is that at least half of them - maybe more - are out of business, so there is very little incentive for UCR states to contact these carriers. No sense wasting time, paper, postage, phone calls, etc. when 1) they're not part of the UCR Universe and 2) the chances are good they are not there anyway.

These records are a major problem for FMCSA, but UCR is unlikely to fix this problem for the reasons I just described.

MCMIS, UCR & More - Part 2

Unregistered Carriers on 02/06/2009 - 950
Unregistered Carriers on 02/08/2010 - 953

Illinois - 95.58%
Maine - 93.43%

In the last post, I discussed the connection between MCMIS and UCR. I also explained the "UCR Universe" and how that came about.

Now, I want to make a very important point about the connection between UCR and MCMIS:

The performance of the states under UCR is being "judged" by the percentage of the carriers in the UCR Universe they register.

This means that the states are actually helping to clean up Fed MCMIS data for many of the carriers in the UCR Universe --- but not for the tens of thousands of carriers who are NOT in the UCR Universe.

Here's an example: according to MCMIS, Illinois has about 32,000 carriers that are flagged as "Active, Interstate Carriers". We have registered approximately 20,600 of these carriers and show a UCR Universe remainder of about 950 carriers. This leaves about 11,000 carriers that are "off our UCR radar", primarily because they have not had an inspection, a crash or an MCS-150 update in the past 12 months. To my knowledge, nobody is cleaning up those records.

In the next post, we'll talk some more about the significance of these carrier records.

MCMIS, UCR and More! - Part 1

Unregistered Carriers on 02/04/2009 - 971
Unregistered Carriers on 02/06/2010 - 950

Illinois - 95.60%
Maine - 93.40%

Those of you who are new to this blog have missed some of the earlier posts which described the relationship between the Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) and the FMCSA's Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). We can all stand a review once in a while, so I'm going to begin a multi-part series that describes, from my own point of view, the relationship between MCMIS and UCR ... and then offer a few observations about the future of that relationship --- at no extra cost!

Let's start by explaining how MCMIS got connected with UCR.

The UCR program registers interstate motor carriers, brokers and freight forwarders. For the sake of simplicity, I will heretofore refer to this entire group as "carriers".

When the UCR Board was trying to figure out about how many carriers were currently in operation (in order to determine first-year fees), the Board quickly reached concensus that the most comprehensive source of entities fitting the federal definition of "interstate commercial motor carrier" was MCMIS. IRP and IFTA were considered, but since their definition of carrier starts at 26,000 pounds - and they don't include brokers or freight forwarders - and their definition of "interstate" is considerably different - they were not considered comprehensive enough by the Board. After all, the more potential carriers we could identify, the lower the fees could be set.

The Board's next task was to use MCMIS to figure out 1) who was likely to actually register under UCR and 2) about how many vehicles those carriers would register.

After much deliberation by the Board's Revenue and Fees Committee, the Board adopted the recommendation that a "UCR Universe" Carrier would be a carrier designated in MCMIS as an "Active, Interstate Carrier" with some level of activity - an inspection, a crash, or an MCS-150 update - within the past 12 months.

This set of criteria produced a "Universe" of approximately 350,000 MCMIS records which the States would actively solicit for UCR registration.

This set of criteria also "left behind" literally tens of thousands of MCMIS records that were designated as "Active, Interstate Carriers" that did not have the aforementioned activity in the last 12 months. We'll talk a lot more about this group in the next few days.

Have a great weekend!

Look Out Louisiana & Kansas

Unregistered Carriers on 02/01/2009 - 999
Unregistered Carriers on 02/04/2010 - 971

Illinois - 95.50%
Maine - 93.40%

With 971 unregistered carriers, we are within "shouting distance" of two states:

USLA 964
USKS 950

Fair warning: we're coming after you! Just to keep things interesting!

Meanshile, we're halfway to 96% --- a little bit ahead of schedule.

One other thing ... California passed the 20,000 registration mark today. I don't care who you are, that's a lot of registrations in a state.

Less Than 1,000 To Go! Tentative Target Date - May 15th!

