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Safety group to settle RFID issue
By Jill Dunn
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance hopes to decide if it will back requiring electronic identification devices on all commercial motor vehicles at its Aug. 18 executive committee meeting.
In January, the alliance’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Committee, comprised mostly of government and enforcement officials, issued a draft petition to ask the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to require electronic IDs by 2012, said Stephen Keppler, CVSA director of policy and programs.
But in April, the CVSA Associate Advisory Committee, representing mostly industry and entities not with government or enforcement, recommended “in the strongest terms possible” that CVSA not petition the FMCSA to amend code to mandate them.
The alliance’s ITS committee wants regulations amended to require every interstate commercial motor vehicle be equipped with an electronic device capable of communicating, via radio frequency, an identification number when queried by a roadside system.
In enforcement operations, fixed and mobile, it is impossible to inspect every truck. These automated systems could offer efficient screening of all trucks, resulting in enforcement resources being focused on the high-risk carriers and vehicles, the petition stated.
The draft petition advocates a low-cost, decal-type, radio frequency identification device mounted on the inside of truck windshields. Vehicles already with these decals will not have to add another one.
Federal funds would be available to states, which would incorporate it into the process for issuing and renewing license plates. Each state would decide whether to extend the requirement to intrastate trucks.
Motor carriers shall be provided with a means to contest and correct errors in the data collected, the petition stated.
ITS emerged as a means of identifying trucks at the roadside in the 1990s.
The FMCSA’s Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks program has helped many state technology deployments. Most states have installed electronic screening technology, but participation in these programs is voluntary and 15 percent or less of all U.S. trucks participate.
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