PSP Annual Report 2013

INSIDE

Pre-emPloyment Screening Program annUal rePort 2013

Driving PSP Adoption Through Education ................ 2

Monitoring Motor Carrier Compliance With Audits ....... 3

PSP Increases Accessibility .... 3

The Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP) enjoyed another successful year in 2013. Midway through the year, the program reached an impressive milestone – more than 2 million

driver records have been requested through PSP since it launched in 2010! This was just one of many exciting highlights of the year, which included earning a notable national award and the release of a study demonstrating PSP’s important positive impact on industry safety.

In September, the Center for Digital Government – a national research and advi-sory institute on information technology policies and best practices for government – awarded PSP an honorable mention in the annual Digital Government Achievement Awards. The awards recognize

Successful FMCSA/NIC Partnership Brings Accolades and Results

| continued on page 2 |

InsIghts is published by NIC Technologies. Your questions and comments are welcome. Please contact us at:

4601 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 1160 | Arlington, VA 22203(877) 642-9499 www.psp.fmcsa.dot.gov

‘PSP 2.0’ Expansion Moves Full-Speed Ahead

ollowing its much-anticipated launch in September 2012, PSP 2.0 kicked into high

gear in 2013! PSP 2.0 expanded PSP access to Industry Service Providers (ISPs). ISPs include organizations that are directly involved in the commercial driver hiring process, such as driver staffing companies, driver leasing companies, third-party screening businesses, and intrastate carriers. ISPs provide one-stop, centralized screening functions for motor carriers and are a critical segment of the motor carrier and motorcoach industry. Now, carriers can seamlessly access PSP records from ISPs alongside other important safety records, such

F


FMCSA received an honorable mention award for

PSP from the DGAA in the Driving Digital Government

for Business category.

2 | PSP ANNUAL REPORT 2013

ducation and outreach to carriers is a key component of PSP’s success. PSP launched in 2010 and since then NIC has attended scores of events to increase industry

knowledge of PSP through presentations, exhibitions, conferences, and webinars – all at no cost to the industry or FMCSA! The outreach team, led by Laura Fredrickson, often collects accolades for its efforts. Tracy from the New York State Motor Truck Association, Inc. said: “Your presentation on the Pre-Employment Screening Program update was a valuable addition to the program [and] was well-received by all our participants. You clearly demonstrated your commitment to enhancing compliance and safety, and for that we are grateful.”

In 2013, outreach took on a new focus at the request of FMCSA – the motorcoach industry. NIC leapt into the motorcoach world by joining the American Bus Association (ABA), the United Motorcoach Associa-tion (UMA), and the Bus Industry Safety Council (BISC). Since joining these organizations in March, NIC has accepted invitations to speak at four motorcoach events. In addition, PSP was the subject of three articles for ABA and UMA publications. Clyde from the ABA writes, “Without supporters like NIC Technologies, BISC would not be able to continue providing its valuable safety programming to the motor-coach industry. Thank you.”

NIC’s involvement in national organizations led to state and regional motorcoach associations requesting PSP education for their members. The California Bus Association and Midwest Bus and Motorcoach Association requested PSP presentations at their annual conferences. The outreach is paying off. Since these efforts began, PSP adoption by motorcoach operators has increased by 20 percent!

NIC also focused on direct outreach to drivers in 2013. During the summer, NIC partnered with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance to distribute more than 20,000 PSP fliers to law enforce-ment officers participating in the annual Roadcheck program. During routine truck inspections, officers gave drivers a PSP flier encouraging them to learn more about PSP.

As our focus switches to 2014, NIC is excited about sharing the findings of the PSP safety impact analysis study! We believe the results speak volumes to how more informed hiring – through PSP – reduces a company’s occurrence of crashes and driver out-of-service violations.

Improvements to the PSP presentation and information collat-eral will highlight the study’s findings and statistics, and will influence motor carriers and bus operators to incorporate PSP into their operations in 2014.

EDriving PSP Adoption Through Education

‘PSP 2.O’ Expansion Moves Full-Speed Ahead

as driver background checks and state motor vehicle records.

As more ISPs learned about PSP 2.0 in 2013, they enrolled at a steady clip. By year’s end, 117 new ISPs enrolled in PSP, making up 7 percent of new PSP account holders. ISPs requested more than 33,000 reports in 2013, helping carriers make well-informed hiring decisions and increasing safety on the nation’s roads. n

| continued from page 1 |

Successful FMCSA/NIC Partnership Brings Accolades and Results| continued from page 1 |

outstanding government websites and projects based on innovation, functionality, productivity, and performance. PSP earned the award in the ‘Driving Digital Government for Business’ recognition category, the only federal application acknowledged in this category. The NIC Technologies team was pleased to present the plaque to FMCSA at a recent team meeting.

On the heels of the award win, FMCSA released the findings of the PSP safety impact analysis. All PSP team members were thrilled with the results, which showed that compa-nies using PSP have realized, on average, an 8 percent reduction in crash rates and a 17 percent decrease in driver out-of-service rates! Based on the data, FMCSA estimated that PSP prevented 863 crashes and nearly 3,600 drivers from being placed out of service road-side during a 12-month period. Congratulations to Mike Johnsen and team on completing this study!