Unregistered Carriers on 01/30/2009 - 1006
Unregistered Carriers on 02/01/2010 - 999

Illinois - 95.37%
Maine - 93.40%

I don't know why, by moving to "under 1,000" unregistered MCMIS carrier records seems like a cool thing to me. The bad news is that there are still "just under 1,000" unregistered MCMIS records out there.

On March 17th, 2009, when I started the "Getting to Zero" effort, we had 5,123 unregistered carriers left to go, so we have, indeed, come a long way .... and we've learned a lot!

On January 1, we had 1,301 unregistered carriers, so I would consider removing a net of 300 records per month to be entirely realistic. Simple math using that pace "gets us to zero" around May 15th. Do I think it will go down that way? Maybe, maybe not.

My hope is that we will get 2010 fees and have to direct our attention first and foremost to 2010 registration. We've been collecting "other people's money" for about a year now and it's time to get some revenue in the door that we can keep. In that case, we will continue to collect 2009 revenues, but we will probably be less aggressive about deactivating unregistered carriers.

For now, it's business as usual ...

Headed to 96% - Results For January - Saturday Edition

Unregistered Carriers on 01/29/2009 - 1031
Unregistered Carriers on 01/30/2010 - 1006

Illinois - 95.34%
Maine - 93.37%

On January 21st, I wrote that I thought it would take us about a month to get to from 95% to 96%. So far, we are on right on target, although you never know what's going to happen on the other side of the weekend FMCSA updates.

Since tomorrow is the end of the month - and I don't expect anybody to be coming in this weekend - I feel safe in reporting the January stats to you.

For the month of January, we registered 263 carriers and collected $18,289 for an average of just under $70 per registration. Perhaps more importantly, we removed 295 carriers from our unregistered list. This jives with the pace of getting from 95% to 96% that I described above. What was our registration percentage on 12/31? Believe it or not, it was 93.97%!

Have a great weekend!

What Does The MCMIS "Active" Status Really Mean?

Unregistered Carriers on 01/28/2009 - 1040
Unregistered Carriers on 01/29/2010 - 1031

Illinois - 95.22%
Maine - 93.31%

Perhaps the question should include the words "... and to whom"?

We are on the verge of trying to answer this question with both the FMCSA office here in Illinois and the folks in Washington. I'm going to venture a couple of observations that are strictly my own - nobody told me this stuff.

From Washington's perspective, it seems to me that they are trying to figure out whether they have 750,000 carriers ... or 650,000 carriers ... or 550,000 carriers ... you get the idea. Maybe the last time they heard from a guy was 1992, but their default mode is to assume he's still active unless they hear otherwise from the carrier. Not only that, but when it comes to funding, probably look better. Again, my observation ... not a criticism and not necessarily fact. Err on the side of keeping the carrier active because once he's gone, he's off the radar.

From the state FMCSA office perspective, they are trying to figure out how many carriers they are responsible for ... and exactly who and where they are. Illinois has over 30,000 MCMIS records - notice I didn't say carriers - domiciled here. How'd you like to be the person responsible for making sure that all 30,000+ of them are safe and up-to-date on their safety records, etc. The state office doesn't necessarily want to see "ambiguous" carrier records deactivated, because deactivation "takes them out of the program", to use their words.

From our perspective, we're responsible for registering all of the "active" carriers that have shown certain kinds of activity in the last year. Those carrier records "count against us" if we don't register them, so we have a vested interest in identifying and deactivating any carriers in our UCR Universe who "aren't really there". Defining "aren't really there" is frequently done from the perspective of the beholder, which has been a point of disagreement in many states.

Finally, there are the "active" MCMIS records that haven't had any activity in two years ... or more. Those are the guys I wrote about the other day. We have 11,000+ of them here in Illinois! Are they really active or not?

As I said, we are on the verge of moving this discussion forward. From my perspective, it's all good!

Looking At Maine In The Rear-View Mirror

Unregistered Carriers on 01/25/2009 - 1068
Unregistered Carriers on 01/28/2010 - 1040

Illinois - 95.18%
Maine - 93.34%

It's hard for me to believe that we are now almost two full percentage points ahead of Maine. As predicted, their percentage hasn't budged since the end of November. No IRP - no UCR.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Indiana for being on the verge of breaking the 91% mark. Moving up a percentage point when we're at this point in the registration cycle is tough work!

