Intelligent Transportation Systems Field Operational Test Cross-Cutting Study; Commercial Vehicle Administrative Processes

Notice This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for its contents or use thereof. Commercial Vehicle Administrative (CVO) Processes Cross-Cutting report summarizes and interprets the results of several Field Operational Tests (FOTs) conducted to evaluate systems that increase the efficiency of commercial vehicle administrative processes. The FOTs considered in this report include: Automated Mileage and Stateline Crossing Operational Test, Midwest Electronic One-Stop Shopping, Southwest Electronic One-Stop Shopping and Heavy Vehicle Electronic License Plate One-Stop Shopping. The Operational Tests taught several technical lessons regarding applications development, communications, and interface with legacy systems. Significant institutional challenges surfaced during these tests. The report findings are organized in the categories of impact, user acceptance, technical lessons learned, institutional challenges and resolutions, and deployment. This report highlights the successes and problems these tests encountered while attempting to develop the technologies appropriate to effectively automate commercial vehicle administrative processes. The 1980 deregulation of the motor carrier industry forced carriers to reduce costs and improve services to become more competitive. The deregulation also increased the pressures on state regulatory agencies as they attempted to process the applications of thousands of new carriers. Commercial vehicle administrative processes are the activities and transactions necessary to ensure that commercial motor carriers operate legally on the roadways. This report summarizes and interprets the results of several Field Operational Tests (FOTs) conducted to evaluate systems that increase the efficiency of these processes. The FOTs showed that these systems have the potential to provide substantial improvements in efficiency and productivity compared to existing manual systems. Two of the One-Stop Shopping systems demonstrated the ability to reduce motor carrier labor required in preparing and submitting credential applications. These systems also showed the potential to reduce application errors and to minimize or eliminate delays in the review and approval of applications by state agencies. The tested systems encountered varying degrees of user acceptance. The level of acceptance was generally consistent with the level of functionality offered by each system, and the degree to which each replicated the current processes. Two of the three systems met with relatively high levels of user acceptance, and users indicated a preference for switching to them permanently. The Operational Tests taught several technical lessons regarding applications development, communications, and interface with legacy systems. Systems judged acceptable tended to be modular in design …