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To provide an additional opportunity for States to engage with their peers, FMCSA introduced the ITD State Spotlight in 2023. Every quarter, during an ITD Program Managers' meeting, a participating State presents their strategies to achieve their ITD goals, enabling other States to benefit from their experience and insights.

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ITD State Spotlight: Georgia

October 2024

Georgia is leveraging FMCSA funding to expand their data analysis capabilities and prepare for upcoming changes to FMCSA IT systems. With the Agency’s IT Modernization, States will transfer data to and from FMCSA using application programming interfaces (APIs) instead of long-established data exchange methods. Many ITD States are trying to determine how to adapt to APIs and how to manage this data once they have it. Georgia shared how they adapted an existing system to consume inspection data from an FMCSA API and display it on a dashboard for comprehensive analysis. They also shared how the system can enhance enforcement operations and help improve road safety to reduce crashes.

Keys to Success

The State worked with the same university research team that developed its existing crash data system, the Georgia Reporting Incident Dash (GRID), which consumes and displays State crash data for analysis. After a successful proof-of-concept, the State used MCSAP funds1 to develop the GRID inspection module for deployment by the end of 2024.

The Technology

The State added an inspection dataset derived from FMCSA’s inspection system, SafeSpect, to the GRID. The web-based GRID format and functionality are the same for both the crash and inspection datasets.

API access. The team developed a custom process that connects the GRID website to an API that connects to the SafeSpect API, captures needed data, and builds the dataset used for display on the GRID dashboard. The State said that inspection data updates in the GRID will be near real-time.

Data analysis and display. The GRID offers many ways to filter and display both inspection and crash data using the same user interface and graphics. Visualization options include bar charts, pie charts, tables, and maps.

Example inspection system queries. Basic queries include – among others – inspections conducted by inspector, commonly cited violations, OOS violations by type, vehicle configuration, inspections prompted by e screening technology, and inspection date, time, or location. Users can also access data from State-defined fields, such as HP grant inspection data, for analysis.

Benefits

The State provided examples of how GRID data analysis can help them better manage resources, plan future investment, and improve road safety to help reduce crashes.

  • Develop and refine staffing strategies for crash reduction. Evaluate evolving crash conditions (e.g., maps of crash type, severity, location) against maps of inspection activity and decide where and when to allocate personnel accordingly.
  • Plan future technology investments. Assess the performance of e-screening technologies and decide where and when they could best support safety strategies.
  • Monitor and evaluate enforcement operations. Track CVSP inspection goals.
  • Improve data quality. For example, Georgia created a query for carriers operating with inactive USDOT numbers so supervisors can address this critical data quality issue.
  • Provide data-driven responses to leadership. For example, Georgia was able to respond to questions about the most-used HM exemption in the State, drug-interdiction activities, and the transport of unmanufactured forest products..

    • 1ITD funding could also be available for similar efforts that involve the collection of CMV crash data.