Scott Morris pointed out the other day that the top 9 states have an overall registration rate of 90.15% The top 24 states have an overall registration rate of 85.15%. The overall national rate as of this morning is 75.53%. I think those are pretty impressive numbers. I'm also guessing that the bottom nine states are averaging somewhere close to 65%. We won't belabor South Carolina.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Unregistered Carriers on 01/22/2009 - 1064
Unregistered Carriers on 01/25/2010 - 1068

Illinois - 95.05%
Maine - 93.40%

One of the really beautiful reports that comes out of UCR-Link is the Mail Merge report. I've talked about this report before, but I'll mention it again now as a precursor to today's comments.

The mail merge report is run against MCMIS and shows us all of the MCMIS records that are currently represented as "Active Interstate Carriers" - without regard to whether or not they fall into our "UCR Universe".

In Illinois, we show 11,400 motor carriers that are not in our UCR Universe, but which MCMIS shows as Active Interstate Carriers. This means that these records show a carrier as active, but these carriers show no record of an inspection, a crash, an MCS-150 update or a UCR registration in the past 15 months.

So, what's wrong with this picture?

If we went to the folks at FMCSA and said, "Well, apparently these carriers are inactive because you haven't heard from them or seen them, so let's deactivate them", FMCSA would have a cow! We all know that's true. And I would agree with them. But, at the same time, if we ask them to explain the status of these carriers, they would have to say they don't know ... because they literally don't know.

Apparently, between Washington, the FMCSA field office, CVISN, PRISM, MCSAP, IRP, and IFTA - all of the major motor carrier programs - we still have thousands of motor carrier records that nobody knows anything about. So, either we have tens of thousand of motor carriers operating "under the radar" (no pun intended), or we have a lot of data that is bogus and out-of-date. Our experience to date tells us that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Is this a problem? Only if your mission is motor carrier safety. How do you know these carriers are safe if you don't even know their current status ... or whereabouts?

I don't raise this issue to point any fingers. I raise this issue because I think there are holes in the data big enough to drive a truck through (darned, there I go again!) and because UCR is, in my opinion, the FMCSA's best hope for cleaning up their data. And, for anybody who wants to debate the issue, please don't tell me that putting more money into MCSAP (or any other program I listed) is going to remedy this problem. All of those programs are getting "long in the tooth" and we still have 100,000 (or more) motor carriers nationally whose status is basically a mystery. I call that a problem ... and I suspect that every FMCSA State Director lives in fear of one of these "mystery carriers" from their state getting in a nasty crash.

And, if you still don't see what's wrong with this picture ... I'm afraid I can't help you.

I challenge you!!!

Unregistered Carriers on 01/21/2009 - 1078
Unregistered Carriers on 01/22/2010 - 1064

Illinois - 95.06%
Maine - 93.43%

I would like to propose a challenge to all States. Here it is:

I believe that, starting today, we will register more of our own state's carriers for the 2009 UCR registration year in the next 30 days than any other state.

You can use whatever means you want - mailings, phone calls, emails or personal visits.

Consider the gauntlet thrown down --- and have a great weekend!

95% ... and Beyond!!

Unregistered Carriers on 01/20/2009 - 1091
Unregistered Carriers on 01/21/2010 - 1078

Illinois - 95.00%
Maine - 93.40%

Today, we hit 95% registration. This achievement, of course, led me to wonder what it will take to get to 96%. It's not an easy calculation, but that never prevents me from trying. In fact, Bill Leonard recently told me that some days I sound like the "Rain Man" in this blog. But I digress ...

First, remember that the registration percentage calculation is:

# Registrations / (# Registration + # Unregistered Universe Carriers)

We generally assume that about 80% of our registrations are carriers that are actually on the Unregistered Universe list, but that's just an average.

This calculation is manageable ... unless you factor in the next variable - "new adds". The Unregistered Universe list expands and contracts, so if, on a given day, we registered nobody but we got a "new add", our percentage would actually go down for that day. Nothing's easy.

