The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is working toward developing technology that will allow them to inspect carrier vehicles while in motion. This will establish contactless roadside inspections as the technology they are designing allows them to not ever come into contact with the driver. The tech is being called the Level VIII Inspection Program Operational Test, as announced by the FMCSA earlier this week. The goal would be to increase the efficiency of their inspections and work towards reducing the climate impacts that the inspections have. It would also reduce disruptions to supply chains.

The inspections would be conducted wirelessly with the Level VIII test implemented.

After the wireless inspection is conducted, the results of the inspection would then be uploaded into a database that holds the driver’s safety record. One concern that has already been addressed in the design of this system has to do with higher-risk carriers. The system would be able to identify higher-risk carriers and notify the inspection officers to conduct an in-person inspection instead.

The Department of Transportation has said that an in-motion, electronic-based inspection method is incredibly important in this day and age because there is a higher amount of commercial motor vehicles on the road but only a certain number of inspecting officers. Also, the increased number of vehicles and decreased number of inspectors has caused even more delays in the inspection process, which already was time consuming, meaning that carriers with time sensitive freight are being delayed even more, generating more risk for them. It also leaves trucks stuck idling in place for longer, emitting higher amounts of greenhouse gases, worsening the trucking industry’s part in climate change.

Throughout the last year, since the FMCSA announced the project, they have advised drivers of several other advanced notices regarding different phases they are rolling into.

In September of 2022, drivers were told that any interstate drivers would eventually be required to have devices that wirelessly communicate with the system to identify the driver’s account. In May of 2023, FMCSA announced that they will begin to test the system in several states, continuing to be in the testing phase for about a year through May 2024, potentially longer.

Once the project has been completed and completely rolled out, it will change the trucking industry entirely. As we have moved as a society to a more electronic community, trucking has remained a fairly “old school” business. Whenever the program goes into effect, it will be a challenge to see how long it ultimately lasts.