We have an exciting year ahead in 2014, with many improvements and enhancements planned for the PSP site. We look forward to continuing our productive, successful, no-cost partnership with FMCSA. n

PSP ANNUAL REPORT 2013 | 3

t NIC, we are passionate about making government more accessible to everyone. It is our sole focus, our purpose, and the simple reason for our existence. We share

that common goal with you – our partner – and we are deeply invested in working with you to make each and every eGovernment interaction a positive one.

Whether it is accessing a PSP record, renewing a license, applying for a permit, filing court documents, finding important emergency information, or any other application taken from our robust library of 7,500 online services and 150+ mobile applications, you can trust us to bridge the gap between your needs and the needs of the citizens and busi-nesses you serve.

One CommunityMore than two decades ago, NIC pioneered the eGovernment industry by revolution-

izing the way people do business with all levels of government. The paper-intensive, wait-in-line ways of the past evolved into secure, click-of-a-button, swipe-of-a-screen interactions. Today, NIC works with more than 3,500 federal, state, and local

A

Positive Government Experiences Working Toward a Common Goal


PSP monthly account holder audits ensure that carriers and ISPs are properly

capturing a driver’s consent before accessing a PSP record. The PSP Customer Service Team works with all new and existing account holders to ensure they are familiar with the consent requirements. Then, the team conducts monthly audits of PSP consent forms to verify compliance.

In the 13-month period from November 2012 through November 2013, audits were completed on 2,755 driver consent forms. The most frequent cause of noncompliance is an account holder using an out-of-date, previously approved version of the consent language. The Customer Service Team then instructs these companies to update their processes appropri-ately. The audit process has been very effective: 88 percent of companies that were found noncompliant in one audit passed their follow-up audit successfully! Linda from Truckers Bookkeeping & Compliance Services said, “Thank you for letting me know the outcome of our audit. I appreciate your assistance; whenever we need it, your team is there.” n

Monitoring Motor Carrier Compliance With Audits

Audited Account Holders and Penalties, 2013

During 2013, the NIC team embraced a “responsive design”

strategy for PSP. Responsive design improves users’ website interaction by ensuring the site is optimized for viewing on a phone, tablet, or personal computer, with minimal scrolling or resizing. Each computing device gets a unique, yet ideal, experience for the PSP site. The result of responsive design is that PSP users consistently have an improved interaction with PSP, however they choose to access the site! The entire PSP application

PSP Increases Accessibility


16

91

211

16

84

11

Suspensions Probations Letter WarningsEmail Warnings Accepted

Terminations

Positive Government Experiences government partners, giving you access to share ideas across the NIC family, learn best practices, and deploy new services quickly by starting with foundational code deployed elsewhere by NIC partners.

Secure and Flexible Payment SolutionsWith today’s financial environment and rapidly changing technology, your job is

to provide state-of-the-art payment services, all while managing costs, adhering to industry standards, maintaining security, and providing ease of use. Not an easy task regardless of your staff size or budget allocation.

Partnering with NIC means one company, one system for your payment processing needs. Designed specifically with government in mind, you get an affordable, hosted software service with 200 configurable options offering you flexibility. With our fully hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, you not only enjoy flexibility in the system’s design, you will also enjoy peace of mind knowing that all payment-related information is processed at a centrally hosted, PCI Level 1 data center. n


InsIghts is published by NIC Technologies. Your questions and comments are welcome. Please contact us at:

4601 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 1160 | Arlington, VA 22203(877) 642-9499 www.psp.fmcsa.dot.gov © 2014 Trozzolo.com

NIC Shows Commitment to Customers, Community, and Colleagues

ustomer satisfaction is a high priority for NIC’s PSP Customer Service Team. In 2013, the team,

led by Joan Kalvaitis, handled 1,700 enroll-ments, 80,000 emails, and more than 31,000 phone calls – and average call wait times never exceeded 30 seconds! Team members

are frequently recognized by PSP account holders for their exceptional service. As an example, Bill from Pilot Logistics Services says, “Hats off to your employee Madeleine. What a great employee! Friendly, helpful, courteous, kind, and an example of what all employees should be.”

At NIC, we also strive to be an active member of the community in which we work and live and recognize the value of giving back, both locally and globally. In June, the NIC team joined the Lions Club Eyeglass Recycling Center to clean, identify, tag, bag, and sort thousands of donated eyeglasses to be sent to various charitable organizations around the world. In December, we assisted

the Salvation Army Arlington Corps Angel Tree by sorting and organizing donated holiday gifts for approximately 1,500 low-income children in our community. Equally rewarding was NIC’s sponsorship of two “Angels,” Alan and Kamila, for whom the NIC team joyfully purchased gifts.

C

The NIC team celebrates more than 800,000

PSP record requests in 2013!

The NIC team volunteering with the

Angel Tree program.

PSP Increases Accessibility

has been updated with this new design strategy.

Now, each new PSP enhancement is shared with users only after NIC is certain it works properly for whichever device the driver or account holder may choose to access PSP. Increasing acces-sibility options ensures that carriers can view PSP data any time, from anywhere.

2014 includes plans for further exciting developments to the PSP site. n


Documents

PSP Annual Report 2013