Our last variable is de-activations, where we don't have to register anybody on a given day in order to make our percentage go up. So, if, on the aforementioned day, we register nobody, we deactivate two carriers and we have one "new add", our percentage would still go up ... without registering one single carrier.

So how do we put all this stuff together and estimate the effort needed to get to 96%? Beats me!

I've got a spreadsheet called a UCR Daily Activity Calculator, however, that functions like a mixing bowl: I put in today's beginning numbers, I plug in my assumptions for the day about registrations, new adds, deactivations, resends (peculiar to UCR Link) and voila ... out comes my anticipated percentage for tomorrow morning. It's usually pretty close but rarely "spot on" because I have no way to accurately anticipate how many new adds I'm going to get from FMCSA.

My gut feeling: we need about 300 more registrations and our average number of new adds and deactivations to get to 96%. With any luck, we can do it in about a month.

Let's see how close I get.

Quit Picking On South Carolina!!!

Unregistered Carriers on 01/19/2009 - 1091
Unregistered Carriers on 01/20/2010 - 1091

Illinois - 94.93%
Maine - 93.34%

At the UCR Board meeting last week, I showed a few people the latest list of State UCR Registration Percentages sorted from highest percentage to lowest percentage. Interestingly, most people looked for their state and then looked to see which state had the lowest percentage. Several of them exclaimed, "Look at South Carolina! 56%! What's wrong with them???" NOBODY looked up a few lines to North Carolina and said "Look at North Carolina! 63%! What's wrong with them???"

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with North Carolina ... or South Carolina, for that matter. In fact, I'm kind of wondering if anybody would have said anything about South Carolina if another state had been in the 40+% range.

By the same token, nobody looked at the highest percentage and said, "Well, I'm not at the top, so I must not be doing very well." But they did say things to the effect of "I'm at 71% (15 points higher than South Carolina). That's better than I thought we were doing! I guess we're OK."

The moral of the story is that everybody seems to want to punish SOMEBODY, but lacking a specific standard of performance, I would hazard a guess that the "punishers" will want to punish the states who are registering carriers at a pace somewhat below their own percentage (except for South Carolina, of course, who would probably wonder why we can't all just get along).

So, instead of chastising South Carolina, I think we should all be saying "Thank God for South Carolina!!!" To paraphrase an old adage, "First, they come for South Carolina, then they come for me." Or how about the old joke that ends with the punch line, "I don't have to run faster than the bear. I just have to run faster than you!"

Can Your State Achieve "Top State" Status?

Unregistered Carriers on 01/18/2009 - 1094
Unregistered Carriers on 01/19/2010 - 1091

Illinois - 94.93%
Maine - 93.34%

In order to answer the question I posed in the title of this post, we have to first define what "Top State" means - which takes us directly to the issue of UCR "performance".

As I mentioned at the last Board meeting, there are rumblings about punishing states that aren't performing. In my Board comments, I maintained that we needed to be careful with that idea, because we have never defined performance. The closest definition we seem to tacetly agree on is State Registration Percentage. To be clear, this is the percentage of the carriers domiciled in your own state that have registered. Everybody's on equal footing with that definition.

So, the question becomes: could your state achieve the highest registration percentage? The answer for your state - in theory, at least - is "Yes".

Personally, I like this definition, because it means that all of the elements of performance are in our hands. We have a registration mechanism, we have a list of unregistered carriers in our state (if we choose to avail ourselves of that list) and we have at least a few resources to get the job done. Some of us have other "advantages" like IRP and IFTA.

So, I'll ask the question again. "Could your state achieve the highest registration percentage of any state?"

If your answer is "Yes", good for you. Call me if you need help.

If your answer is "No", ask yourself "why?" If the answer to that question is "because I'm not really into UCR registration", maybe you're a candidate for penalties.

Making a Hard Push to 95% Registration

Unregistered Carriers on 01/15/2009 - 1152
Unregistered Carriers on 01/18/2010 - 1094

Illinois - 94.92%
Maine - 93.34%

We are about 20 carriers shy of 95% thanks to a busy week here in IL. We had 15 new "sideways" adds since Friday, which is a lot compared to what we get most days. Hopefully we'll push into the 95's this week. I'd also like to get that unregistered number below 1,000 in the next week or two.

