WASHINGTON - The head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says his agency expects to begin pilot testing its retooled compliance review and safety rating process next year.

The overhaul, known as the Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, is aimed at producing a "more targeted data review process," FMCSA Administrator John Hill told a leading trade publication.

"We think CSA 2010 will be a better rating methodology than the one were currently working with," Hill said.

CSA 2010 would shrink the safety rating process from a three-tiered rating system of satisfactory, conditional and unsatisfactory, to a two-tiered rating of either satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

The current compliance review process requires investigators to examine "every aspect of regulations," said Hill, a process that can divert resources away from conducting more reviews.

Under the CSA proposal, inspectors would target their audit to a limited part of a carriers business, rather than reviewing the entire operation.

Improved data from carriers, as well as better information from roadside inspection records, could help identify potential problem areas more quickly under CSA 2010, allowing investigators to thoroughly inspect compliance in those areas while avoiding inspection areas not identified as problematic.

FMCSA "would actually figure out how [a carrier] should be rated based on the existing data that we have," said Hill.

For example, Hill said a company can be doing "a fairly reasonable job" and abiding by most requirements, but investigators are compelled to examine all areas, including maintenance and safety procedures.

However, perhaps carriers "arent doing their post-trip and pre-trip inspections like they should be; therefore, theres equipment on the road that shouldnt be," he said.

Pinpointing that "real problem" under CSA 2010 would allow FMCSA to "narrow our investigative and enforcement regime to address that [situation]," Hill said.

The approach being proposed by the FMCSA is controversial and has its critics, some of whom contend that FMCSA inspectors will end up doing compliance reviews by phone and never setting foot in a bus or truck yard.

FMCSA unveiled plans for the overhaul three years ago, after the Department of Transportation announced an initiative to cut annual truck-related fatalities by 41 percent by the end of 2008. That goal, like others the agency has established in the past, turned out to be unattainable.

The agency currently is preparing regulatory documents to implement the plan, and Hill said it was "very close" to selecting one state in each of FMCSAs four regional service centers to conduct pilot studies.

In the July 15 issue, Bus & Motorcoach News reported on a series of new rules being rolled out by the FMCSA next month. The rules changes impose stiffer penalties for safety violations, closer scrutiny of safety records, and broader sanctions when operators are put out of service in their home states.

Most of the new provisions take effect Sept. 4. However, states have until Sept. 4, 2010, to come into compliance with the changes made to CDL sanctions. The article did not make clear that the effective date for the CDL-related sanctions was later than the others.