For analytical purposes, I want to point out Maine has hardly left the gate since my post a couple of months ago when I predicted they wouldn't get much above 93.29 or 93.32 or whatever it was. The reason is that there are no more "forced" registrations for 2009 - in other words, new USDOT carriers don't have to register for 2009, so the only way they are going to meaningfully improve their percentage is to work their 2009 unregistered list .... which I don't believe they have. In fact, if they are not careful, they may go backward because of future "sideways" additions.

I'm Back --- Miss Me???

Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2009 - 1235
Unregistered Carriers on 01/15/2010 - 1152

Illinois - 94.66%
Maine - 93.52%

Hello, again! I just flew in from San Diego .... and my arms are really tired! Sorry, every once in a while I accidentally channel Red Skelton.

A lot has happened since we talked last. Perhaps the most important thing is that the Office and Management and Budget has decided the 2010 fee rulemaking is "significant" after all ... and this will result in a further delay of 2010 fees while they do their own analysis.

If there's any good news to this --- and I'm "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for good news here --- it's that we (here in Illinois) can now devote more of our UCR efforts to "getting to zero".

On another note, we are hoping to get the Collaboration site up and running next week. Once we get operational, the first thing we're going to do is start posting some daily UCR reports there. Heck, I might even move the blog there! I'm looking forward to putting more supporting documents out there that I can then refer to in the blog.

Have a great weekend!

2010 Fits and Starts

Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2009 - 1235
Unregistered Carriers on 01/06/2010 - 1229

Illinois - 94.30%
Maine - 93.42%

We have had a bunch of people calling about 2010 UCR registration. Considering all the work that the Board, the R&F Committee and FMCSA did to make sure that we had a timely registration year, I think it's unconscionable that the rulemaking is hung up "somewhere" in Washington.

We've also had several calls from carriers who have been stopped and either ticketed or threatened with tickets for not having a 2010 UCR registration. Apparently, the CVSA bulletin hasn't reached everybody yet.

Finally, we've had quite a few carriers who got USDOT numbers in 2010 who sent in 2009 UCR registrations. I'm not aware of any prohibitions against registering these carriers, but I can certainly understand a "take no chances" approach on the part of carriers and permit agents who would rather be "safe than sorry". We're accepting the registrations since we didn't solicit them. Oddly enough, they don't reduce our unregistered list for 2009.

Making the Registration Numbers Move Some More - January Plan

Unregistered Carriers on 01/04/2009 - 1257
Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2010 - 1235

Illinois - 94.27%
Maine - 93.42%

We are now in a very interesting period with regard to 2009 UCR registration. I like to call it the "haymaking period".

First, we are no longer adding new 2009 USDOT numbers. All of the "new" numbers are 2010 USDOT numbers. The only adds we are seeing are the "sideways" adds that we've discussed at length in past posts. 2010 USDOT numbers will not, in most cases, need to register for 2009 - although we probably won't turn them away if they want to register because of potential enforcement hassles on the road.

Second, you can't meaningfully increase your registration percentage without going after your unregistered list ... which means you have to HAVE an unregistered list in front of you to go after. Most states still aren't working off an unregistered list.

So .... here's my plan: go after the unregistered list with gusto.

You may have noticed that we have quietly put almost a percentage point of distance between ourselves and Maine. That's because Maine, as predicted, hardly moved last month, while we increased our registration percentage about 1.5%.

Look for more of the same this month.

Happy New Year! Reviewing December and 2009

Unregistered Carriers on 12/31/2009 - 1302
Unregistered Carriers on 01/04/2010 - 1257

Illinois - 94.17%
Maine - 93.42%

I hope everybody had a safe and fun New Year. 2009 is now in the record books ... except, of course, for 2009 UCR registration, which is still alive and well!

For December, we registered 371 carriers and collected $27,765 for an average registration of just under $75. Always very consistent.

For the 2009 registration year, we have registered 20,295 Illinois carriers and, as you can see, we still have 1,257 unregistered carriers.

If there's any good news in the 2010 fee delay - and I'm stretching here - it's that we can continue to focus on 2009 registrations. Part of me really wants to "get to zero" ---- but most of me wants to get those fees and get moving!